Persecuted Kashmiri Pandits deserve better
January 19 marked the 25th anniversary of the forced exile of Kashmiri Pandits. Yet, apart from a few small demonstrations by members of the aggrieved community, and some talk of solidarity on social media, there has been almost no worthwhile acknowledgement in the national mainstream discourse of either what was one of the worst human tragedies of post-independence India or the continued injustice suffered by the Kashmiri Pandits who, till date, live as refugees in their own land.
This, inspite of the fact, that the larger Kashmir conflict, invariably framed as a tussle between a Muslim-majority province and a Hindu-majority state, has always been in focus — not just within the country but globally as well. Nevertheless, the missing narrative on the plight of Kashmiri Pandits does not come as a surprise at all.
In this age of political correctness, wrapped within that particularly perverse Indian brand of pseudo-secularism, it is somehow not considered appropriate to talk about the persecution of Kashmir Pandits at the hands of Islamist terrorists. And so it is, that much of young India today, does not even have a foggy idea of what happened on that fateful day of January 19, 1990.
Tensions had been building up for months with mujahideens running amok with their Kalashnikovs and making inflammatory speeches. Hindu businesses were being targeted and Pandit homes had been marked. The valley reverberated with the sound of explosions and the blood of murdered Pandits had begun to trickle through. Islamic laws were imposed, women were forced to cover up, and video parlours and cinema halls shuttered.
The situation escalated in early January after two local Urdu newspapers reproduced a Press release put out by the secessionist terror group Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, ordering all Hindus to leave the valley. On January 19, President's Rule was imposed (and it would not be lifted for until six years afterwards, as Kashmir was subsumed by Islamic militancy) and Jagmohan took charge as Governor.
But by then, the matter had spiraled out of control. Fearing for their lives and their faith, Kashmiri Pandits, who had a recorded history that went back 5,000 years in the Kashmir valley, fled from their ancestral homeland almost overnight. An estimated 3,00,000 people were rendered homeless in their own country — and with that Kashmir lost a part of its soul.
In this sordid saga, India too has been forever shamed for having stood by and watched as a part of its civilisational history was being wiped clean. let us not forget that one of the most important reasons why militancy flourished in the valley was because neither the Government at the State nor at the Centre took adequate action in time.
Then Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah did precious little to prevent the collapse of the State while New Delhi only stirred to action after the daughter of then Union Home Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed was abducted, and the Government had to free five Kashmiri militants from prison to secure her release.
Even today, the political class has failed to provide relief, forget justice, to the Pandits. A vast majority of them still live in refugee colonies in Jammu and Delhi, and rehabilitation efforts remain unfeasable given that Kashmir is still very much a communal tinderbox. In the meantime, an entire generation of Kashmiri Pandits has been raised without a home to call its own.