By J.N. Zutshi

According to a rough estimate during the recent decades appoximately 1000 to 1500 Kashmiri Pandit families have migrated to and settled in various parts of the Jammu regio9n. The bulk of the emigrants have taken up residence in the satellite colonies of Jammu city. Most have built their houses on small pieces of land in congested, uncongenial and mosquito-infected localities. However, nearly 200 of the households have been fortunate in securing government plots of varying sizes on concessional rates in Gandhinagar and surrounding neighbourhoods. Environmentally and in the material sense they constitute perhaps the cream of the post-1947 migrant settlers from Kashmir. Most of them having been pensioned off from Government service count for little now and havwe lost much of the pretsige and influence they once commanded. But like the rest of their community they have come here to stay permanently.

Let no one imagine that a Kashmiri, Hindi or Muslim, is happy to quite Kashmirif the every paradise is offered to him in exchange. Departing from the land of his forefathers which is blessed by mainfild bounties of Nature gives him suchj a severe heart ache that he cannot get over it all his life. It has been truly said that a Kashmiri compelled to settle outside the Valley literally pants for breath and wriggles and writhes in pain like a fish pulled out of water.

Hence few among Kashmiri Pandits who have made the Jammu region their home are herey by choice. May be their women-folk find the general social atmosphere in Jammu more congenial than obtains in Kashmir at times but as a community Kashmiri Pandits are not the kindof people used to taking to their heels in panic. The bulk of them stuck tothe Valley even during the worst of Pathan times and as a matter of fact many rose to positions of eminence.It is true that an average Pandit faced by danger uses a lot of discretion but he is in no sense a coward. This was amply borne out by the fact that in 1947 when Pakistan was battering at the gates of Srinagar, their women-folk continuedd singing and merry-making even during curew hours, this being a marriage season. So what have been the compulsions which have made numbers of Pandit families to migrate from Kashmir to planes, including the Jammu region, during recent times?

First and foremost search for lelihood. They sensed in time that with the spread of education and break-up of the feudal system, other communities in the state would come into their own before long and hence they must seek a broader field, where bcause of their small number, they would have a better chance to be conveniently absorved in a fast developing economy. So thousands of them bade good-bye to Kashmir and made their way to every corner of thecountry, a few hundred going beyond the seven seas. For those desiring to stay close to the Valley, Jammu offered the best altnerative. Of course, jobs are hard to get here to but the Jammu society is not immobile as in Kashmir. There is no dearth of avenues in professions, business and trade. It is a busy place all the year round and connected with the rest of the country directly by rally. Compared with the conditions obtaining in Kashmir, it is not closed territory where paroch and narrow widealogies find a ..til soil to flourish. No doubt reginoalism and casteis.. become dominanton this side Banihal at certain times but with growing prosperity of the region these are bound to weaken another decade or so.

Now that over 1500 Kashmiri Pandit families have made the region their home, it is in the own interests to see that it maintains the closest possible link with Kashmir. This requires.. the part of Kashmiri settlers.. associate themselves fully with the demand of the people of the region to be given a fair de.. There is no reason, for instance why if the Chief Minister has from Kashmir, the post of Deputy Chief Minister should not be entrusted to a pers.. belonging to Jammu. There is reason why among the secretaries and major heads deprtments half shouldnot.. manned by people known by the generic term Dogras .. include besides the Hindu Harijans and Muslims .. dothers whose mother-tongue Dogri sharing a common style living. Of the Muslim inhabitants who are in minority, it should be of spec.. interest to Kashmiri Pandits see that they are provided w.. full opportunities of growth w.. full opportunities of growth w.. other sections of the population inhabiting this region.

I feel that as in the Valley where they played a significant role in raising their voice in support of demand for freedom press and platform in the thirt.. and later in the forties, joining their hands with secular a.. democratic forces, they should work tirelessly for the good of the people of Jammu to whatever caste or creed they may belong is time that they become part parcelof Jammu’s social set.. and discard their vain effort maintain a separate identity. They should guard against.. temptation of projecting the own brand of communalism sour the relations of the .. regions, they should act bridges of good will between different communities and cases that together and united the people of Jammu and Kashmir progress andprosperityr

A Kashmiri Pandit

If Kashmir happens to be a Jurik-shop, a Kashmiri Pandit is a prized objected art of the show-room of this shop. He is more archaie than ancient archeology of this country and by slow degrees he himself is getting reduce to the status of an archeological shard. In his physical evolution he seen to have stunted and stultified resulting in the shrinkage and wilting of his body-limbs and their dimensins.

