HVK Archives: The nowhere people - The plight of Kashmiri Pandits
The nowhere people - The plight of Kashmiri Pandits - Sunday
Namita Bhandare, New Delhi
()
May 12-18 1996
Title : The nowhere people
Author : Namita Bhandare, New Delhi
Publication : Sunday
Date : 12-18 May, 1996
It was the milkman's question that settled the issue for
Asha Kaul. "Where's your daughter today?" he asked, and
Asha was sure she detected an insidious leer behind the
seemingly innocuous question. "He had never asked about
my daughter before," she says. "So his question defi-
nitely disturbed me."
Just the previous day, while returning home from the pri-
mary school in Srinagar where she taught, Asha had
passed by a wall poster. It said, "Hindu men should
leave the Valley, the women can stay behind." The next
day when the milkman repeated the question, Kaul took a
decision. It was time to pack up and go.
The telephone lines had already been cut. In any case,
there was no need to consult anyone. "I had no greed for
anything. At that time, all I wanted was my
daughter's safety," says Kaul. Within 24 hours she
packed what she considered the bare essentials: her
children's textbooks and certificates and a few sets of
clothes.
The flight from Srinagar took place late at night. As
Kaul and her husband locked their door and turned to
go, they were surrounded by a ring of young men. "Where
are you off to?" they wanted to know. Kaul replied
quickly: "My husband's sister is getting married in Jam-
mu. We will be gone for a few days. "
Amongst Kashmiri Pandits, yellow rice (peelay chawal) is
a delicacy that is cooked on auspicious occasions. Kaul
doesn't remember much of the bus drive from Srinagar to
Jammu. She does, however, remember what she cooked as
soon as she got a makeshift kitchen going in one of the
temporary shelters. It was peelay chawal. "I didn't
care about the camp or the filth or even what we had left
behind," says Kaul. "All I could think of was: thank God
we're safe. Thank God we're in India."
Srinagar is another planet as far as the two lakh Kash-
miri Pandits are concerned. Once a powerful elite group
during the reign of Hindu kings, they have been reduced
to the stature of a nomadic tribe, forced to flee their
homeland where they are easy targets for militants, yet
not quite at home elsewhere in India.
Officially, the two-lakh-odd Kashmiri Pandits who have
fled the Valley since 1990 - the year when much of the
exodus took place - are called migrants. "They have
moved from one state to another within the union terri-
tory of India," says a government spokesman. But the
Kashmiris see themselves as refugees. "The word migrant
implies that we have moved voluntarily," says Ramesh Han-
doo of Panun Kashmir, a pressure group that highlights
the plight of the Pandits. "In fact, we have been forced
out of our homes, forced to flee for safety."
The government says that the Pandits are free to go back.
Officially, things are returning to 'normalcy' in Kash-
mir. The state is gearing up for elections after a peri-
od of seven years and a record number of candidates are
contesting the polls. If this isn't proof of 'normal'
conditions, what is?
Kashmiri Pandits laugh at your face when you tell them
this. "It's very easy for government officials to say,
go back home," says Vijay Kumar Bhat, a school teacher
who lives with his wife and two children at the Aliganj
Community Centre camp in New Delhi. "But we are not
willing to be slaughtered. I don't think we will ever be
able to go back."
The Aliganj Community Centre is a stone's throw away from
Delhi's poshest residential area, Jorbagh. Jorbagh is
the address of not just affluent Delhi-ites - businessman
and fellow Kashmiri Pandit Vijay Dhar lives here as do
the Nandas of Escorts - but also much of Delhi's diplo-
matic corps. But there's nothing posh about the Aliganj
Community Centre, location of one of the 17 camps set up
in the city to 'temporarily' house Kashmiri Pandits.
Unlike some of the other camps, however, the 16-odd fam-
ilies who live at Aliganj have it pretty good. In many
of the camps where families live in dormitories with
barely a curtain for privacy, the government has put up
walls in the large community hall at Aliganj.
