Issue
Kashmiri Pandits are a minority ethnic group from the Kashmir Valley in northern India. This peace loving, culturally rich community with a history of more than 5000 years is fighting a grim battle to save itself from becoming extinct as a distinct race and culture. Despite being a hundred percent educated community with completely modernistic views, today this minority community is at the receiving end from both Terrorists and the Indian government who have constantly ignored them.
In 1989, the separatist movement to free Kashmir from India culminated in widespread violence against members of all communities, and initially against Kashmiri Pandits in particular. There was a mass exodus [1] of nearly 95% of the Kashmiri Pandit community during the early 1990s. Kashmiri pandits were forced to migrate to different parts of India by terrorists as thousands were murdered in the name of freedom struggle, within a short span of 3-4 months in 1990.
In July 1988, the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) officially began its armed struggle for independence from India. This mobilization raised concerns across the Pandit community, but still did not trigger the exodus. It was the selective killings which followed in late 1989 and early 1990, conducted by the JKLF and other militant organizations—who were varied in their goal of independence and the heightened sense of fear and paranoia that resulted, caused the Pandits to leave en masse[2]. Although the murders, attacks, and kidnappings seemed to mainly target politicians, government employees, and other high-profile Kashmiri Pandits, the majority of community members felt that it was only a matter of time till they too would be affected.
Kashmiri pandits have been struggling all these years for their basic fundamental rights. Even after 20 years of their mass exodus from the valley, most of them are still living like refugees in their own country in the Migrant camps in Jammu and Delhi in utterly inhumane and pathetic conditions. They still lack the basic amenities like sanitation, healthcare and job security. Even after twenty years of migration they are looking for an identity of their own and eagerly waiting for the government to get them out of their predicament.
Analysis
This article depicts the plight of nearly 500,000 Kashmiri Pandits who are the aboriginals of Kashmir. Fearing the loss of their lives, nearly 250,000 Kashmiri pandits decided to leave Kashmir in what they thought would be a temporary exodus, but never did they realize at that point of time that they were making a journey which was irreversible and would make their lives even more poor and pathetic, as now they had no shed over their heads, they were going to be “Refugees in their own Country”.
The various socio-political factors that were and are still responsible for the poor plight of the Kashmiri Pandits are the main focus of this article. This article shows that how the religious bias and the vote-bank politics have obligated the entire community to battle for survival at each step. The governments have not only politicised the dismal tragedy but have also taken a resort to diffident formulations justifying the label that they have tagged onto the victims of terrorism. The concerns, immediate and beyond, of this besieged community in exile have not been addressed. The members of this community as victims to the storm of communalism and fanaticism are refugees in their own country suffering pangs of insecurity and deprivation, ordeals of neglect and insensitivity.
The community which has been a lustrous column of Hindu edifice of culture and civilization and effervescent model of what is Indian in Kashmir has been dumped like garbage in tents, one-room colonies and rented slums and has been losing fast its stamina, resilience and a whole spectrum of inner resources. A community that was used to living in the pleasant climate of valley, had to bear the brunt of the heat waves in other parts of the country as a majority of elder people fell victims to heat strokes. Medical conditions like Hyper-tension, high-blood-pressure, brain trauma creeped in and the lack of medical attention just made it worse. Even after twenty years, as these medical conditions have become hereditary, the harassment of the displaced community continues unabated. None of their pressing problems have been addressed, much less solved. No tattered tent has been replaced. Sanitary conditions in camps are the same abject. The few who have found employment do not stand benefited for administrative hurdles in their postings and other trumped up hassles. The Pandits though very few in numbers drawing dole from the government agencies are accused of retarding the pace of this senseless development.
Prior to their forced exodus the Kashmiri Pandits were rooted, had their own dwellings, small or big, lived a normal life of civilised individuals with grace and self-confidence and bred their families for a decent and productive societal role. But in sharp contrast to it they now in tents and slums are a waste material, deprived of opportunities, prone to diseases and afflictions and reduced to energy-sapping indigent conditions of life and living. More than most, they live in conditions which are inhumane. The plight of the Kashmiri Pandits in the camps, one - room tenements and rented slums resembles and is qualitatively the same as that of the refugees who have crossed international borders for refuge and protection. The central governments have never felt concerned about the fate of hundreds of thousands of Kashmiri Pandit refugees languishing in poverty, dirt and shameful degradation in the refugee camps as they have been more focussed on solving the boundary dispute and improving the relations with the neighbouring countries. As a result, the pandits have been hibernating in exile for the last twenty years sundered apart from mainstream.
Kashmiri kids who were in primary class in 1989 are now the thinking youth force of Kashmir valley. The way time has been lost has made many of them to start thinking of some dispute regarding their Nationality and doubting the trueness of government loyalists as they do not have much faith in the confidence building efforts of the government officials. They have come up with organisations such as Panun Kashmir and Roots in Kashmir and have started asking for their share of the homeland leading to even more segregation in a state that is at the helm of militancy.
Of late there have been several steps taken by the state so as to improve the conditions of the so called “migrants” as two bedroom flats have been developed for the migrants who are living in the Muthi migrant camps in Jammu region. Several state governments have given quota to the migrant students in engineering and other streams so as to make it easier for them to get education. Moreover, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has approved 3000 posts for Kashmiri unemployed migrants and The Jammu and Kashmir Migrants (Special Drive) Recruitment Rules has been approved by the cabinet. This is a part of the Government’s efforts to create viable conditions for return of Kashmiri migrants to the valley for dignified livelihood earning but Migration has not taken place due to economic reasons and hence government of India should not hope possible return in economic packages only as it has is failed in its constitutional obligations of providing security at least of life and limb to the members of this indigenous community.
Even after being subjected to more than 20 years in exile and several human rights violations, this community has shown its resilience by clinging on to non-violence and humanitarianism. They still haven’t lost hope that everything will be back to normal. All that this community needs is recognition and a safe journey back to their homeland, a place that they were born in and have not forgot about even once in the past 20 years.
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References
http://mha.nic.in/pdfs/Rehab-J&K.pdf
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/127773
http://jammukashmir.nic.in/view/august-22.htm
http://www.merinews.com/article/cm-approves-3000-posts-for-kashmir-migrants/15792789.shtml
http://www.kashmirherald.com/opinions/refugeesintheirowncountry.html
http://www.dailyexcelsior.com/01jan21/state.htm
http://www.expressindia.com/news/fullstory.php?newsid=65856
http://dspace.vidyanidhi.org.in:8080/dspace/bitstream/2009/946/7/JMI-2002-111-6.pdf
http://kashmirblogs.wordpress.com/kashmiri-pandits
http://kashmirblogs.wordpress.com/genocide-of-kashmiri-pandits
http://www.iakf.org/main/files/uplink/Kashmiri_Pandits_in_the_Kashmir_Valley_Trisal_IAKF.pdf
http://www.kashmiri-pandit.org/sundry/genocide.html
http://www.panunkashmir.org/sec_hon_dig.html
http://www.kashmir-information.com/Refugees/refugee1.jpg
http://photos.merinews.com/upload/imageGallery/bigImage/1252731770682-kashmiri%20migrant.jpg
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_xQ1e4jNn5Ds/SvF1uECiTzI/AAAAAAAABfI/03k_niaE-Bg/s400/CHIDM.JPG
http://iloapp.himalayanhunter.com/blog/blog?ShowFile&image=1219439275.jpg
