KASHMIRI PANDIT TRAGEDY

It is 30 years since the “exodus” from the Valley of its minority Hindu Kashmiri Pandit community. The hotly contested circumstances of their departure between January and March 1990, the numbers, and the issue of their return are an important side to the Kashmir story that has fed into the Hindu-Muslim polarisation in India over the years, in turn fuelling the Hindu-Muslim chasm in the Valley. The exodus took place at the same time that the BJP was upping the ante across northern India, and over the years, the plight of Kashmiri Pandits has become a potent Hindutva issue.

The run-up: 1980s to 1990

In the lead-up to the events of 1990, Kashmir was in ferment. Sheikh Abdullah had died in 1982, and the leadership of the National Conference passed on to his son Farooq Abdullah, who won the 1983 election. But within two years, the Centre broke up the NC, and installed dissident Ghulam Mohammed Shah as Chief Minister. This led to huge disaffection and political instability. The Jammu & Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) stepped up its activities, and the hanging of the militant leader Maqbool Bhat in 1984 added to the sense of foreboding. In 1986, after the Rajiv Gandhi government opened the Babri Masjid locks to enable Hindus to offer prayers there, ripples were felt in Kashmir too.

In Anantnag, the constituency of then Congress leader Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, there was a series of attacks on Hindu temples, and shops and properties of Kashmiri Pandits, blamed on separatist and secessionists. In 1986, as opposition to the Shah government grew, Rajiv Gandhi resurrected Farooq Abdullah, who became CM once again. The rigged election of 1987 after which Abdullah formed the government was a turning point at which militants took the upper hand. The 1989 capitulation to the JKLF in the kidnapping of Mufti Sayeed’s daughter set the stage for the next decade.

By then, the Pandits had begun to be targeted. The Valley’s BJP leader Tika Lal Taploo was shot dead on September 13. Neel Kanth Ganjoo, a retired judge who had sentenced Maqbool Bhat to death, was shot dead outside the J&K High Court in Srinagar on November 4. Journalist-lawyer Prem Nath Bhat was shot dead in Anantnag on December 27. Hit lists of Pandits were in circulation. Waves of panic hit the community, especially after a local newspaper published an anonymous message, allegedly from the Hizb-ul Mujahideen, asking Pandits to leave.

 Outside Omkarnath Bhat’s residence in Haal village, Shopian. (Shuaib Masoodi/Express Archive)

The night of January 19, 1990

Matters came to a head on January 19. By then, the Farooq Abdullah government had been dismissed and Governor’s Rule imposed. According to accounts published by many eminent Kashmiri Pandits, there were threatening slogans over loudspeakers from mosques, and on the streets. Speeches were made extolling Pakistan and the supremacy of Islam, and against Hinduism.

The Kashmiri Pandit community decided to leave. On January 20, the first stream began leaving the Valley with hastily packed belongings in whatever transport they could find. A second, larger wave left in March and April, after more Pandits were killed.

On January 21, the CRPF gunned down 160 Kashmiri Muslim protesters at the Gawkadal Bridge, which has come to be known as the worst massacre in the long history of the conflict in Kashmir. The two events — the flight of the Pandits and the Gawkadal massacre — took place within 48 hours, but for years, neither community could accept the pain of the other, and in some ways, still cannot, as each continues to talk past the other.

According to some estimates, notably by the Kashmiri Pandit Sangharsh Samiti (KPSS), of 75,343 Kashmiri Pandit families in January 1990, more than 70,000 fled between 1990 and 1992. The flight continued until 2000. The KPSS has placed the number of Kashmiri Pandits killed by militants from 1990 to 2011 at 399, the majority during 1989-90. Some 800 families have remained in the Valley through these three decades.

Role of the administration

The other contentious question about the exodus is the role played by the administration, and more specifically that of the J&K Governor, Jagmohan.

Newly appointed, he had arrived in Srinagar on January 19. The Kashmiri Muslim view of the exodus is that he encouraged the Pandits to leave the Valley and thus gave a communal colour to what was until then a non-religious Kashmiri cause. The Kashmiri Hindu view is that this is a disingenuous interpretation. They believe that Kashmiri Muslims, with whom they had lived amicably for centuries, drove them out with a vengeance in a frenzy of Islamism that they could not have imagined even months earlier. The truth, many commentators have concluded, may have been somewhere in the middle.

