Author: Rashneek Kher
Publication: Vijayvaani.com
Date: May 6, 2009
URL: http://www.vijayvaani.com/FrmPublicDisplayArticle.aspx?id=552
[On Sunday, 3 May 2009, Roots in Kashmir organised
a silent sit-in at Jantar Mantar, to protest the en mass removal of evicted
families from the electoral rolls and the discrimination in providing the
Internally Displaced Persons facilities to vote on a nation-wide basis. As
the Election Commission collects accolades for conducting free and fair elections
in the world's most complex democracy, this is a painful blot on an otherwise
sterling body - Editor]
The present crisis in Sri Lanka has once again
brought to fore the issue of internally displaced people. Everyone from the
United Nations to the European Union to the Foreign Ministers of Britain and
France wants to visit the refugee camps of the Tamils, displaced by the war
between LTTE and the Sri Lankan army.
The Indian Government seems so over-concerned
about the safety, security and well-being of Lankan Tamils that it has sent
two topmost secretaries to meet the Sri Lankan President. What is more, almost
every now and then one senior functionary of the Government of India issues
statements and puts pressure on Colombo to ensure the best relief and rehabilitation
measures for the internally displaced Tamil refugees. This solicitude is utterly
missing when it comes to India's own displaced refugees - the Kashmiri Hindus
(Pandits).
Pandits internally displaced: UN
The same Indian government steadfastly refuses
to accept Kashmiri Hindus as internally displaced people (IDP). This is despite
the fact that the UN has clearly said it accepts that the Pandits are internally
displaced people, but it has no power to make the Indian Government accord
IDP-status upon the Pandits.
New Delhi does not want to give Kashmiri Hindus
IDP-status because then it would have to allow International Aid agencies
like the Red Cross, UNICEF, and others to visit Pandit refugee camps. This
would involve severe censure of the Government of India at the hands of the
Aid agencies because of the way the Pandits are forced to live in uninhabitable
refugee camps, bereft of the most basic facilities. To give the reader an
idea about how terrible the facilities are - there is one toilet per hundred
people!
In 1947, Pandits comprised nearly 25% of the total population of the Kashmir
Valley. The discriminatory policies of the State Government forced them to
look for alternatives outside the Valley. Many families silently migrated
to Jammu and Delhi, leading to a huge fall in their numbers in the Valley.
At the onset of the Islamic insurgency, close to half a million Kashmiri Hindus
were forced to leave; this was a great blot on the face of a nation that prides
itself on its multicultural ethnicity.
Excised from electoral rolls
On 30 April 2009, when people in Anantnag
were casting their votes, the State Police was busy mercilessly beating Kashmiri
Pandits in the squalid refugee camps. Their fault - they wanted to vote. In
1996, there were 147,000 voters among Kashmiri Hindus all over the country;
in 2002, the number went down to 117,000; and during the Assembly elections
last year it was only 71,000.
It was this huge deletion of Pandits from
the electoral rolls that the refugee-Pandits were protesting against. The
State, known for its ineptitude in handling mobs in Kashmir, unleashed its
full power on peaceful Hindu protestors.
In an era when registering as a voter is a
mere mouse-click away, the Election Commission has ensured that Pandits undergo
the most difficult process to qualify as voters. One doesn't know if the Election
Commission is acting on its own, or someone is guiding it. Imagine how our
liberal English news channels would cry hoarse if 70,000 Muslims in "Modi's
Gujarat" were denied the right to vote. It doesn't bother their conscience
when Pandits are denied the same rights and avenues to justice.
Form M
Kashmiri Hindus have to undergo a very cumbersome
process to get voter ID cards. It almost makes them feel like second-class
citizens, because unlike the rest of their countrymen, they have to fill a
Form "M" [Migrant Form].
Form M by itself is a misnomer, because Pandits
are not migrants, but refugees. Anyway, they have to get this form signed
from a gazetted officer, and this has been made mandatory even as there are
other documents on the basis of which voter ID cards could be issued to the
Pandits.
Anyone who has to obtain the M-form has to
get it from the Relief Commissioner's office in Jammu, and later get it attested
by an officer called the Zonal Migration Officer. So someone now living in
Mumbai has to take at least a week off to just complete the procedure required
for filling an application for being a voter.
Jai Ho! I bet Bangladeshis in India have it
easier.
Now could someone explain why such a procedure
is needed in the first place, unless the only aim of the Election Commission
is to dissuade Pandits from voting?
One would expect that the Election Commission's
sadism would end with this, but the troubles might just have begun.
No all-India right to vote
The Election Commission sets up election booths
only in Jammu and Delhi for refugee Pandits to cast their votes. There are
more than 50,000 Pandits who live in other cities, such as Chandigarh, Mumbai,
Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Jaipur. How are they to vote, may we ask the Election
Commission?
When the Election Commission has set up election
booth for even a single voter in some places, what stops it from doing the
same for Pandits? It is nobody's case that the Election Commission should
go every nook and corner looking for refugee-Pandits, but it can surely set
up booths at places where more than 500 Pandits live. One could also ask the
Election Commission if the Kashmiri Hindus are given a day off to vote like
the rest of their compatriots? If not, how can they vote?
Facilitating exile
Kashmiri Hindus are a severely marginalized
community. They had to face the wrath of Islamist insurgents (some of their
killers are being hosted by the Indian Government and the so-called intelligentsia
of this nation) and an unsympathetic government. Are they paying a price for
being Indians? So it seems. In a State which is already largely Islamized
and where Sharia is the law for personal disputes, the space for Pandits is
already shrinking. At such a moment, the Election Commission should have left
no stone unturned to ensure that Pandits get the most basic of their rights
- the Right to Vote.
Perhaps the Election Commission is not aware
of an Article numbered 370. This Article will soon come into play if Pandits
no longer have the Voter ID cards of their place of origin. Soon Islamists,
including so-called mainstream separatists like the National Conference and
the People's Democratic Party will say Pandits don't belong to Kashmir. There
then will be no way the Hindus can reclaim their lands or even think of buying
property in a land of which they are the indigenous people.
This fear is driving Pandits across the nation
to demonstrate against the actions of the Election Commission. They fear the
Election Commission is silently accomplishing the task of the Islamists.
- The writer is co-founder of the Kashmiri
Pandit Group - Roots in Kashmir
http://www.kashmiris-in-exile.blogspot.com
http://www.nietzschereborn.blogspot.com
