K N Pandita
A Congress member of Rajya Sabha, Vivek Tankha has tabled a private member bill in the Rajya Sabha seeking the return, restitution and rehabilitation of the displaced community of Kashmiri Pandits back in the Kashmir valley. This is a private member bill though the sponsoring agency is a member of Congress. So far we have not heard him speaking on the subject and expressing his views.
It is a private member’s bill and not from the political party to which he belongs. Although Tankha is one from the inner circle of Congress, Congress has chosen not to sponsor the bill but permitted him to do the job. The reason why he in particular has been permitted to introduce the bill is his distant Kashmir connection. He is among those Kashmiri Pandits who left Kashmir during the oppressive times of the Mughal rulers like Shahjahan and Aurangzeb.
A look at the text of the draft bill shows that its mover is well-versed in the dimensions of the genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Kashmiri Pandits in 1989-90 in the Kashmir Valley. The remedial measures which he has suggested and the aspects he has highlighted are precise and relevant. Any displaced Kashmiri Pandit will feel satisfied with the demands outlined in the draft.
But there are several questions that the Pandits would like to seek an answer. In the first place, the Pandits would like to ask about the antecedents of the sponsor of the bill. It is important from many angles. He has been a member of the inner circle of Congress. As such he has been fully aware of the general policy of the Congress party towards the question of the rise of jihadist armed insurgency in Kashmir during the Congress-NC coalition government in J&K.
The Congress’ Kashmir policy was chalked out by the Indian Left which goes by the Comrade Adhikari theory that Kashmir being a Muslim majority region should go to Pakistan. In 1942, Adhikari said, “The rational kernel in the Pakistan demand is that wherever people of the Muslim faith living together in a territorial unit form a nationality . . . they certainly have the right to autonomous state existence just like other nationalities in India such as Andhras, Karnataka, Marathis, and Bengalis.” This is precisely what former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in a meeting of the Planning Commission.
The rampant secessionist environment in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) has come as a shock to many people. In reality, Indian communists have long advocated disunion. Communist party founders and stalwarts never considered India an organic entity. They supported Partition and actively worked to foment ethnic chauvinism. They never reconciled themselves to the remarkable resilience of the Indian union. What you see in JNU today is but a continuation of the communist legacy, not a new radical eruption. Sixty years ago, communists had widespread grassroots support and powerful international backers. They posed a clear and present danger to the union. Today, communists are electorally emasculated and their support base has dwindled. Still, their stranglehold over academia and their sway over the national discourse remain an impediment to India’s development, even if it does not pose an existential threat. When the Left oriented students of JNU raised the slogan of Bharat ke tukde kardenge, the first to bolster their divisive ideology was Rahul Gandhi, the then Secretary-General of Congress.
The subject that we would like to deal with is the intention behind the Congress MP bringing in a bill for rehabilitation of the displaced Pandits. The timing of tabling the bill is important. It has been tabled at a time when Congress is licking the wounds inflicted by the utter failure of the party in its recent election performance in five states. The defeat has come at the heels of deep internal dissensions on the issue of whether the Congress office bearers are to assume office as a result of a democratic election or by dynastic inheritance.
But the worst onslaught has come from The Kashmir Files film which has exposed the Congress and NC as working in tandem to bring about the destruction of the minuscule religious minority of the valley. The two parties were running the Government in 1989 while bomb blasts began to occur as the first signal of impending armed insurgency. In the summer of 1989 hundreds of Kashmir valley, Muslim youth were clandestinely crossing over to PoK, joining the terrorist camps there run by army officers, retired as well as in active service, given deep brainwashing and sent back to the valley along with arms and ammunition to unleash brutalities on Kashmiri Pandits. Kashmir Liberation Force (later re-christened as JKLF) raised the slogan of azaadi and believed that gunning down the Pandits was the way to attain azaadi. When this writer asked Amanullah Khan in Brussels whether his gunmen would get azaadi by killing the innocent Pandits, he said that was not the agenda. The gunmen once armed and brainwashed shifted allegiance from Amanullah to ISI.