"The birth-rate has declined," says Vijay Kumar Kaul,
brother-in-law of Vijay Kumar Bhat. The women start gig-
gling in embarrassment when Kaul makes this announce-
ment. "It's no laughing matter," says Kaul sternly. "The
community will be finished at this rate. "
In a more poignant moment, a Kashmiri Pandit woman talks
of the terrible lack of privacy and the hardship the wom-
en have to face as a consequence. "When the children are
small you can get dressed in front of them. But my son
is an adult. I can't even lie on the same bed as my hus-
band."
Legend has it that about 5,000 years go a highly-evolved
spiritual community lived along the banks of the river
Saraswati. This river dried up when one of its main
tributaries, the Sutlej, changed course. And with the
drying up of the river, the community dispersed.
One section moved to the Kashmir Valley. Among these
settlers were the Brahmins who soon came to occupy a pre-
eminent position because of their learning. According to
Jagmohan, author of one of the most authoritative books
on Kashmir, My Frozen Turbulence, the Kashmiri Pandits
spoke Sanskrit and they made the Valley a crucible for
Hindu culture.
The early rulers of Kashmir had strong cultural and po-
litical links with other north Indian kings. Writing for
SUNDAY (30 January - 5 February, 1994) Jagmohan says the
first known Kashmiri king was Ginanda who was followed by
44 kings. Emperor Ashoka extended his kingdom to Kashmir
and brought Buddhism to the region.
Muslim rule began only in the 14th century when the then
king, Rinchana, converted to Islam. The first documented
exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits occurred during the reign
of Sultan Sikander (1389-1413) under whose orders Hindu
temples were razed and Pandits forced to convert. Many
chose to flee rather than give up their faith.
The second exodus occurred during the 15th century under
the rule of Shameud-Din Iraqi. Stray cases of migration
also occurred during the reign of Aurangzeb, but large
scale persecution once again occurred when the region
came under Afghan dominance, specifically under the rule
of the last Afghan Governor. After the Afghans, their
was a brief period of Sikh rule under Ranjit Singh from
1819 to 1846. This was followed by a period of 100 years
of Dogra rule until independence.
The Kashmiri Pandits, however, don't speak Dogri (the
language of the Jammu region) but Kashmiri - the language
spoken most often by the militants (more recently, there
has been a move to adopt Urdu in a bid to define a more
pan-Islamic identity).
In the camps too, parents try and talk to their children
in Kashmiri. "Otherwise they will forget their lan-
guage," says Vijay Kumar Kaul.
However, the community is hardly chauvinistic. Ramesh
Handoo's sister, for instance, is married to a Punjabi
and, says Handoo, there was no opposition to the match.
Marriage, however, is not a priority for most displaced
Kashmiri Pandit families. Education is.
As a community, the Kashmiri Pandits have traditionally
opted for government jobs. They are a highly educated
lot and generally have small families.
A major problem for most is how to retain their distinct
Kashmiri identity (in a departure from the rigid ortho-
doxy of most Brahmins elsewhere in the country, Kashmiri
Pandits eat meat). Most are reconciled to the fact that
they may never go back home. "To go back is to invite
definite death," says Vijay Kumar Bhat. "The gun culture
still prevails in the Valley," adds his brother-in-law.
At the time of fleeing the Valley in 1990, Bhat's wife
was nine months pregnant. Their son was born in a camp
in Jammu and by the time they arrived in Delhi's Aliganj
camp, he was barely 40 days old. The Bhats call him Sa-
hil, which mean, river bank (kinara), a place of refuge.
The other residents call him Camp Commander.
Like most kids of his age, Sahil plays cricket (unmindful
of his mother's scoldings to play in the shade). He
attends school run by the Ramakrishna Mission and his
father has managed to get a job as a school teacher.
However, camp life has its pitfalls. For the older chil-
dren there is no quiet place to study. Power cuts are
frequent and the water supply is switched off after a
certain hour.
