Kashmiri Pandits: You owe us a condolence message

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We want pandits back in Kashmir, but it really pains when they malign the indigenous freedom movement to prove their loyalty to New Delhi, Hamid Jan Bader comments

My bother Kashmiri pandits
I know not, who is dead?
My chest embraced a bullet
Did your Conscience fell Dead?
I return all your hugs of Eid
I refuse Ramadhan greetings
You owe a condolence message
Of hundred recent dead.…

The above lines from an amateur writer, who like his fellow young Kashmiris has witnessed the brutal face of troops since 1947 and especially since last three months that have erased the least possible doubts regarding the freedom struggle.

The recent turmoil in Kashmir has united the people of the valley like never before. The silence of the media and the deliberate indifference shown to people has pushed them to do things which they may never have dreamt of – writing and documenting pain or stone pelting.

In such circumstances, it is evident that even if New Delhi hangs on to the piece of land called Kashmir until eternity, it has lost Kashmiris forever. And the young Kashmiris like the above poet are no longer living in fool’s paradise where their emotions can be marketed for trivial benefits by few.

They (the younger generation of Kashmir) no longer believe in appeasing the ever elusive Kashmiri Pandits, who according to them, left valley on the behest of the then Governor of the state, Jagmohan.   

      
Irony is debates are going on leading news channels about the so-called ethnic cleansing or forced exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits from the valley. Log into any website and the scene is quite similar. Posts regarding the human rights violations in Kashmir invite more criticism than humane condolences from the Indians and our Pandit brothers. Any fresh news article on Kashmir attracts commentary like moths are magnetized by flame. Frankly, I was moved, if not disturbed by such content.

One can witness Kashmiri Muslims desperately asking their Pandit brothers to return—the tone as usual a defensive one. But in the land of Gandhi, where honesty died with Gandhi himself, sometimes pleading regret is akin to pleading guilty. Especially, when the side you are pleading is hell bent on proving you a nefarious force.  

Recently, there was a debate on NDTV in which Barkha Dutt repeatedly posed the question to Kashmiri Muslim participants that “are Kashmiri pandits welcome back even if they were against the idea of secession or freedom”. As usual, everybody tried to evade the question playing defensive. One would like to ask NDTV anchor if the same privilege was granted to the Christians of India during Indian freedom movement. What if they had sided with Britishers because of their religious inclinations? Do you think that also amounts to “act of treason” or an “act of democracy”?

Kashmiri Pundits usually behave strangely when it comes to their Muslim counterparts. They seem to have a strange compassion, if not love, for their old Muslim neighbors. They stay connected through phones, visit them if possible and vice versa and also show concern regarding their sufferings. But in general, their opinion of the same ‘Muslim brother’ put collectively is just its opposite.  

The demands and aspirations of Kashmiri Muslims put individually may strike a chord with them [Pandits] but the moment this demand becomes collective in nature, the pandits come out openly against it in media (which keeps looking for such heroes) surprising their Muslim brethren back home beyond compare. The only reason I could find was because their prominent leaders are totally disconnected from the general masses that results in incoherency. The Pandit friends I am friends with don’t really conform to their views generally.

Being a Kashmiri and a witness to the recent history, my heart aches to share a few facts about the story with whomever I can, so as to lighten my burdened soul.

To negate the fact that the Kashmiri Pandits didn’t suffer during the two-decade-long armed struggle for the freedom of Kashmir would be a gross injustice on my part. They were killed, threatened, their properties vandalized, driven out of their homes and made to live in exile. I agree. But we often overlook the circumstances that led to their ouster from the valley. It was not the majority Muslim population that forced them out rather it was the government of India, who they still trust; who tricked them out of their well settled homes and left them unattended in makeshift tents. New Delhi’s goal as to show to the world that it was Muslim mafia and terrorists in Kashmir who were responsible for ethnic cleansing to get a soft stand from the international community on the “carnage theory” that it spread and succeeded too. The cassettes played in the mosques reciting funeral hymns and freedom songs were projected as “threat calls” (thanks to Indian media and Bollywood) to Kashmiri pandits.

After they left, back home Muslim majority felt cheated. Pandits could have stayed side by side like Sikhs here and fought for their right to self determination granted by UN and agreed by both Pakistan and India. Time and again they stood against their own people and turned their faces away when we needed them walk side by side with us. But they choose their own fate and left us to suffer while they pledged their allegiance to unpopular state governments and Delhi.  

     
I won’t negate the fact that some of them (Pandits) were killed by the militants who were passed on as police informers but Muslims also met the same fate who were killed and dubbed as CID agents. We can’t also deny the fact that there were many agents who were killed for spying. There were many pandits who were in top government services especially in controversial departments that made them a legitimate target.  

I didn’t want to get into statistics of the same but some facts need to be put in open.According to state government estimates around 219 Kashmiri pandits were killed since 1990. And ironically the same government puts civilian [Muslims] deaths in Kashmiri somewhere around 45,000, which different human rights organizations and foreign press belie and estimate to be around 75,000 to over 100,000. And the killing spree is still continuing.  

If it is numbers that speak louder than emotions then 219 is a small number compared to the number of Muslims massacred in Gujarat. Did the Muslims of Gujarat migrate en-masse? No. Why did you (pandits)?

And how does fact that they (pandits) chose to migrate make Muslims communal.Usually, Delhi (including Kashmiri pandits) counters the idea of their staying back by saying it would have meant devastation for their community. But how would they justify the presence of more than 200,000 laborers, beggars and rest (mostly Indian Hindus) in Kashmir who were never harmed.

Many of the pandits do live miserably in Jammu and Delhi camps but that doesn’t negate the fact that overall Kashmiri Pundits have gained monetarily as they drew salaries from Kashmir government and received allowance from Indian government too. Their kids were nominated to professional colleges across India. Note that Kashmiris receiving economic packages return that to pay for different “security” agencies and the ministers.

We really want them back, but it really pains when Kashmiri pandits malign the indigenous freedom movement of Kashmiris for the sake of proving their loyalty to Delhi. They may differ on the issue of independence with other Kashmiris but shouldn’t differ on the issue of ‘Right to Self Determination’ which will be granted to them equally by default, whenever so.  

They must understand that they are being used as a political card to play whenever it comes to percentage of population in Kashmir being pro-India.  Even there, I would like to mention, the percentage of such people in few districts of Jammu and Ladakh is very unimpressive. The Indian media and the politicians have been using this card for long now. They never fail to portray Jammu and Ladakh as Hindu or pro-India parts of the valley. But the fact remains that these parts only constitute a very small part of the population of Jammu and Kashmir.

The Hindus in Jammu (who came from Pakistani areas) need to vacate in accordance with the pre-conditions prescribed in the UN Resolution that all the people who entered the area after August 15, 1947 must leave in order to conduct a fair plebiscite, as do the Pakistanis who have settled in Pakistani Kashmir. Doda and Kishtawar and Rajouri continue to be Muslim majority areas. Similarly, Ladakh, whose population is just a 2.3 per cent of total J&K population, is 50 percent Muslims (Kargil) and 50 per cent Buddhists.

In the end I would like to request my Pandit brethren to please return to their homes, their motherland and behave as positive stakeholders. Their present attitude or stubbornness of playing the Indian card only prolongs the solution of the problem.
 

Author is an engineer and can be reached at hamid.bader@gmail.com

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