Kashmiri Hindu Exodus
G L Raina
giridharraina@gmail.com
Every January, the world celebrates renewal-reaffirming universal values and drafting resolutions for a hopeful future. Yet there exists a community for whom this month evokes memories not of beginnings, but of terror, displacement, and prolonged erasure. For Kashmiri Hindus-particularly Kashmiri Pandits-January marks the anniversary of a largely unacknowledged episode of forced displacement that continues to shape their collective existence more than three decades later.
It is a month of remembrance: of targeted violence, ethnic cleansing, displacement, and a civilisational rupture that spans not merely decades, but centuries.
In 1989-90, Kashmiri Hindus were forced out of their homes through systematic terror and intimidation. Threats, assassinations, and public calls for elimination rendered continued residence impossible. Entire neighbourhoods were emptied within weeks. The exodus was neither voluntary nor incidental; it bore unmistakable characteristics of ethnic and religious cleansing under conditions of state failure.
More than thirty-six years later, the community has been unable to heal. The memories of those months remain raw-like wounds that refuse to close. The trauma has been sustained by callous administration, insensitive political leadership, and a persistent institutional apathy that has normalised suffering and turned neglect into routine governance.
January 2026 is no different.
A government that came to power in 2024 has already settled into a familiar pattern: politically correct statements, cautious assurances, and lofty promises aimed more at managing optics than delivering justice. Once public attention faded, governance returned to business as usual. The displaced community remains exactly where it was-forgotten, marginalised, and absent from any meaningful official agenda.
The trauma of displacement has been compounded by prolonged institutional neglect, inadequate rehabilitation, and the absence of accountability. As of January 2026, Kashmiri Pandits continue to live in exile-physically removed from their homeland and politically marginalised in dominant narratives of conflict resolution.
How long will this habitual indifference continue?
How long must a displaced civilisation wait for the state-and the world-to acknowledge its responsibility?
Historical and Cultural Contributions
The displacement of the Kashmiri Hindu community is not merely a humanitarian concern; it represents a profound civilisational rupture. The claim of Kashmiri Hindus to being civilisational anchors rests not on sentiment, but on history-on their deep, multi-layered contributions to Kashmir’s cultural, intellectual, and spiritual life.
Ancient textual traditions such as the Nilamatapurana (5th-6th century CE) describe Kashmiri Hindus as the original inhabitants and ritual custodians of the Valley, entrusted with maintaining social, moral, and cosmological order. These texts locate them not merely as residents of Kashmir, but as its civilisational stewards.
Over centuries, Kashmir emerged as a major centre of intellectual life in South Asia-often referred to as Sharada Peeth-producing thinkers whose contributions shaped philosophy, aesthetics, linguistics, and theology across the subcontinent. Figures such as Abhinavagupta profoundly influenced Indian philosophical traditions far beyond Kashmir. Generations of scholars, poets, and chroniclers sustained a culture marked by intellectual openness and pluralistic synthesis.
The community’s high literacy, extensive corpus of writings, and enduring commitment to knowledge ensured the survival of this legacy despite repeated political upheavals-and most tragically, despite the mass displacement of 1989-90.
This continuity was eloquently captured by Prof. Rehman Rahi, the eminent poet and composer of Kashmir University’s official Tarana:
O Mother Kashmir,
All fountains of knowledge have ever been at your command.
You willed, and this seat of learning came into being in this paradise on earth.
You are the wisdom of our past that kindly guides us today.
You flow like the Vetasta of gnosis through our bosoms.
Here lie Kshemendra’s poignant tales and Bilhana’s cherished memories.
Here Kalhana’s Vetasta spreads far and wide,
And Abhinavagupta’s ocean of knowledge surges high.
You are the refulgent frame of Lalla’s verses,
You are the solemnity of the Sheikh’s sacred hymns.
The Sharada script, in which much of this ancestral knowledge is preserved, remains a crucial but endangered component of Kashmiri heritage. While revival efforts by scholars and institutions are underway, displacement has severely disrupted the intergenerational transmission of language, ritual, and memory-an outcome recognised by UNESCO as a major risk factor in cultural erosion.
The loss, therefore, is not confined to one community. It is a loss to Kashmir’s composite culture and to the broader human heritage of pluralistic thought.
Coexistence Beyond Symbolism
Discourse on Kashmir frequently invokes coexistence and pluralism. Yet these concepts lose meaning when reduced to symbolism rather than grounded in rights.
The Kashmiri Hindu legacy is inseparable from Kashmir’s pluralistic ethos. The often-invoked but rarely defined idea of “Kashmiriyat”-understood as coexistence and mutual respect-found its most sophisticated philosophical articulation in Abhinavagupta’s synthesis of diverse spiritual traditions. His thought demonstrated that true pluralism does not erase difference; it harmonises essence without coercion.
Some argue that the return of Kashmiri Pandits is necessary primarily to restore the Valley’s image of inclusiveness. Such reasoning is deeply flawed. It instrumentalises a displaced community, treating its presence as a legitimising symbol rather than recognising its members as rights-bearing individuals entitled to safety, dignity, and self-determination.
True coexistence is not performative.
It requires enforceable guarantees:
the right to live without fear,
the freedom to practise religion and culture openly,
protection of property and heritage, and
freedom of expression without intimidation.
These are not political concessions; they are obligations under international human rights law-particularly concerning minority rights, internal displacement, and cultural preservation.
Conclusion
In exile, displaced Kashmiri Pandits have become living archives of a civilisation, preserving memory through oral transmission, ritual continuity, cultural practice, and intellectual resistance. Numerous organisations continue to work toward rehabilitation and toward safeguarding temples and shrines threatened by neglect, decay, or encroachment.
Yet there remains no commensurate response from the state or from self-appointed custodians of coexistence. This silence-more than any slogan-exposes the hollowness of Kashmir’s pluralistic rhetoric.
Recognising Kashmiri Pandits as civilisational anchors is not an exercise in nostalgia. It is an acknowledgment of historical truth and contemporary obligation. Their absence is not merely a demographic anomaly; it is a civilisational deficit.
The Kashmiri Hindu exodus is not a closed chapter. It is an unresolved case of internal displacement with profound implications for minority rights, cultural preservation, and transitional justice. Recognition must be accompanied by acknowledgment, restitution, and guarantees of non-recurrence-principles central to international human rights and humanitarian law.
Any durable peace in Kashmir must confront this displacement honestly. Without justice for those uprooted, peace remains rhetorical and pluralism conditional. Until that reckoning occurs, January will continue to arrive not as a month of renewal, but as a reminder of a betrayal yet to be redeemed.
(The author is a former Member of the Legislative Council of erstwhile Jammu Kashmir state and spokesperson of BJP JK-UT)
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