Ignored even by the only party in which they had placed great hope – the BJP — Kashmiri Pandits are today a bitter lot

KAVITA SURI

“Kashiri Gachka?” (“Would you like to go to Kashmir?”). Her eyes shine instantly, her face glows and she becomes excited at the very mention of her homeland “Kashmir”, and the thought of going back there. Kamalawati, the septuagenarian Kashmiri Pandit suddenly becomes nostalgic, catches my arm and comes out with an unexpected answer: “Tell me to return right now and I’ll do so. Please take me to Kashmir with you whenever you go there next”.

Emotions overpower her, tears well up in her eyes. “Lidder Ussam Wassan” (“Lidder used to flow near my house in Pahalgam”). She makes me sad when she asks whether the Lidder river flows the same way. Is the water still cold in that gushing, magnificent river? But the next moment she shudders when she remembers that only a month ago, the Pakistan–sponsored mercenaries had killed 36 people in Pahalgam — the village which was once her home. 

Kamalawati is among the very few people of her generation who still nurse any thought of going back to the valley. Everyone else in the Nagrota migrant camp situated on Jammu-Srinagar National Highway, where Kamalavati now lives along with 800 other families, is opposed to going back to the valley. Their children have already left the state for better avenues, never to return again.

Talk to any of the Kashmiri Pandit migrants about their return to the valley and they start criticising both the BJP and the National Conference governments which they allege “have not kept to their agenda”. Bitter, deeply hurt, anguish evident in their eyes, they even refuse to talk about their miseries. 

“You come, click photographs, shoot videos, cash our miseries and mint money. You akhbarwallahs (journalists) have also not done anything for us,” alleges one of them. It takes quite a lot of explaining to make them understand that this is not the case. The problem is that having already written a lot on the plight of the ethnic minority from J & K, newspapers do not find anything new to report. 

When violence engulfed Kashmir valley about eleven years ago, about three lakh Kashmiri Pandits were forced to flee from their homeland where they had been living for thousands of years. The turmoil has made them homeless. Many have been scattered all over the country; a few are still living in migrant camps at Nagrota, Muthi, Mishriwalla in Jammu. Around 12,000 Kashmiri Pandits (KPs) are still living in Kashmir valley, at the mercy of the militants and, of course, the neighbours. 

Staying on in the valley resisting all threats, as they did not want to live in camps as migrants in sub-human conditions, some of them have, unfortunately, fallen prey to the nefarious designs of secessionist militants. The latest was the massacre of a KP family in Telwani in Acchabal. Sangrampura and Wandhama carnages were the most agonising examples in the past decade.

Kashmiri Pandits are bitter today. Their homes have been burnt down, their lands taken over by the local Muslims. The Pandits had thought that the BJP — the party in which they had placed great hopes — would help them. But it has failed them miserably. Even the hope that the Farooq government would work for their betterment has now died down. After his government came to power, Dr Farooq Abdullah tried various strategies to get the Pandits back in the Valley. From threatening to stop their salaries if they did not return to their homes and hearths, to the state cabinet’s approval of the action plan on August 18, for their return as recommended by the Koul Committee. The latter was constituted under the chairmanship of ML Koul, the then financial commissioner, planning and development, for preparing an action plan for the return of the migrants. Terribly hurt, the Kashmiri Pandits have even rejected this Rs 2600–crore action plan. 

“Pandits of the valley are no political force. They have been at the receiving end. With the powers that be looking the other way, we continue to rot in camps,” says Motilal Dhar of Pulwama, who has been living in Nagrota camp. He believes that since the installation of the NDA government, things have worsened.

By burning down the houses and property of Pandits, militants have clearly shown that they do not want their return, Property worth millions of rupees has been destroyed in the valley. The data available with the Kashmiri Samiti shows that about 45,000 houses have been burnt down but no compensation has been paid so far. The state government’s claim, however, is contradictory. The state rehabilitation and relief minister Abdul Qayoom says that only 16,969 houses, 53,373 kanals of agricultural land and 27,528 kanals of orchards have been left behind in Kashmir by the migrants before moving to Jammu and other parts of the country.

Subhash Pandit, production manager with Vyeth Television Network (producers of ‘Kashmir File’) negates the claims of the government of having providing relief to the migrants. His house in village Katrasoo in Kulgam tehsil in South Kashmir was gutted down in 1992. Since then he has posted over 60 letters (registered) to the deputy commissioner Anantnag, the SP, Anantnag and the SP, Kulgam, seeking an inquiry into the FIR which he had lodged with the Udhampur police station in the same year. But justice has eluded him so far. 