Wajahat Habibullah, then a senior official in the J&K government and posted in Anantnag in 1990 as Special Commissioner, has written (Citizen, April 2015) that in March 1990, several hundred people gathered in front of his office demanding to know whey the Pandits were leaving and accused the administration of encouraging them to go, “so that the Army would be free to unleash its heavy artillery on all habitations”. Habibullah denied this and told them that the Pandits could hardly be expected to stay when every mosque was blaring threats and members of their community had been murdered. He asked Kashmiri Muslims to make Pandits feel more secure.

Habibullah wrote he also appealed to Jagmohan “that he telecast an appeal to Pandits that they stay in Kashmir, assuring their safety on the basis of the assurance of the Anantnag residents. Unfortunately, no such appeal came, only an announcement that to ensure the security of Pandits, ‘refugee’ camps were being set up in every district of the Valley, and Pandits who felt threatened could move to these camps rather than leave the Valley. Those Pandits in service who felt threatened were free to leave their stations; they would continue to be paid salary…”

Other commentary has pointed to how the government organised transport for fleeing Pandits so that they could get to Jammu.

 An octogenarian in Kaloosa area of Bandipora district. Her family is one of the few Kashmir Pandit families in Bandipora. (Shuaib Masoodi/Express Archive)

The question of return

The fleeing Pandits did not think they would never return to the Valley. But as the situation in Kashmir spiralled into a full-blown militancy, return began to look remote if not impossible. As the numbers arriving in Jammu increased from thousands to tens of thousands over the first few months of 1990, a mostly middle-class community found itself living in tents in squalid, filthy camps far removed from the homes they had left behind. Those who had means rebuilt their lives elsewhere in the country — Delhi, Pune, Mumbai and Ahmedabad have Pandit populations, also Jaipur and Lucknow — or went abroad. A township of two-room tenements called Jagti was built in Jammu in the last decade to house 4,000-5,000 Pandit families who remained there. In addition, there are hundreds of families living in government tenements in Purkhoo on the outskirts of Jammu, in Nagrota and in Muthi. Some built new homes and or moved into rented places.

The longing to return to the Valley did not diminish over the years, though it may have become more an idea than a real ambition. Successive governments have promised that they will help this process, but the situation on the ground in Kashmir has meant this remains only an intention. The efforts to resettle Pandits in the Valley in the last two decades have seen ghetto-like structures come up in various parts of Kashmir, ringed by concertina wire with heavy security, underlining that normal life is impossible. There is an acute realisation in the community that the Valley is no longer the same that they left behind in 1990. In many cases, their properties were either immediately vandalised or sold quickly by the owners to Kashmiri Muslims. Many fell into disrepair.

As the BJP continues to promise that Kashmiri Pandits will return, and #HumWapasJayenge trends on social media, Kashmiri Muslims also see the return of Pandits as essential, but reject the idea of their settlement in secured camps as a replication of Israel-like Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

On August 5, 2019, when the government did away with special status to J&K, among the loudest to cheer were Kashmiri Pandits, who saw it as a long pending “revenge” for what had happened to them three decades ago. Yet their return looks as difficult as it ever did.

Credit-Indian Express

Kashmiri Pandit colonies in Valley

A high concrete wall, topped by a metal sheet running over its entire length. Concertina wire provides the finishing touch. The gates are shut and bolted from inside. J&K police and Special Operations Group personnel guard the premises. Inside are rows of small identical single-storey homes with red sloping roofs and painted yellow windows, all pre-fab structures made of asbestos sheets.

It is a gated community even realtors would hesitate to promote, but this, and five others across Kashmir Valley — three of them concrete three-storeyed structures — are the most visible experiments of “return” for Pandits who fled the Valley in 1990, threatened by a militancy that had just then turned full-blown.

And as migrants renew their demand that the government “resettle” them back in Kashmir and provide them security to live in the Valley, this might be the model that the government may find it easy to replicate.

