D.K.Pandita
Recently, I came across an op-ed on a popular Indian internet news website. As is the style of journalism, it began its own breakdown of a sensational topic that had recently caught the attention of the nation mentioning (3R Respectable-Return-Rehabilitation). After the recent killings of Vijay Kumar, Rajni Bala, Dilkhush, Rahul Bhat, Policemen Riyaz Ahmad Thoker, Saifullah Qadri, Amreen Bhat, and Policeman Bantu Sharma and M.L. Bindroo last year,….. finally Hindu minorities led by Kashmiri Pandits mobilized in the valley, protesting peacefully to express their justified anger against the Indian state. Unlike slogans, very popular with the mayhem of Kashmir, the disbelievers were heard quoting the RigVeda (Gayatri Mantra). To an ordinary observer, this appears bizarre. Who quotes a 4000-year-old verse in protest?, one may ask. Well, the same person who was, has been and god-forbid will be killed for uttering it. Don’t get me wrong, no one goes around killing people in Kashmir asking them to first recite the verse. Such is history that they don’t even bother to ask before killing. They can tell who can recite it and who listens to it with reverence.
The article mentions an interesting fact when it (as per my understanding) attempts to downplay the spike in killings of minorities (and that too of all kinds: religious, ethnic, and nationalist) in the valley. It shows, accurately, that by gross numbers, this is a normal statistic for the valley. It conveniently ignores that these were targeted killings against a minority that had already accepted a hopeless attempt at rehabilitation, devoid of any reconciliation or any semblance of justice, and that they were not a belligerent party in this mayhem. A statistic on a portal, which the article directly borrows to prove its hypothesis of normalcy, often cannot weigh each death and its impact on peace. A statistic demands impartiality and a reasonable estimation of real and anecdotal evidence. What it is given are irresponsible theories to divert attention. A game of counting corpses.
Recently, a film that claimed to show the unadulterated truth of the Kashmir Pandit ethnic cleansing, was challenged based on RTI replies detailing that 89 Kashmiri pandits were killed before and during the exodus.
Notwithstanding that these numbers still got reported given the witnessed collapse of the entire law and order machinery of the former state and the nation (where killers used to flaunt their kills, up till recently), it is conveniently ignored that even in these killings, minorities made up 10-15% and in some instances 20% of the dead in districts where they had still had a 2% existentially threatened population. Like the folks above, these ’89’ people were also not a stakeholder in the violence. When recently, these statistics made headlines, it was nothing new. The same old game of counting corpses.
There is, as was reported recently by the police and is clear in whatever semblance of English there is in their death threats, a paranoia among terrorist ranks over minorities finally feeling secure in the valley. Their handlers compare the rehabilitated minorities in transit camps to Jewish settlers in the West Bank. Notwithstanding how one may actually respond to such claims, it should be clear where this is being steered.
Readers need to be aware of ‘The Jammu and Kashmir Migrant Immovable Property (Preservation, Protection and Restraint on Distress Sales) Act, 1997’ and the string of recent Government portals where revenue records, grievances related to land-grab, illegal constructions on Kashmiri Pandit land were finally being heard and some action was taken. Perhaps this was the cue for bringing the comparison towards Israel-Palestine.
Understandable is the unease at such actions. In a nation where courts take suo moto cognizance of pollution over genocide, it is all understandable.
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