Where was Congress, the coalition partner of NC, when the valley youth had made a beeline to PoK and were on a huge mission of indulging in internal subversion? Where was Congress, the coalition partner of NC, when in June-July 1989 Farooq Abdullah, throwing to winds the legal procedure, ordered the release from prison nearly 70 persons who were being tried by the court for sedition? Why did not Congress raise the issue and ask Farooq to explain the serious matter? Why did not the Home Ministry take cognizance of confidential ground reports submitted by central intelligence agencies about the brewing sedition in Kashmir and demand the dismissal of the Farooq Government? Why did not the Home or the Defence Ministry of India, take into account the serious situation in Kashmir on 18-20 January and order the deployment of security forces in the city of Srinagar and why was not a military march on the streets of Srinagar ordered? This all shows that the Government in Delhi was an accomplice in what was happening in Kashmir. That is why we say that Congress and NC both had a close understanding between them to expend the helpless community which was nobody’s vote bank but opposed by every mainstream party of being the sympathizers of their opponents.
The intention of the Congress MP to table a private bill is nothing but to bail out Congress as the responsible political party for the genocide and ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Pandits and also to take the credit of rehabilitating them. It is a ploy to cleanse the tarnished image of Congress by misleading the Indian civil society that it cares for the oppressed Kashmiri Pandits. For 32 years to date, as the Kashmiri Pandits are in a state of exile, not a single Congress member ever had a word of sympathy for them. But when the film exposed them, the Kerala Congress Government came out with an official statement that it was a fake film. Rahul Gandhi and his henchmen started the propaganda that it is Modi’s plan for the 2024 parliamentary elections. We are also told that another Congress stalwart in the Lok Sabha is planning to bring in another private bill of almost the same content in the Lok Sabha. Thus we find a calculated attempt of the Congress to remove the stigma that the film Kashmir Files has inflicted on it and secondly bail out the Kashmir Valley tainted leadership of the charges the civil society is likely to bring against it.
In the draft bill Vivek Tankha, the Congress MP has twice or thrice mentioned GKPD as having given him the guideline. If it is true, then GKPD has done wrong to the community. GKPD is hardly a year-old organization floated by a few well-wishers of the community in the US. But it is the basic Pandit organizations in Jammu and elsewhere in India, more particularly the Panun Kashmir, which jumped into the fray way back in 1990 and passed the Marg Darshan Resolution on 28 December 1990 demanding a separate Homeland in the valley.
The Pandits have been working hard ever since their exodus to bring their case of genocide and ethnic cleansing to the notice of the international community. Their delegates have worked hard at various international fora, the Human Rights Council in Geneva, the US Congress, the British Parliament, the European Union Parliament and dozens of other places taking part in international seminars and presenting their case elaborately. Apart from that, the members of the displaced community have been writing copiously in national, regional and international papers, journals, commentaries etc. highlighting their case and giving a lie to the propaganda that there was a so-called freedom struggle in Kashmir. There were some Pandit organizations in the US and European countries also performing their roles in projecting the Pandit cause. So this was a concerted effort and no single organization or person can take the credit. The community takes the credit. It is a different matter that our voice was not heard.
The draft resolution tabled by Vivek Tankha has left out the most fundamental subject relevant to the rehabilitation of the IDPs. The question is rehabilitation in what manner? The trust of the majority community is absent. The houses and lands have suffered distress sales. Those not sold are in shambles and most of the properties are forcibly occupied.
The sponsor of the bill does not clarify whether the rehabilitation in Kashmir is to be in a separate area of South Kashmir or a single cluster somewhere in the valley, or a new city (capital) close to Srinagar (as was recommended by Padgaonkar Committee appointed by the Home Minister), or is the draft recommending that the Pandits should go back to their original homes in the villages far and near and be left to the wolves.
Another important aspect of this issue is that if the Pandits are to return to Kashmir, they can be safe and secure only if they have the goodwill of the majority community which is non-existent at the moment.
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