Over the last few weeks, some frivolous activity in the name of the return and resettlement of the Kashmiri Pandit community in the valley of Kashmir has been observed. It is believed that this doubtful activity on behalf of a few among the displaced community is being sponsored by some extraneous forces outside the community. Though this activity has no mass support within the exiled community yet, it has been promoted to be seen as an integral part of the community activism, and the auspicious occasion of Mela Khirbhawani has been chosen to showcase the so-called support to this isolated activity. However, it has again forced the displaced community to express its firm resolve on the issue of return and resettlement in an unambiguous manner. It is time to reflect on this issue in appropriate detail.
On behalf of the community that has been living as refugees in its own country for more than 35 years due to the ethnic cleansing in the valley of Kashmir, an all-party meeting of the community representatives was held in the capital of the country -New Delhi last Sunday. All participating representative members rejected the so-called activity by a few in the name of the return and resettlement in Kashmir ab initio. This author was also one of the participants in the important meeting. It was further resolved in the conclave that the displaced community has a firm and unwavering commitment and faith in the historical Resolutions passed by the community from time to time in regard to the issue of return and resettlement in the valley of Kashmir.
The representatives unanimously rejected all attempts to subvert the narrative of genocide of the community and expressed firm resolve in the Margdarshan resolution, and the other resolutions passed in the spirit of this historic resolution. It needs to be made clear here that there are four major historic resolutions passed from time to time that have been guiding the displaced community in this context for the last 35 years of exile. Margdarshan resolution on Homeland is the lead resolution in this regard.
Immediately after the forced mass-exodus of the Hindu community of Kashmir consequent upon the acts of genocide committed against them, the thinking minds and the prominent activists of the exiled community in May-June 1990 thought of reviving the oldest Kashmiri Pandit forum -All State Kashmiri Pandit Conference (ASKPC) in Jammu. The first important decision it took was to convene a two-day convention of the exiled community representatives to deliberate upon the issue of the mass exodus and the future existence of the displaced community. This author, being a part of its Executive in 1990, was also a member of the Organising Committee for the Convention called Kashmiri Hindu Convention 1990 and held the responsibility of Treasurer in the new set-up.
Accordingly, the two-day Convention was held in the scorching heat of Jammu on 13-14 July, 1990 in the Central Mahajan Sabha Hall, City Chowk. The congregation was attended by more than 500 delegates from all over India, and it was resolved (under Resolution no. 4) to demand the carving out of a security zone in the valley of Kashmir for the Kashmiri Pandit community with constitutional guarantees so that the exiled community could be resettled back in the valley of Kashmir that historically belonged to them as the indigenous people of the place. The convention also unanimously condemned the human rights violations committed against the community in Kashmir by the Islamic terrorist and radical forces and asked the government to provide armed licenses to the Kashmiri Pandits in the valley along with the facilities of training in the use of arms for their safety and security in the valley.
This was followed by a vigorous public contact drive by the younger elements among the Kashmiri Pandit activists in support of the Resolution that was overwhelmingly supported by the entire community. It ultimately led to the establishment of Panun Kashmir on December 31, 1990 at Raghunathpura, Jammu with the aim of propounding the cause of the exiled community in a socio-political framework. Panun Kashmir organised a huge convention named Margdarshan at Jammu on 27-28 December 1991 in Abhinav Theatre, Jammu. It was attended by nearly 1,000 delegates of the exiled community from all over the world, supported by a large number of nationalist campaigners from outside the community as well.
Margdarshan Convention 1991 adopted a historic resolution calling for the establishment of Homeland with Union Territory status in Kashmir for the seven lakh displaced Hindus of Kashmir who yearn to return and resettle in Kashmir. It was also resolved in the resolution that the Indian constitution may be fully applicable in the Union Territory in letter and spirit. The Resolution, in its context, explained how coexistence was refused to the displaced Kashmiri Pandit community all along in the past, forcing the members of the community to leave Kashmir in peace meals earlier to the mass exodus of 1989-90. It also said that Pakistan & Pak-sponsored terrorism in collaboration with extremism and fundamentalism in the valley were responsible for the brutal killings and other human rights violations of the exiled community in Kashmir.
Ten years after the mass exodus, on the historic 13 July 2000, various representative bodies of the Kashmiri Pandit community organised the one-day Kashmiri Pandit Representative Assembly in the hall of the Mansar Hotel in Jammu. It discussed the socio-political scenario concerning the community in detail and unanimously adopted a resolution asking for a separate state for the displaced Kashmiri Hindus in the valley of Kashmir. Representatives of the main community forums like ASKPC, Panun Kashmir, AIKPC, AIKS and other important organisations attended the conference headed by the veteran Pt. Amarnath Vaishnavi. It also issued an appeal to the community to rally around the community’s unanimous voice in this regard, expressed through the spirit of the three historic resolutions adopted from time to time.
Again, in 2014-15, the Kashmir District Displaced Unit of BJP, in its convention at KK Resorts, Jammu, adopted a resolution in which it resolved to demand a one-place settlement in the Kashmir valley for the exiled community of Kashmiri Pandits. The officials of the Unit and the organisers of the Convention presented the historic resolution formally to their higher-ups in the BJP headquarters in Jammu after the event.
All the above-mentioned four historic resolutions assume great significance in the struggle in exile of the Kashmiri Pandits so far as their issues pertaining to the return and resettlement in the valley are concerned. This author consistently has been espousing the cause of the unanimous resolve of the community in this context besides advocating the issues pertaining to our human rights violations, genocide and ethnic cleansing in Kashmir. In regard to our forced mass-exodus, I have been consistently holding the following four factors responsible for the exodus of the Kashmiri Pandit community in 1989-90. These are:
The fundamentalist and terrorist elements in Kashmir supported and abetted by Pakistan (both the so-called state and the non-state actors), complicity of the then J&K government with the separatist and radical elements in the society in Kashmir valley, failure of the Muslim majority community to provide safety to the minuscule minority community of Hindus in Kashmir and the unpardonable failure of the government of India continuously from 1947 to protect the minorities in Jammu and Kashmir. These four factors together brought the Kashmiri Pandit community, the indigenous people of the valley, to the roadside in and after 1989-90 due to the mass-exodus.
The struggle in exile of the community, hundreds and thousands of meetings and programmes held during these 35 years of exile and our unabated struggle before the human rights bodies, including the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), parliamentary forums, international bodies and the media evolved a four-fold doctrine for our return and resettlement in Kashmir. The main features of this doctrine are the following:
1. The Kashmiri Pandit community will neither forget nor forgive what was done to them in the Kashmir valley,
2. Genocide of Hindus in Kashmir is a non-negotiable issue and the NHRC has put it on record that “acts akin to genocide were committed against the Kashmiri Pandits in Kashmir….and a genocide type design may exist in the minds and utterances of the militants and terrorists in Kashmir against the Kashmiri Pandits”,
3. There can be no reconciliation without proper justice and punishment to the perpetrators of the crimes against humanity and
4. There can be no return and resettlement without dignity and without homeland.
This four-fold doctrine is not only the essence of our struggle in exile but it is the only guarantee in regard to what was done to the community and that history won’t be repeated in Kashmir with the Kashmiri Pandit community, the original inhabitants of the Kashmir valley. The deliberate attempts to distort the Kashmiri Pandit genocide narrative, float fabricated one-upmanship, and bypass the community’s core ideological aspiration will meet the same end that all such earlier attempts have met in the past…!
