Kashmiri Pandits Yearn for Valley but Trusting BJP is a Major Issue

“I clearly don’t remember the date, but it was around winters in 1990, that I left the valley and it has been 24 years since then, I have not gone back to Kashmir and I don’t think it will happen anytime soon”. With a heavy heart and his eyes fixed at a portrait of a frozen Dal Lake in his home, he still remembers the shiver of the winter which still runs down to his spine. Now settled in Indian capital New Delhi, 68 year old Balji Kachroo, an Indian occupied Kashmiri Pandit left the valley during the exodus of 1990.

Jammu and Kashmir is reeling under severe floods, but for Pandits, every tear-drop in all these years have flooded their heart and minds with pain and anguish of being thrown and kept away from their homeland.

Kashmiri Pandits are the only Hindu community native to the state of Kashmir. Like him there are around 19,000 Indian Kashmiri pandits registered in Delhi and to encapsulate their votes in the Jammu and Kashmir elections likely to be held in December or January, the Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) is in the process of finalizing a new package for the rehabilitation of Kashmiri migrants.

According to a report published in the newspaper Greater Kashmir on 21 August, they have mentioned that BJP is doing a door to door campaign in the areas where Pandits have a good presence. Bharat Bhushan, in-charge of BJP’s Migrant Cell in the state said, “The first goal of the party is to encourage all the Kashmiir Pandits to enroll for the forthcoming assembly elections and urge them to vote. Our goal is to win over the trust of entire Kashmiri Pandit population.”

However, for Kachroo, he is skeptical of the announcement made by the BJP, he says, “BJP don’t have any plans as such, and they don’t even have the full knowledge about this rehabilitation process, suppose they ask us to move, where I will go? Where will they provide us home and most importantly security?” He believes that making such promises don’t count until one has a substantial plan for carrying it out.

Kachroo sold his home at a very nominal rate before fleeing to Jammu and from there he came to Delhi. Though all these years of unwillingness from the political parties have let him down a lot but he still carries a hope of visiting-staying and “dying” in Kashmir.

Image Courtesy: wikipedia.org

Similar concern is raised by Akshima Kalla, a 22-year old student, who thinks that the rehabilitation is too late and BJP is doing nothing and are only taking an advantage of the situation.

Although her ‘Kashmiriness’ varies from Kachroo, as she was born and raised up and Delhi, and for her going back Kashmir makes no sense as she has her career in Delhi.

Unlike them is a 50-year old businessman Sanjay Kher who has welcomed this decision from the BJP, “I think this is the first time a political party is serious about rehabilitating us, all we want is recognition and Kashmiri pandits should go back and we should live together with all the Kashmiris.”

Kher expresses his anguish at the fact that Kashimiri Pandits are worse than refugees, he and his clan know what internal displacement means, having lived like refugees in their own country since 1990.

Lined up on the table are dry fruits served with Kashmiri Kahawa tea, that he thinks embodies in all the Kashmiris even if they have left the valley, the culture, tradition and the values are still alive.

An estimated 3 lakh pandits left the valley in the 1990s, reduced to living the lives of refugees outside Kashmir. In what appeared to be in a hurry, they left back almost everything that their lives were based upon, carrying only the memories which were full of trauma and tragedy of being uprooted.

After the exodus, most Kashmiri Pandits were hopeful that one day they will return back to the valley, but they waited and have been waiting since then, days have elongated into months, months into years and years to decades of exile and the end is nowhere in sight.

“This is the chinaarbagh and this is near the Dal Lake”, BL Ganjoo , an 80-year old retired Mathematics professor from Kashmir University, often look at his old photo albums and tries to recollects all the memories that he had left behind.

Image Courtesy: wikipedia.org

Mr. Ganjoo is one of the Kashmiri Pandit, who left the valley during the mass exodus of 1990. “It was during the intervening night of 14-15 April that a mosque near my house started sounding alarm bells and an announcement came that was referred to us (Pandits) to immediately leave the valley.” He panicked and left Kashmir though his brother chose to stay back.

For Ganjoo, age is a major issue for him to go back now and having settled in Delhi, and at the last phase of his career he doesn’t want to leave his friends. Though the yearning for their homeland is still confined to his dreams and others like him cherish of once again seeing their apple orchids and chinaar trees.

He is not sitting at the dining table for dinner; sitting cross-leg on the Kashmiri wooden plank to have the Kashmiri style dinner, Ganjoo asks for mutton and gently smiles and says that Kashmiri Pandits are the only non-vegetarian pandits in the country.

Uzair Hasan Rizvi is a Freelance Journalist and a journalism student at AJK Mass Communication Research Centre, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, India. He tweets @rizviuzair

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are the author's personal views, and do not necessarily represent the views of Newsclick