The case of Amrita of village Qewa (Hirgam) in Qazigund is no different. She, too, had filed an FIR with Qazigund police station after her house was burnt down but nothing has been done so far. For her, too, there is no point in returning to the valley.

In the initial years of their migration, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Shiv Sena did a lot to help these people. The Shiv Sena—BJP alliance in Maharashtra opened up new opportunities for the youth of the community, through admissions to various courses in professional colleges in the state.

Most of the Kashmiri Pandits who were staunch BJP supporters were quite sure that if the party came to power, it would seriously try to solve their issue. Today, almost the entire KP community is greatly disillusioned with this party. They feel that it is no better than the National Conference government, which never had the KP issue on its agenda.

“There are various issues on which we feel disillusioned by the BJP,” says Dr Ajay Chrungoo, chairman, Panun Kashmir. He adds that the BJP–led NDA government has yet to realise the nature and the strategic thrust of the subversive war, which is going on in J & K, and to solve the issue of rehabilitation of KPs in the light of it.
“The BJP government has not yet evolved a policy on how to stop the genocide of Kashmiri Pandits in J & K. There is no policy on protecting assaults on minorities in J & K. Nor is the BJP ready to take the political aspirations of KPs into consideration,“ says Chrungoo, adding that the Kashmiri Pandits have a lot at stake in the BJP adhering to its political agenda.

Coming down heavily on the BJP government, Chrungoo maintains that nine massacres in just one month should have been the national issue before the central government. Instead, the entire exercise undertaken by the BJP–led NDA government in response to the Hizbul Mujahideen’s cease–fire overtures in Kashmir has tended to give the impression that the life and honour of the Hindus of the state, or the pilgrims and tourists visiting the state, is expendable. “Such a state of affairs has severely affected the social resistance against the separatist campaign and religious cleansing operations”, he adds.

Among other things, Kashmiri Pandits are highly critical of the government’s euphoria in negotiating with the Hizbul Mujahideen, the same militant outfit which had issued threats through local papers in early 90’s, asking the KPs to leave the valley.

“The government is talking about bringing people into the national mainstream. But what about those who are already in the mainstream? By not paying any heed to their grievances and problems, isn’t the government aggravating the whole issue?” asks Rajinder Premi, son of the great Kashmiri poet, Sarwanand Koul Premi. The poet who had translated the Bhagwad Gita into Kashmiri language, kept a copy of the Quran reverently in his house for regular study until he was killed by the militants along with his 27-year-old son, Virendra. 

Rajinder feels that it is the high time United Nations intervened and declared Pakistan a “terrorist state.” “Isn’t it quite inhuman to pump 16 bullets into a child’s body? What’s our fault? Only that we want our self–respect, our rights to be restored and we be allowed to live as respectable citizens? What more do we ask? adds Premi.

For most of the Kashmiri Pandits, Indian diplomacy has not demonstrated the requisite firmness while the situation in the valley as also in rest of the state is fast deteriorating. They feel that the willingness to negotiate with the militant outfit which had killed many KPs dubbing them as “pro–Indian” and “mukhbirs” (“informers”), while the patriotic citizens are butchered, has only demonstrated the government’s weakness.

No initiative to the resolution of the Kashmir problem would be acceptable which does not take into consideration the socio–political aspirations of Hindus of Kashmir and the people of Jammu and Ladakh, they feel. 
Pandits living in migrant camps in treacherous conditions are also very critical of their community leaders. The affluent members of the community have been able to construct good houses and make a decent living for themselves. They have managed to find private jobs, in addition to the salaries which they have been getting from the state government while sitting idle. 

The worst sufferers are the people who were living in villages in the valley and were mostly landowners. For them, to eke out a living out of the Rs 2,500 which they have been getting from the state government as a relief is just not enough for a family of five. The one–room tenements given to each family in most of the camps at Muthi, Nagrota and Mishriwalla and Purkhoo have no window at all and the roofs are made of asbestos sheets. When the temperature goes up to 47 degrees in summer, the tenements are like furnaces. 