Many medical practitioners of varied hues wrote prescriptions to bring about sea-changes in him. Such prescriptions were applied and administered, but none proved more efficacious and effective than the one prescribed by Madan Mohan Malviya. Even today he is under medical treatment. Not only his physical condition but also his meant state inunder examination. He is found broad-minds and well poised and no religious imposition has rust belted his mind and intellect. Tht how any westerner or easterner, black or white, Hindu or Musalman can strut about the thorough fares of his mind.

One will not miss to mark that Mahtma Gandhi with his milk goat treads through the open channels of his mind and Joseph Stalirrn his Red Army storm-troops the wide fares of his mental world. The path-ways of his mind are trodden upon by Hitler and Mausolini. Even Churchill can be witnessed to stroll about them. The thorough-fares of his mind are dotted with the Buddhist churches, the Christian cathedrals, the abodes of Mohammad and temples of Lord Krishna.

The intellect of a Kaswhmiri Pandit is an abundantly fertile creative field. But, regrettably, the verdant cropof ‘clerical mental profusely grows there. The products of his field have no buyers But that time is not distant andin fact,is fast-approaching when a Kashmiri Pandit will employ new tools andimplements to cultuivate his mind-field and produce quality products of considerable market value.

In contrast to his intellectual breadth his mind presents different shade. It is a narrow and limited alley, one end of which is carefully guarded by Manu, the law given and the other end is vigiled by ‘clerical mentality’ buttressed by a broken pen. Need of the hour is to widen the alley of his mind to cope with the heavy pressures of this jet age. As deft engineers are wanting, so this programme failed to be executed.

After the saga of his physical and intellectual condition his politics requires a definition. His intellectual potencies have height eved the horizons of his politics. Perhaps the limitations of his heart and mind have not been able to limit his politics. Had our country not been plagued by religious equations,majority-minority problem and resurrectionof Kashmir.. as a game of numbers, he would not have measured his position .. of majority politics and labelled it as pragmatic approach. Actually is politics commences with ‘administrative biscuits’ and nds at ‘minority mixture’. But it is only a passing phase of his politics. He occupies a specniche in the country’s politics and the face remains that hsi ‘reserved position cannot be filled inby any peson in the country.

So far his religion goes,he is a victim of intellectual and sentimental contradictions. He would like to abandon his conservative moorings, but cannot give them a short shrift. He is free from religious superficialities though he seems to be enmeshed in them. His religious and sociallife is by and large controlled by his spouse. She presents a contrast tothe mental and intellectualpotencies of her husband.

In the managementof house-hold affairs he has abdicate in favourof his esteemed wife. She sometimes gives him a jolt and sen him reeling in consternation.He is immediately captured by the psychic state of having lost taste in life and affairs mundance.

The hobbies of a Pandit are quite fascinating. To illustrate, he is highly enamoured of a dish called ‘rogan josh’. In the day he avidh laps it up and inthe right he devotes himself to the intensive reading of ‘Kalyan’, a religious magazine. His brahmnical sense stirsup when he finds animals and insects writhing in pain and agony. When he goes to circumambulate round the Hari Prabhat hillock he must carry along a sufficient quantity of rice whatever may be its cost in the market. He fees ants and other insects as a matter of religious obligation. But, strangely, the agonising squirms of his widowed daughter or daughter-in-law donot stir him into a state of compassion.He is apathetic unto her.

He is extremely interested in the movements of stars and planets. He listens with rapt attention to the effects that stars and planets have on his fate and chores of life. In this his interests are akin to the people who bet on horses in Derby race. He is an ardent believer in the strong nexus between astronomy and human destiny.

He firmlyholdsin his frail hands the stringof actions committed in past life. His Brahmanicalsense is skirted off on festurties like marriage and ‘house-entering’ ritual and feels no wrong in sipping a pint of whisky or a glass of local brew which tansports him into rapturous joy.

In fine, this Kashmiri Pandit, an amazing being of the ‘garden of eternal beauty’, is a class in matters of taste and hobbies. Without him this garden loses its beauty and resplendence. In his protracted life in history he was engulfed by turbulent storms and perilous waves. After the calm prevailed he was found standing his ground, least unsettled and singing a song