Pran Pandit
The imperishable contributions of the aboriginals of Kashmir to their home-land are traceable to their genetic moorings. For centuries, they learned to live with Nature; wrested from it the useful secrets, through patient observation, and applied them to gainful objectives; developed a new approach to the world following the creed “live and let live” to co-exist in an atmosphere of peace and tranquility, which constitute, to this day, the most essential feature of the Kashmiris! However, the question arises as to who are the aboriginals of Kashmir? Anyone familiar with the long history of the region shall have no doubt, whatsoever, in his or her mind that they are none other than the ‘Kashmiri Pandits’! The history, involving as well the evolution of the Pandit community is traceable to the remotest past easily more than five thousand years past, extending to the contemporary period. The ideas, ideals, customs, rites and rituals, aspirations and the living-style of ‘Battaz’ Kashmiri Pandits, that found expression through music, literature, art and sculpture etc are available everywhere, and, anyone can turn his attention to the same, to see things for himself. Kashmir is unquestionably the home-land of Kashmiri Pandits!
History is replete with the incidents of trouble, bewilder-ness and crudest kind of persecution meted out to Kashmiri Pandit (KP) community in past also which led to their dispersal out of the valley on many successive occasions until the latest that came about 25 years ago. KP community has faced the onslaught of invasions, incursions, fundamentalism and terror and they are quite used to migration from time immemorial. They have weathered many great perils in past and at one point of time there were just eleven KP families left in the valley, which every individual of the community is fully aware of. The hallmark of the genius of KP community is that it could enrich each generation anew and sustain itself, and, that is the reason it did not extinct!
The traumatized KPs left their Home-land in/around late 1989 or early 1990 to seek refuge elsewhere. They lost all they owned ?their homesteads, land, holdings and cattle, their orchards, their agrarian style and unique way of life and above all their rich cultural heritage. Majority of the KP community members were well-off and overnight they were reduced to poverty and despair, in fact rendered destitute!
More than 25 years have elapsed and the KP community is yet to be rehabilitated per se. All these years, a plethora of Governments, both at centre and state, made half-hearted and token attempts to address their genuine demand of honorable return and rehabilitation in Kashmir. As citizens of India, the exiled Kashmiri Pandits have the right to put forth their demand for resettlement in their home-land to the central and state Governments. Short of the central and state Governments no other body can be relied upon to solve the problems of KPs, who, for no fault of theirs, were rendered homeless and are wandering in the country as refugees. If democracy and nationalism is to survive, the Government has to discharge its bounden duty to honorably rehabilitate the scattered KP community in their home-land. The Government in fact has to act and act firm because any further delay in taking concrete steps in the direction of rehabilitating the KP nationalists shall send wrong signals across the country and abroad, with inevitable repercussions.
According to the official figures, 62,000 families are registered as ‘Kashmiri Migrants’ and these include about 6000 Muslim and Sikh families. Of these migrant families, 40,668 families are registered in Jammu, 19338 in Delhi and 2000 in other parts of the country. 5242 two-room tenements have been constructed by the Government at four different locations in Jammu and have been allotted to migrants. The community in question lived in large spaces with adequate resources in a comfortable manner, if not in affluent life-styles. They maintained the values and morals handed out to them by their ancestors. They lived with dignity and honor even in exile. They did neither beg nor borrow, nor indulged in stealing or committing crimes! Much water has flowed down the River Jhelum during all these years of migration of KPs from the valley. Nine out of ten KP migrant families were forced to sell their movable and immovable properties in the valley at throw-away prices under the most compelling circumstances, only to sustain their lives, nurturing and providing good education to their children while they had to live away from their home-land. . Thousands of such people as were quite young when they left have either passed away or grown very old; thousands of in-service people retired from service have either expired or are aging; thousands of such boys and girls as were teen-agers when they left the valley in the company of their parents are middle aged people now; thousands of such KP boys as were born after the migration don’t have even the feel of their roots; and, thousands of young boys and girls of the community got myriad opportunities in the national mainstream, who found lucrative jobs in the country and abroad and are enjoying life. Some prospered after having been thrown out of the valley for whom it was a god-send and they are busy in fulfilling there ambitions and aspirations, and, some, who are sunk in apathy and unable to pull themselves out of the situation, are looking for the help from the Government. Therefore, in the changed scenario, even among the migrants, different positions and attitudes on the return of KPs to valley are a natural phenomena. Some are longing for their return to home-land, craving and eager while some are craving but are not-so-eager!
KPs need to understand the vastly changing situation and see the writing on the wall. They must foresee the situation ahead, visualize the future. They shall be losing their unique identity if they fail to en-cash it. The leaders of the community, who have the potential to serve its larger interests, must come forward; put aside the petty self-serving ways; desist from creating confusion; and, look at the big picture and discharge their moral and social obligation. The atmosphere is congenial and the political dispensation is alike, both at centre and state, and KPs must take advantage of the situation.
KP community members have absolute faith in the present Government at the centre, led by Narendra Modi. For them, Narendra Modi is an ‘Avatar’ not for no reason. They have measured and pictured a clear and uncontested nationalistic picture of Modi in their minds; they have perceived that Modi’s judgment shall never get tainted for any consideration and his every action shall emerge from virtuousness; and, they have grasped that Modi’s convictions are distinctly superior to any other politician in the country, and, as such, he is not going to betray the faith of Pandits.
The coalition Government in the state, led by Mufti Mohammad Syed has to play a pivotal role in accomplishing the already delayed task. The political wisdom of Mufti Syed has no parallels in the state of J&K. He is a great thinker with trail-blazing ideas and his statements on the issue fall into the domain of traditional political science. His statements need to be viewed both directly and obliquely, in the context of an issue arising out of a sensitive matter like the one of return and rehabilitation of migrants, in the proper political setting and perspective before drawing any conclusion. His patience and careful walk over a tight rope should not and must not be construed as his weakness because, as the Chief Minister of the state, he has to take care of many things. If the statements, both direct and indirect, made by him before becoming the Chief Minister of the state are any indications, he wants the KP community back to the valley and live their with dignity in an atmosphere of peace and tranquility as members of the Kashmir civil society. He has the ability to translate his words into action.
As for as the Hurriyat Conference and separatist leaders, who typify an entirely different school of thought, are concerned, they are blowing hot and blowing cold in one breath they say that KPs are the integral part of the Kashmir civil society and they are most welcome and simultaneously, because of their endless desire to gain influence and to prove superiority, they don’t miss the opportunity to indulge in scuttling the Government’s plans of return and rehabilitation of KP migrants by resorting to uncalled-for words and actions. They need to grasp and grasp well that no sane popular Government would ever dilute the grandeur, spirit and gravity of secularism by creating separate state within the state or a union territory in the middle of the state to rehabilitate a religious minority; they need to understand that construction of separate township/s or cluster/s for exclusive domain of Kashmir minority (KPs) is impossible because that shall be beyond the accepted ideas, institutions and constitutional provisions of a secular democratic country; and, they need to remember that any popular Government will fear to engage in such an undertaking because it shall bring the Government under condemnation and it shall have to meet the infinite demands from other parts of the country on the same analogy. They must also not lose sight of the fact that in democracy, the individuals or the groups do not have the right that whatever is done should be done with their knowledge, volition and consent and it is none of their business to issue diktats to members of the community to live at particular place(s). Displaced KPs expect the Hurriyat Conference and separatist leaders to desist from using hypothetical and fluid theories for raising the bogy on un-founded apprehensions. KPs expect them to facilitate their return and rehabilitation without making any noise and set an example of honesty and truthfulness!
(The author is a retired Superintendant of Police)
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