This “Pandit colony”, which has 60 portacabins, is home to about 70 migrant Pandits – some are shared — who were employed by the government in Kashmir back in 2010 under the Prime Minister’s Return & Rehabilitation Scheme. It was meant to be transit accommodation until “returnees” reintegrated with the local community. At least in this respect, time has stood still these last 10 years.

 Far from Pulwama, in Budgam district’s Sheikhpora is another Pandit colony, with multi-storeyed housing. Five hundred migrants, all employed in various government departments in Kashmir, live in this colony, with their families. (Express photo: Shuaib Masoodi)

On this Wednesday morning, the premises are deserted. Most returnees, who are employed as teachers, have returned to Jammu for the annual school vacation. The police guards say only a handful of others employed in other government departments in junior posts remain, but they are away at work. Only a few are originally from Haal. None of their families have shifted here. They come for a couple of months in the summer, say the guards. Then they go right back to Jammu, which has been their home for the last 30 years.

“Everything is normal. Those who live here go out to work everyday. They face no problems at all from the local residents,” a police guard said. In all, seven policemen and 10 SOG personnel guard the premises.

But local residents do not see the Pandit colony as a solution, and believe it could become part of the problem.

Sajjad Hussain Dar, a resident of Haal, says Pandits are welcome to return. “They should come back and stay in their homes. That is what we all want. But if they want to stay in colonies like this one, that is a different thing. Then they become separate. It is not like having neighbours. We are not able to meet and greet them as we would in the normal way. When people come and live in their own homes, we know who they are. Our parents and grandparents knew their’s. When they live in colonies, we don’t know who they are, where they are from,” Dar said.

For the Kashmiri Muslims of Haal, the ideal is Omkarnath Bhat, who is in his late 80s, and was the only one who did not leave with the other Pandits in 1990. He lives in his crumbling house with his son, daughter-in-law and their three sons, a few hundred metres away from the “Pandit colony”, in Haal’s original Pandit locality, once home to the most prosperous and well to do Kashmiri Pandit families until they all left.

Now, some two dozen houses rise silently from the snow, testimony to a past grandeur even in their dilapidated and crumbling condition. One belongs to a former judge of the Supreme Court, another to a well known Delhi doctor. Bhat’s eldest grandson Abhilash, 26, managed just last year to get a job in the PWD department in Pulwama, a rare third-generation non-migrant Pandit to have found government employment.

Abhilash, who has a BTech degree from a college in Ambala, Haryana, too sounds a cautious note on colonies. “From the migrants’ point of view, colonies are okay, but not from the point of view of locals. By living in colonies, they become separate. Outsiders are not allowed in. It becomes a barrier between people,” he said.

His grandfather said the family had lived here all these years “only with the support of our neighbours”. The only thing he complained about was the lack of water in his house, and loneliness, “because there are some matter, like religion, that you can discuss only with your own people”

Showkat Ahmad, a neighbour, speaks with affection about the Bhat family. “We have lived as brothers and we will continue to do so. All the other Pandits are welcome to return. It would be good if they settle back with us in our village. Settling them in separate colonies is not a good idea. It would be like dividing us again and that would not be good – not for them (Pandits) and not for us (Muslims). We want harmony, and separation would only create animosity,” Ahmad said.

Far from Pulwama, in Budgam district’s Sheikhpora is another Pandit colony, with multi-storeyed housing. Five hundred migrants, all employed in various government departments in Kashmir, live in this colony, with their families. Abhay Kaul, a 23-year-old, who was born and grew up in Jammu, studied there, and is now employed Village Level Worker in the Rural Development department, lives here with his mother who works in the Urban Development department. His father has a business in Jammu, and lives there. Kaul says the accommodation in Sheikhpora is better than what is available for migrants in Jammu. But it is clear that for him, home is Jammu, where his family has built their own house, even though he says, “Jammu people don’t like Kashmiri Pandits”.

Though the security situation is more relaxed here than in Pulwama, the CRPF guards this colony, and lets people in only after a scrutiny of their IDs.