The sub–human conditions and the radically different climate in places where the Pandits are now forced to live have resulted in a considerable decline in the population of Kashmiri Pandits. Most of the deaths that have occurred in the past ten years have been due to heat strokes, snake bites, heart problems and diabetes.
Dr KL Chowdhary, renowned physician and Panun Kashmir, leader informs that most of the KPs have developed heart problems only after migration. The loss of their property and the lives of near and dear ones is also being reflected in their premature ageing.

Besides, there are a number of other problems — increasing unemployment among the KP youth, deteriorating reproductive health among KP females, low birth rate, inhuman conditions in migrant camps ... the list of problems which have not been addressed by the leadership of the BJP and the NC is unending.

“Hindustan Ko Shayad Hamari Zarurat Nahin Hai” (“Perhaps, India does not need us”), says Pushkar Nath of Anantnag, Sagam living in Purkhoo camp. He adds that the Pandits at least had the right to know whether India nation wants them or not. “Does the nation think that our survival is paramount for national interests?” he asks. Nath, now a retired state government employee who spends whole day reading the only local English daily which he can afford, feels that what has happened in Kashmir was in no way less serious than what happened to Jews in Nazi Germany. 

The valley, he says, was being ethnically cleansed of the Pandits but it took the Indian government about six months to understand and recognise that an exodus had taken place. Terming it as an engineered campaign to displace the Pandits from the valley, he alleges that the BJP government has also failed to realise the magnitude of the problem. “Our nation is not ready to own us and is still calling us migrants. In fact, we are refugees in our own land,“ he says.

The KPs have also rejected the recently approved Rs 2,600–crore action plan for the migrants’ return by the state government, which it has sent to the Centre for consideration. It envisages the setting up of transit camps at three different places in the Valley, rehabilitation grant for reconstruction of damaged houses under different categories, repair of all types of intact and damaged houses, etc. “When Farooq Abdullah and his ministers, MLAs and bureaucrats start moving about freely in Kashmir, only then we will think about returning”, says SN Gurkha, editor, Janmat–e–Kashmir, a weekly Urdu tabloid. 

The youth of the community are also quite bitter with the BJP government as there does not seem to be any opportunity for them. “The central government has also not done anything to provide us job opportunities,” says Rita Pandita, a BA final year student in the GGM migrant camp college. “Being a Kashmiri Pandit is a curse,” she feels. No government, she adds, has thought about them and they have no future, During the past four years, over 40,000 recruitments have been made in the state but the Kashmiri Pandit youth constitute less than one percent of it. This despite the fact that in the past decade, hundreds of KPs have retired from their government jobs.

Worse, to get a three-year graduation degree from Kashmir university, the KP youth have to wait for five years as the examinations are always delayed. This generation of the Pandits feels that their future is quite bleak. Though the Maharashtra government has reserved some seats for them in professional colleges, most of them go to youth from affluent families who manage to get good marks and whose parents have “solid connections” in the BJP. 
The students in migrants’ camps, with 5–6 persons living in just one room, do not find the atmosphere conducive for study. The apathy of the government and family responsibilities have forced many of them, even post–graduates, to seek jobs as sepoys and constables in the police, the BSF and the army. 

“This decade of exile”, says Dr Agnishekhar, convenor and founder, Panun Kashmir, “has been a decade of our rootlessness and nomadic existence, a life of travail and privations and perpetuation of denial of our fundamental rights”. He feels that the BJP and NC government have failed to come up with a just and viable solution to their problems, essentially as they have side-tracked the core of the Pandits issue and are only engaged in cosmetic touches. “If the BJP can compromise its stands on the various issue due to which it had assumed a distinctive identity, just to remain in power, then we cannot expect anything from it,” he says. 

Dr Agnishekhar believes there are some core issues which need to be addressed before the Pandits’ return to the valley. This entails a broad range of planning once the core issues are addressed. The ground realities of security environment in the valley have to be seriously and thoroughly addressed. Pandits, he says, cannot be coerced into returning in an environment of danger and uncertainly.

Nor they will accept transit settlements in the valley as envisaged by the government. “The task of geopolitical restructuring of the state, carving of a homeland within Kashmir, UT status for Ladakh and separate statehood for Jammu, therefore remain crucial not only for the return of KPs but to the territorial integrity and security of India as well, Agnishekhar maintains.

The problem however remains that the sordid tale of KPs is being listened to and addressed by none at present because nobody finds it to their benefit and interest. The ray of hope, that the BJP government would solve their problem, has long died down. Kashmiri Pandits are disillusioned now as never before. After all, it is the question of survival for the fast declining population of the KP community.