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For young Kashmiri pandits, the valley isn’t home anymore

Author: Sameer Yasir
Publication: Firstpost.com
Date: June 7, 2014
URL: http://www.firstpost.com/india/for-young-kashmiri-pandits-the-valley-isnt-home-anymore-1560157.html

Someone once said, 'Home is the nicest word there is.' But for many Kashmiri pandits, home is a tainted word; tainted by the memories of a forced exodus. The recent lull is violence in the Kashmir Valley is prompting many to take tentative steps back towards the place that their family once called home.

Akash Kaul, 24, a Business Studies student in Delhi, sat inside a State Road Transport Corporation bus on Thursday morning in Jammu, the winter capital of the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Kaul was coming 'home' for the first time. A Kashmiri pandit born in Delhi’s Malviya Nagar area, after his parents migrated to Delhi in 1990 when insurgency broke in Kashmir resulting in the mass exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from the valley, he was excited but ambivalent about the journey.

It was sweltering in Jammu, Kaul joined thousands of other Kashmiri pandits to attend the annual Kheer Bhawani Mela in central Kashmir’s Ganderbal district, about 27 kms from summer capital of Srinagar.

As the bus crossed the Jawahar tunnel in south Kashmir, on National Highway 1, the only road link between Kashmir and the rest of country, Kaul noticed tears rolling down the face of Kania Lal, a fellow traveller in his late seventies.

“This road goes to home in Srinagar, but now I am a refugee in my own country,” Lal told the young Kaul, who was beaming with joy at the site of lush green mountains and the snow clad Pirpanjal mountains.

But Kashmir, Kaul says, is a faraway land for him and his generation of young Kashmiri pandits. It is a lost land and reclaiming it has become a political, rather than a humanitarian, issue.

So he wanted to visit Kheer Bhawani, the most revered place of worship for Kashmiri pandits in the village of Tulla Mulla, to seek blessings of goddess Ragnya Devi. Kashmir, however, can never be a home now, he says, when asked whether he would like to settle in Kashmir if provided a chance.

“I did not cry because I was not born at the time of migration. For me, it is a place which you want to come to once in a year, nothing else, it is not home. Delhi is home now, I have lived in worst conditions and been brought up there, studied there, and would like to work there. And why would I come back and for what?” he asks.

Mela Kheer Bhawani is the most important festival of Kashmiri pandits, associated with the Hindu Goddess, Ragnya Devi. According to Kashmir Pandits, Goddess Ragnya when she lived in Sri Lanka was tired of misdemeanors of Lord Ravana and wanted to shift to Kashmir. Then, Hanuman carried Ragnya on his shoulders to a place surrounded by a spring which happens to be the basic foundation of Mata Kheer Bhawani temple. It is said that a holy spring in Keer Bhawani temple at Tulla Mula changes its colours from time and any shade of black colour is supposed to be inauspicious.

Before their unfortunate migration from Kashmir, Kashmiri pandits used to visit Kheer Bhawani temple once in a month for conducting havan and puja. Now, it is held on Jesht Ashtami (June) once in a year. The temple of Kheer Bhiwani was built by Maharaja Pratap Singh in 1912, and later renovated by Maharaja Hari Singh.

On Friday amid chants of vedic and tantaraic hymns, Kaul said, he was shocked to witness the attitude of Kashmiri Muslims towards pandits.

“There is mis-communication. I was shocked to see the Muslim people providing flowers, milk and other articles to Pandits for puja, opening their houses for us. There is a lot of mis-information. My parents want to come back but stay in the Muslim areas, not in colonies provided by the government. Those colonies look like Nazi camps,” Kaul says.

Dozens of young Kashmiri pandits, Firstpost spoke to on Friday in Kheer Bhawani Mela, said they didn’t even speak Kashmiri. And felt indifferent towards Kashmir, their homeland. Many of them had married non-Kashmiri pandit girls, an uncommon practice among Kashmiri pandits before their migration.

Akshay Dhar, 17, also come to Kashmir for the first time since his parents migrated in early nineties. After clearing his 12th class, Dhar wants to join an engineering college in Jammu or Delhi. However, despite having agricultural and dry land in south Kashmir’s Anantnag district, he says he feels uncomfortable with the idea of returning to Kashmir; their house was burnt down, according to his parents, by Kashmiri militants.

“Parents always talk about Kashmir, and someday day, one day, they hope of returning. But I am not coming. Kashmir is good for tourism... not for living, there are few opportunities and it lacks good educational institutions.” He says.

One of the challenges the newly-elected Prime Minister Narendra Modi faces is the rehabilitation of Kashmiri pandits. The latter seems to have an unimaginable faith in the newly elected Prime Minister. That might be the reason under the guidance of prime ministers office the ministry of home affairs (MHA) has started drawing an ambitious project for the ‘full rehabilitation’ for the Kashmiri pandits’.

This plan, according to sources, is the to ensure full rehabilitation of the displaced community with social security and by creating a conducive environment for their return. It would include an attractive package for the young so that they won’t feel like they are ‘losing something.’ The central government would be approaching the state government soon on this plan.

“Their condition has to be improved. Every one is not same economically, people are still living in refuge colonies. We want them to get settled in their own land and start life afresh,” an MHA official said.

On Friday, thousands of people sat inside the temple surrounding the holy spring, among them was Kania Lal. He sat under the magnificent Chinar tree and spoke of uncomfortable weather in Jammu, and the harsh conditions he lived in these two decades.

“I am ready to come back... who wants to die in 45 degree heat, I want to die here in the shade of a Chinar. For that to happen, the government has to give our children jobs. They can only leave their private sector jobs if they get paid well. Our children can’t come here for 5000 rupees government jobs when they earning 50000 a month. We will make sure they come if that happens. It is their homeland, our unique culture is on the verge of death,” he said.
 
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