As displaced people (migrants in government speak), the
Bhats are entitled to Rs 1,500 a month as relief. In
addition there are free rations. "Government employees
get full pay," says a government spokesman. "They are
getting paid for doing nothing."
Most of the Pandits, however, have moved out of the
camps. Although they are still entitled to compensation,
many have got themselves alternative jobs or set them-
selves up as small-scale entrepreneurs. Most have ap-
plied for ration cards and some have even registered
themselves as voters in Delhi.
All, however, have lost their life's assets. Handoo's
own house has been occupied by his neighbours. Bhat's
was burnt down after it was stripped of all the furni-
ture, furnishings and finally, doors and windows (the
wood was used as firewood). When only a shell remained,
it was razed.
The migrations have followed a deliberate policy adopted
by militant groups: kill one and terrorise 1,000. It
worked to brilliant effect. Today, many of the migrants
have not personally been victims of terrorist violence.
But the fear psychosis whipped up in the Valley in 1990
through the use of such means as advertisements in the
local papers asking the Pandits to clear out within 48
hours or else convert to Islam and the selective killing
of a few, high-profile targets was enough to cause the
exodus.
Only an updated census report will reveal how many, if
any, Pandits remain in the Valley. Prior to the exodus
which began on 19 January, 1990, they constituted some
three per cent of the population.
The Election Commission has devised a scheme under which
any displaced Pandit whose name figures in the parliamen-
tary constituencies of Baramulla, Srinagar or Anantnag
(where the Pandits were concentrated) will be entitled
to participate in the elections via a postal ballot.
A majority of the Pandits, however, plan to boycott the
election. They hold the present polls as mere eyewash.
"Despite the fact that. we are here in Delhi, the Prime
Minister has not bothered to visit even a single camp,"
says Handoo.
Although relief and compensatory housing figure in their
list of demands, what the Kashmiri Pandits really want is
official recognition that they are 'internally displaced
people'. "By refusing to recognise us, the government
has made sure that international aid organisations cannot
come to our rescue," says Handoo.
According to figures available with Panun Kashmir, almost
6,000 Pandits have died after moving from Srinagar,
Prior to 1990, when the Pandits were still living in the
Valley, about 1,000 were killed by the militants. In
other words, figures of those who died after fleeing to
the safety of the mainland were six times that of those
killed at the height of violence in the Valley.
While old age and natural causes have contributed to the
toll, many have fallen prey to disease brought on by the
unhygienic conditions in the camps. Nor have the Pan-
dits got acclimatised to the sweltering heat in the
plains.
Political compulsions have ensured that the government
cannot do more than it has. To provide alternate housing
would be to admit that the situation is irreconcilable.
Unless there is a change in the official stand, the Indi-
an government will continue maintaining that things are
normal in the Valley and it's safe to go back home.
But the bottom line is that a group of upper caste Hindus
from Kashmir don't constitute a vote bank. And barring
former Governor Jagmohan, who is some what of a hero to
the Pandits, few politicians have bothered to address
their plight.
The World Conference of Kashmiri Pandits held in 1993
demanded a separate homeland with Union Territory sta-
tus in the region north-east of the river Jhelum. But
with the electoral process already underway in the state
of Jammu and Kashmir, it is unlikely that the government
is going to concede to this or any other demand.
Meanwhile, Pandits like Asha Kaul are thanking their
stars that they are still alive. But they curse the con-
ditions they are forced to live in. Kaul's daughter is
now in the final year of her school. Her mother lovingly
pats her head and shudders when she recollects the milk-
man's leer.
Maybe it was an innocuous question after all. Maybe he
was genuinely conceded that the girl may not be safe and
could be a target picked out by the militants.
But fear is hardly rational. And you cannot argue with a
group of people who've lost everything they owned. Kash-
miri Pandits thank God for their lives. But a recogni-
tion of the more practical need for survival would be
welcome.
(Some names of people have been changed on request)
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