By Shyam Kaul
As one of the hundreds of thousands of displaced Kashmiri
Pandits, the past for me is not merely the “ old, unhappy, far off things, and
battles long ago.” It is a reality which lives with me, and which in many
essential respects, is a prolongation of the past. It is a gnawing pain in the
soul, that comes more agonizingly alive when one comes across things written
down years ago, like the letter that appeared in Kashmir Times, way back on
October 30, 1997.
The letter,
written by late Tariq Abdullah, son of the redoutable leader of Jammu and
Kashmir, Sheikh Abdullah, and younger brother of Dr Farooq Abdullah, who
happened to be the chief minister of the state in 1997, is reproduced here
verbatim:
“Dear Editor,
A veritable racket is going on in Srinagar in regard to houses belonging to the
migrant Kashmiri Pandit community. An instance in point is about the House No
414 at Jawahar Nagar, belonging to Ramesh Kaul, who is a migrant. Last month the
house was forcibly occupied by some locals who threw out the lawful tenants
residing in the house. The matter was referred to the DG of Police, the state
minister for Home, the revenue Minister and the DIG Range. However nothing was
done to restore the house to its owner. Upon painstaking inquiry it was found
that the house was occupied under the patronage and protection of the local SHO
of the Raj Bagh police station. Furthermore, it was found that money changes
hands from the illegal occupiers to the protectionist racketeers. On behalf of
the hapless owner I wrote to the above named persons but a deaf ear was turned
by them. I have now written to the state Governor.
“It is
great shame that while on the one hand the government is committed to restoring
forcibly occupied migrant property to the migrants, yet, on the other,
protectionists’ racket in migrant properties is going on under the patronage of
authorities and nobody is doing anything about it. It becomes pertinent to ask
here as to how it is expected of the migrant Kashmiri Pandit community to return
to the Valley if their very homes are illegally occupied under the protection
and patronage of the authorities? It is time this racket was exposed and
forcibly occupied houses restored to the owners. Only then can the migrant
community hope to return to the valley. Tariq Abdullah, Gupkar Road, Srinagar.”
The letter is
a quintessential essence of what happened to Pandit properties in Kashmir
between 1990 and 1996, when terror ran berserk in Kashmir. The letter could also
be described as a prophetic piece of writing about what has been happening to
such properties from 1996 onwards, till date, when democratically elected
governments are in power. The subject matter of Tariq Abdullah’s letter is
equally true today, but, of course, in larger, starker and more distressing
dimensions. There are thousands of Ramesh Kauls, running from pillar to post
today, to reclaim their lawfully owned houses, lands, orchards, and religious
properties, illegally occupied by land and property grabbers, with the
“protection and patronage of authorities”, but they do not find redressal
anywhere.
In a
democratic setup, it is normally expected of the representtive governments that
they shall be answerable and accountable to the people they represent and rule
over. Kashmiri Pandits, driven out of their land of ancestors by oppressive and
intolerant circumstances and living now in exile, are the largest religious
minority of Kashmir. As such and as citizens of this state, it is their
fundamental and inviolable right to demand the protection of their properties
and also its restoration to rightful owners. Normally any representative,
responsible, accountable and conscientious government would have, on its own,
honoured the right of the displaced community and acted accordingly. But the
successive governments in this state have miserably failed to do so, more out of
calculated unconcern and unresponsiveness, than innate incompetence.
Both, prime minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, and chief minister, Ghulam Nabi Azad,
are on record having assured the Pandit community that measures, like building
of some lodgings in Jammu, were make shift arrangements, and the ultimate
objective was to create conditions for return of displaced Pandits to their
homes in Kashmir.
But to
quote, Tariq Abdullah’s eleven year old letter, “ It become pertinent to ask
here as to how is it expected of the migrant Kashmiri Pandit community to return
to the valley if their very homes (and to add, their other properties) are
illegally occupied under the protection and patronage of the authorities?”
Go to any
part of Kashmir today where Pandits used to live and you will come across scores
of instances of forced occupations of their houses, agricultural lands,
orchards, religious places and properties. The successive governments of the
state have never even as much as moved their little finger to correct and undo
this criminal defiance and violation of the law of the land. Some assurances
given by the government in this regard have always turned out to be half-hearted
and ineffective, obviously due to the lack of will, initiative and determination
on the part of the people at the helm of the government.
There could
be no better instance of the government’s lackadaisical attitude regarding
important issues concerning the displaced community than the one about the
urgency of the enactment of legislation for the protection of the religious
properties of Hindus in
Kashmir. A bill in this regard has long been pending before the state
legislature, but the government appears to have chosen, seemingly by design, to
drag its feet on the issue. Meanwhile the Hindu religious properties in the
valley are increasingly becoming a happy hunting ground for property racketeers
and professional land grabbers, like some characters of doubtful credentials,
masquerading as religious figures.
Sometimes we
hear much talk of the return of Pandits to Kashmir, and the refrain always is
that “ Kashmir is incomplete without Kashmiri Pandits.” Almost all separatist
leaders are now joining in the chorus too. But we have yet to hear anything from
these leaders, both mainstream and separatist, by way of elaboration of how to
convert the “incomplete” into “complete”. We have long been waiting for this
elaboration, which would indeed be like music to our ears, and would perhaps
help in paving way for the reclamation of our grabbed homes and properties, and
for our return journey to our homes. Please come out with it.
Many years
back, Khushwant Singh wrote in his highly popular column, With Malice Towards
One and All: “Not many of us are aware of the plight of Kashmiri Pandits who
have fled from the Valley for fear of their lives, leaving their homes and
properties behind them. People who talk glibly of Kashmiris secular traditions
turn a blind eye to the travails these refugees are undergoing for no other
reason than that they are Hindus. They callously dismiss it as false progaganda
or ‘playing the Pandit card’. They should meet some of them now living in Jammu
and Delhi to have their visions corrected.”
Yes, many
still are not “aware of the plight of Kashmiri Pandits who have fled from the
valley for fear of their lives.....” Among them, perceivably, are also the
governments at the Centre and here in Jammu and Kashmir. And this is no
overstatement.
