—- KANCHAN BASU.
It was the year 1990 and the day was 19th of January. Chilay Kalan (Peak of Winter) was already set in. People were mostly confined to homes. Businesses are at low. Kashmiri Pandits was a microscopic miniscule ‘Minority’ in a Muslim majority Kashmir Valley. They have distinct Culture, Race and Language which find its traces to more than 5000 years back. On 4th January, 1990, a local Urdu Newspaper publishes a ‘Press Release’ issued by Hizbul Mujahedeen, to wage ‘Jihad’ for Jammu and Kashmir’s secession from India and accession to Pakistan, asking all Hindus to pack up and leave. In the following days, it was near chaos in the Kashmir Valley with Chief of National Conference (a Political Party of J&K) and Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Farooq Abdullah and his Government abdicating all responsibilities of the State. Masked men run amok, waving Kalashnikovs, shooting to kill and shouting anti-India slogans.
Reports of Killing of Hindus, invariably Kashmiri Pandits, begin to trickle in; there were explosions; inflammatory speeches were made from the pulpits of Mosques, using public address systems meant for calling the faithful to prayers. A terrifying fear psychosis began to take grip of Kashmiri Pandits. Walls are plastered with Posters and Handbills, summarily ordering all Kashmiris to strictly follow the Islamic dress code, prohibiting the sale of alcoholic drinks and imposing a ban on Video Parlours and Cinemas. The masked men with Kalashnikovs forced people to re-set their watches and clocks to Pakistan Standard Time. Notices are pasted on doors of many Pandit houses, peremptorily asking the occupants to leave Kashmir within 24 hours or face death and worse. Some are more lucid: “Be one with us, run, or die!”
…. The Kashmiri Pandits have become the first ‘Victims of Terrorism’ as a result of which they had to flee the place of their abode. They are a part of the Vedic heartland of India and have lived in Kashmir from times immemorial. In fact, they are the original inhabitants of the Valley of Kashmir, now reduced to an ethnic ‘Minority’. While resisting the orchestrated moves fostered by Muslim communalists inside the State and their mentors in Pakistan to Islamise the State and snatch it from the Union of India, the Kashmiri Pandit’s became the victims of communal hatred and faced hostility and ridicule.
On 19th January, 1990, which is being observed as ‘Nishkasan Day’ (Quit Day) every year by Kashmiri Pandit’s community, Farooq Abdullah the then Chief Minister, whose pathetic and whimpering, Government has ceased to exist and has gone into hiding, resigns and goes into a sulk. Curfew was imposed as a first measure to restore some semblance of ‘Law and Order’. But it failed to have a deferent effect. Throughout the day, Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (J.K.L.F.) and Hizbul Mujahedeen Terrorists use Public address systems at Mosques to exhort people to defy curfew and take to the streets. Masked men, firing from their Kalashnikovs, march up and down, terrorizing Pandit communities who, by then, have locked themselves in their homes. As evening falls, the exhortations become louder and shriller. Three taped slogans were repeatedly played the whole night from Mosques: ‘Kashmir mei agar rehna hai, Allah-O-Akbar kehna hai’ (If you want to stay in Kashmir, you have to say ‘Allah-O-Akbar); ‘Yahan kya chalega, Nizam-e-Mustafa’ (What do we want here? Rule of Shariah); ‘Asi gachchi Pakistan, Batao roast e Batanev san’ (We want Pakistan along with Hindu women but without their men).
Whatever be the variations in the circumstances of the Kashmiri Pandits history, be their fate might have brought to them in the past, these all becomes insignificant in comparison to what has happened to them in 1989 and 1990 and thereafter. The tragedy is compounded by fact that one of the intelligent subtle and proud community of the country is being virtually reduced to extinction in free and secular India and this has not happened under the tyrannical rule of ruthless rulers of Mughal and Afghan Governors but under the leaders who are considered secular and liberal.
The return of Kashmiri Pandits is not a matter of survival but is of their living with honour. Everybody survives even creatures but the question is of the living and that too with honour and dignity. Kashmiri Pandits have survived for the last 29 years despite all the hardships and impediments and will continue to survive further but the question is whether they will be allowed to live without fear and a sword hanging over them. Those who oppose for the fear of it becoming an Israel and changing the demography of the Kashmir Valley are deliberately misleading the people. How Kashmiri Pandits can be relocated to their original places when these don’t exist. It is not Kashmiri Pandits thrown out of Kashmir Valley but the entire ethnic Civilization, remnants of more than 5000 years of Vedic Civilization and India’s existence challenged and ousted out. If Kashmiri Pandits would have been there, Mehbooba Mufti would not have dared to say that there will be no body to hold ‘Tri-Colour’ high in Kashmir Valley. Kashmiri Pandits does not want for them. They exist for India and Live for India. It is for India Government to take call and to decide whether they want India’s existence there and if yes, then the solution is ‘Homeland for Kashmiri Pandits’.
Kashmiri Pandits do not want to go back to Islamic theocratic State but to a secular State as mentioned in the Indian Constitution. In a separate homeland for Kashmiri Pandits, as enshrined in the ‘Margdarshan’ (Way to Future) resolution of 1991, the Ethnicity, Culture and Heritage of Kashmiri Pandits can be protected and preserved. It will be place where no Pakistani or ISIS Flags will be hoisted and no ‘Gun Culture’ will prevail. It will be the place where the ‘Tri Colour’ will not be abused or desecrated. It will be the place where ‘Republic Day’ and ‘Independence Day’ will be celebrated with gaiety and full enthusiasm which is nowhere seen, felt or observed in the Kashmir Valley unlike in other parts of State where people voluntarily, even people living in Jhuugis and Jhompris also celebrate these festivals. Whole of the J&K State and Country except Kashmir Valley, gives a festive look unlike in Kashmir Valley where it gives a deserted look and a pal of gloom has descended, rather the Pakistan’s Independence Day and National Day is celebrated. There will be no ‘Shut Down’ or ‘Curfew’ in the homeland on the Independence and Republic Days in response to call of the Separatists. People can watch a match between India and Pakistan or any other countries without any fear or threat perception from any quarter.
The misfortune of our country is that we have leaders who have no regard for facts or truth and whose superficiality is matched only by their unprincipled Politics. Poisonous seeds were persistently planted in the Kashmir psyche. And these were liberally fertilized. Those of whose obligation it was to stop these plantations and their fertilization were nurturing and encouraging. Against the backdrop, there is no alternative but to have a ‘Separate Homeland’ for Kashmiri Pandits, where they can live with honour and dignity and with free flow of ‘Indian Constitution’. Those who oppose the ‘Separate Homeland’ for Kashmiri Pandits will be committing the sin of letting down the India in Kashmir. Their conscious may condone their negligence but not condone their sins of becoming hindrance to the formation of a ‘Separate Homeland’ for exiled community of Kashmiri Pandits.