Another crude joke with kashmiri
Pandits
K.N.
Pandita
Both the Houses of J&K
Legislative Assembly have adopted a one sentence “unanimous” resolution saying.
“all the political parties should put in all out efforts at their disposal for
creating a conducive atmosphere for the safe return of all the migrants
especially Kashmiri Pandits, who had to migrate from Kashmir valley to other
parts of the country under difficult circumstances''.
Nothing is more uncharitable and
ridiculous than responding to the twenty-seven years old issue of ethnic
cleansing of Kashmir and extirpation of its millennia old indigenous group from
their homes and hearths with just one gratuitous sentence.
The tone and tenor of a lone
sentence wrapped in carefully chosen high-sounding parliamentary terminology,
and given the name of “Resolution,” is unmistakable indication that that its
proponents have other motives than the antics of humanism. They are playing crude politics with those who do not at all count
in their political chemistry. It is another joke with
them.
We are told that it is the
first ever resolution adopted by J&K Assembly on a sensitive issue, which
Kashmir political class and its diehard champions in New Delhi ---- in or out of
government---, have always treated with disdain. For more than a quarter of a
century when this community is in exile, the Assembly never felt the need of
making even a customary show of humanistic gesture leave aside passing a
resolution and that too unanimous. Pandits will not succumb to political
gimmicks.
The person who mooted the idea,
almost out of the blue, in the Lower House of the Assembly, himself held the
reins of government for two consecutive terms. Prior to him, his father also
rode the tide of power for a long time. Neither of the two ever felt the need of
bringing in such a resolution during their tenure. Now that Omar is swearing by
humanism, a word that did not exist in his political lexicon all this quarter of
a century has suddenly become a champion of the cause of humanism and a
benefactor of the exiled community.
This explains that there is
something more than what meets the eye. Firstly, why did the humanitarian
sensitivity fail to prick the conscience of the leader of the opposition who
himself enjoyed power for two consecutive terms during which he was at the helm
of affairs?
Secondly, the text of the
one-sentence resolution is denuded of all historicity and contextual background.
It is randomly incoherent with neither a prologue nor en epilogue.
Is the option of creating conducive
atmosphere in the hands of the legislators or the separatists and
secessionists? If it is in the
hands of legislator then they have been deliberately and purposefully vitiating
the atmosphere all these nearly three decades. The resolution is not going to
change their hearts.
But if it is not in their hands,
then the resolution is futile and irrelevant. It makes an appeal to the
legislators but not to the people of the State, the people who fiercely opposed
the return and rehabilitation of the internally displaced Pandits jointly
proposed by late Mufti Saeed and PM Modi in New Delhi. It has to be recollected
that most of the legislators in the Lower House of the Assembly who
“unanimously” voted for the resolution are the very persons who had created huge
ruckus in this very house against the return of the Pandits when announcement by
the then chief minister and the Prime Minister. Even some MLAs from the ruling
group were accomplices in that ruckus. How come this change of heart happened
overnight?
After passing the Resolution in the
Assembly, what stops them from reverting to the old antics of hunting with the
hound and running with the hare?
The Resolution proposes “safe
return” of Kashmiri Pandits. Who will ensure their safety? When armed insurgency
surfaced in 1989-90 in Kashmir, the NC-Congress coalition government of the day
abandoned power and their stalwarts hid either in a foreign country or in the
Government quarters in Jammu to escape the wrath of the insurgents leaving the
Pandit religious minority to the mercy of the jihadis with drawn swords. Will
such governments provide safety to the returning IDPs? Pandits don’t live in a
world of illusion.
Will the State police provide them
security, the same police that deserted their posts and stations and joined in
drones the armed insurgents providing them logistical support? Most of the
killings of Pandit government functionaries and in central and state
intelligence services took place on the identification by the local police.
And lastly, remains the role of army
and Para-military forces. But the State government, mainstream political
parties, Hurriyatis and diehard extremists all demand that army be withdrawn,
paramilitary forces be withdrawn and only local police should be seen on the
streets of the towns and villages of Kashmir. What security can the army or
Para-military forces provide to the Pandits when these forces themselves are on
slippery wicket? It is not humanly possible to deploy paramilitary and military
force to protect each and every Pandit household.
The best security for a religious
minority is the good will of the majority community. But in a situation of
surcharged religious frenzy, which is a handy instrument with all extremists
segments of mainstream or non-mainstream political parties in Kashmir, security
of the religious minority becomes a casualty. The Resolution has not said a word
in elucidation of ‘security’ it is
pontificating.
The Resolution deliberately avoids
mentioning the real cause of extirpation of the religious minority from Kashmir
in the aftermath of armed insurgency in 1990. It attributes their exodus to
“under difficult circumstances”. Any historian, researcher or student reading
this Resolution fifty years from now, will never be able to imagine what the
“difficult circumstances” were.
In Kashmir, there was armed insurgency sponsored from outside,
welcomed by the locals and deftly handled by experienced and battle hardened
intelligence sleuths who had accumulated vast experience of conducting identical
operations in Af-Pak region for many years. It was a meticulously planned and
most efficiently as well as secretly conducted proxy war against India in which
the Hindus of Kashmir were made primary target of armed
jihadis.
By using the term “difficult
conditions” the Resolution absolves the murderers, terrorist, looters, vandals
and all who played major role in killing and extirpation of the religious
minority of the Pandits followed by loot and arson of their homes and
properties. These are not “difficult conditions” but a situation of gravest
threat, premeditated, planned and executed with deadly
thrust.
By passing a resolution that
carefully and cleverly sidetracks the facts of history and the ramifications of
ethnic cleansing of a minuscule religious community in the only Muslim majority
State of the Indian Union, a big question mark is put on the concept of
secularism propounded by the State of Jammu and
Kashmir.
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