Author: Editorial
Publication: Kashmir Sentinel
Date: January 1st - January 31st,
2004
Flurry in Diplomatic activity of
late has created media hype on heralding of peace in Kashmir. Whether this
hope will translate into reality is a million dollar question. In view
of the past experience and the contradictions inherent in Pakistani state
and society, as such there is little basis for optimism. Parallel with
this diplomatic initiative Government of India has decided to open an internal
dialogue with separatist groups. It has invited officially a faction
of the separatist Hurriet and expressed willingness to talk to, if need
be, to other separatists groupings outside this conglomerate: This knowing
well, that all these factions retain limited manouverability in delivering
peace on the ground.
In the context of these initiatives
it is pertinent to ask whether the much hoped cessation of hostilities
will deliver peace to the ethnically cleansed Kashmiri Pandits also? To
express it differently would it remove all the road blocks for the eventual
return of the exiled community. Adhering to 'First things first' neither
the Indian State nor its political leadership has so far cared to debate
it. The official line on return/ rehabilitation has been--to enact a tokenist/symbolic
return through coercion, bribery, or defection and creating media
hype on return, while abandoning the rest of the community to its own fate.
It is said that history is a great
healer. May be the Indian State in the ultimate realizes that creating
conditions for voluntary return of the entire Pandit community is not only
its moral duty but it is desirable also. To attribute Pandits' religious
cleansing only to the depredations of externally sponsored terrorist groups
is to speak only a part of the truth. Much bigger reality is that destabilisation
of genocidal dimensions has been the consequence of the gradual communalisation
and fundamentalisation of Kashmir's social milieu over the past few decades.
The yearning of Kashmiri Muslim elite for an exclusivist Muslim state
has put Kashmiris in conflict not only with the secular state of India
but also Kashmir's secularist presence-Kashmiri Pandits. Espousal of Kashmir's
historical, regional, secular identity by Kashmiri Pandits has made them
suspect in the eyes of those elements who posit narrow sectarian identity
for Kashmir. The -entrenchment of these retrograde elements owing allegiance
to Jamaat-e-Islami and other neo-fundamentalist outfits in the Muslim dominated
state administration has been responsible for the genocidal attrition against
Kashmiri Hindus both before and after 1990.
The so-called mainstream 'pro-Indian'
political groups, instead of countering the revanchist communal forces
have been playing talists to the-.politics of Jamaat elements in the
state administration. So long as the Jamaat continues to get patronage
and the mainstream political parties draw their sustenance by competing
communal and secessionist agendas, there can be no reversal of genocide
against the displaced Hindus and no return. It may be tactically expedient
for the Indian State to hold dialogue with the secessionists. But durable
peace will continue to elude it so long as the Indian state and its political
leadership show no vision or will to contest the communal and fundamentalist
orientation of Kashmir's Muslim politics.
No patriotic group, despite its
immense contribution, has been as humiliated and alienated by its own government
as Kashmiri Pandits. Why does GoI need an American Senator Frank Pallone
to remind it that the state government has willfully chosen to abandon
Pandits? Is it not its responsibility to censure the state government for
its failure to get vacated fraudulent forcible occupation of Pandit Property
and Shrines; restore jobs, promotions and routine service benefits to the
displaced employees; launch political campaigns on Pandits' return in the
Valley p roper itself and engage accredited of displaced Kashmirs for reversal
of genocide and on the issue of return.
In a week from now, GoI will be
officially be talking to those Kashmiris who were instrumental in the cleansing
of Kashmiri Pandits. It should seize the opportunity to tell these people
that whatever the cost may be GoI will restore Pandits to their homeland
and communal politics will never be tolerated. If secularism is good for
rest of India, it should survive in Kashmir as well. Any ambiguity on this
will have serious consequences for India's sovereignty and long term peace.
It is time Indian state owns its abandoned people.