There are also 31 non-migrant families living in Sheikhpora. “The police told us they cannot provide security to isolated families, and forcibly brought us here. The conditions here are awful, and because we are non-migrant, we get second class treatment even inside this colony,” said Deepak Bhat, who works as a technician with an electrical appliances company. He, his wife and daughter, his parents and his sister share a three-roomed apartment. “Even the attic at our home in Lalgam was better than this living room. Is this even a life? What’s the point of living like a refugee all your life” he said, adding “When I say these things, people say I’ve become anti-India”.

Sanjay Tickoo, who heads Kashmiri Pandit Sangharsh Samiti, an association of non-migrants, called the colonies “an experiment that failed”. Tickoo lives in the Bar Bar Shah neighbourhood, a maze of lanes and houses in Habbakadal, once a hub of Kashmiri Pandits. Now there are only two or three Pandit families left here.

“My life here is 24×7. When I go out, people know me, I know them. I can call on my neighbours for help, I can visit them in good times and bad. But for those in the colonies, life is 9 to 5 only. They go out of the colony to work, and shut themsleves up in their colony when they return,” he said. The issue of return, Tickoo said, is complex. Most of the Pandit families belonging to Srinagar had sold their homes. “Who wants to return? Those who are in their 80s now? Those in their 40s? Many are settled well outside in other cities, their children grew up outside. That kind of person will not be able to resettle here. People with children would not want to come here, as the education system is quite bad and is behind that in the rest of the country,” he said. Ultimately, said Tickoo, the migrant Pandits would have to decide “whether they wanted to return to live in ghettos”.
credit- Indian Express 31 jan 20

Why has the 21st century become so blatantly anti-Muslim?

Twenty-first century has just gone past its first fifth. By this time, the 20th century had been through a World War and the Bolshevik Revolution, not to mention the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. By contrast, the present century opened with 9/11 and the encounter with Islamist terrorism has shaped global politics ever since. There is a perpetual war in the Middle East, from Iraq and Syria reaching Iran and Afghanistan.

The Cold War ended last century. Now it seems all the Great Powers are engaged in a war against Muslims worldwide. Russia has its Chechnya, China its Uighurs. France has sustained multiple terrorist attacks this century on civilians. US President Donald Trump is hostile to Muslims worldwide and has just declared his displeasure against Iran. We could, though not very likely, yet end up with a world war in the second fifth of this century.

Why has this happened? Why has the 21st century become so blatantly anti-Muslim? Let’s go back to 1920. The oldest Empire in Europe, the Ottoman Empire, fell and with it came the end of Islam’s global domination after 1,200 years. The Western world was no longer threatened by Islam on its eastern front.

The remainder of the 20th century was spent sorting out the problems created by the collapse of Western European empires. The end of the Austrian empire unleashed nationalism, the Russian gave birth to Bolshevism. The German empire broke up to birth fascism. It took up to 1991 to sort out Bolshevism. In the meantime, maritime Western empires dissolved. The transfer of Hong Kong to China ended the British Empire.

But the one Empire whose problems were left unresolved was the Ottoman. Its territory was carved up during the First World War by Britain and France in a secret treaty and territories were given names and governments – Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon etc. These remained informal colonies of Western powers. Turkey alone emerged a Republic.

After the Second World War, the Arab countries became nominally independent kingdoms. When Israel was created by a UN Resolution, these Arab kingdoms tried and failed to win a war against Israel in three attempts. By 1973, despair had set in. Pan-Arabism had lost its appeal as had Arab Socialism. The people turned to religion as a consolation. The oil-rich Saudis spread Wahhabism. Iran imploded and the Shah was replaced by the Ayatollahs. The Sunnis and Shias now had oil-rich States capable of encouraging orthodox Islam and each other. The Iran-Iraq war was one of the bloodiest.

Islamism is the political movement which was born as a response to the crisis, but it is Janus-faced. Islamist political movement has fought to disestablish Muslim governments across the Middle East. It was recruited by the Americans to expel the Soviet Union from Afghanistan, which gave birth to the Taliban and al- Qaeda. It is a moot point, but across the wars in the Middle East, Islamism has probably killed more Muslims than any other people. It is a tragedy with no end in sight.

 Credit- Meghnad Desai Indian Express 26.01.202