By Dr. R.L. Bhat

The Kashmiri Pandits seeing all the ‘angles’ and ‘objectives’ get justifiably disillusioned, now opposing any moves to force them back into Kashmir, now standing up against any implication that denies them access to their ancestral habitat. The result is not only apathy in the official circles towards their return and rehabilitation but also a loss of appreciation, even among their sympathizers, of the seemingly vacillating stances. But then, you need to have lived in Kashmir over decades of political prevarication and suffered the perversion of the secular-democratic pretence to understand their concerns. You need to have seen how this five-seat-strong community had been rendered virtual nonentities in that democratic pretence. You need to have seen the religio-political essence of outfits from the Congress to NC through all the intervening shades, to understand their fears.

Those fears, those concerns are not at focus when different proclivities, proclaim their perspectives on their return. Indeed, the Kashmiri Pandit who is to return and live in Kashmir does not, figure in the plans save as a pawn to be shifted and shuttled around. One wants him there for India, another for the prestige and secular pretence of Kashmir, while others are in it for their political ends. While his differing stand is taken as reluctance, if not a clear disinclination, to return Kashmir, one side is consolidating a Pandit-less Kashmir and another is pressing for a virtual forced return upon them. The Pandit himself, who wants to return to his homeland, the land of the ashes of his fathers and temples of his Gods’, is secondary to all calculations. Naturally inevitably, the calculations fall through when it comes to the ultimate subject the migrant, who is to return.

And return he must, for the simple reason that there is his land and home. That simple reason makes the Pandit cry for Kashmir, pine for it, and look for stratagems by which he could enter Kashmir. It can’t be the clime, neither the heat nor the rains, neither the loss nor the gains, nor employment, nor anything else that can force him to return to Kashmir. It is an urge as simple, as illogical, as reasonless, as anybody’s longing for a return to his roots, his home. The considerations help, the environment helps, but deep down it is just ‘home’ that clinches in it. ‘Home’ and ‘Life’, for who lives after death, eh! It is said that the government is using the return as bait and is angling with it for funds to fill its emptied coffers. That may be so, and the assistance shall also help rehabilitation, but that cannot, shall not, lure the migrants back.

Because, money was never the question. They left behind more money than the government can ever grant. It was open threat, illustrated with cold-blooded murders on the open streets, by the people who are today masquerading as doves of peace, which forced them out of Kashmir. Kashmir then was beginning to get suffused with guns. That Kashmir, is still over-flowing with guns, point men and fidayeen, all dying to score a Godly point for themselves with ‘infidel’ blood. Existence of every non-conforming, non-sympathizing person remains threatened.

Here it is important to point out that the threat to Muslims, of which ever leaning, is not the same. Religion is a crucial factor in Kashmir, if not, the crux of it all. That is how while some Muslim males, did emigrate under threats to life, their families--wives and children included--kept living in Kashmir even in early nineties. That is how while all ministers "live" in their homes there, the lone Pandit in the cabinet can’t. Thus while Begum Abdullah did not budge out of Kashmir, BL Bhat’s mother can’t live in Bijbihara, the ‘normalcy’ blah blah.. notwithstanding. And mind there are "Hindus" living in Handoo’s Anantnag and Bhat’s Bijbihara. A la VP Singh’s kin living in Pakistan?

Yes, there is a religious angle, a significant one at that, which boils down to faith. There are faces that light up hearing of a militant strike, and faces that darken at the prospect, and the twain may never meet. At least not in the foreseeable future, certainly not till the gun is taken out of the hands of the brute majority. And, that may never come about. Or, so all the pontificators on Kashmir hold? Now, living with a marauding force, a looming rifle and a majority lauding its every report, is not an inspiring invitation to return to Kashmir. Why, even the beastly lion does not return to the spot where it has had shots fired upon. And, here is a regular barrage shooting at anything different, anything India, anything opposed to the jehadi freedom.

That leaves for the different Kashmiri, the Indian Kashmiri, the prospect of an eternal exile. And that is quite a harrowing prospect, as the dwindling number, the negative growth, increasing diseases and general disintegration of the Kashmiri Pandit community shows. That is also the prospect of an unlawful, inhuman, illegitimate denial of their rightful homes, to this ethnicity. They have an urge, a lawful claim too, to return to the land of Kashmir. And, that can be realised only by restoring them a rightful place in the Valley. A place that will protect their rights as also their life. A place, which can be defended, where they can mount a viable defense on their own. And, confront the evil designs on a footing of equality. Where they can live with dignity and freedom as the law of this land guarantees its citizenry.