Poshmal is playing in her crèche, while her dad is at work at the municipal corporation office. Right then, her mom had got up from her desk at the State tourism department office for lunch break. She had cooked batt, nadir-daal and dum-aaloo. That’s how her husband liked it for lunch. But then, just when she was about to eat the first morsel, she bumped into this colleague of hers, a 30-something lady. She whispers something into her ear and they exchange terrified looks.
Looks like she will break down any moment. But she struggles hard, maintains her composure and swears under her breath. She has no time to ponder over the entire calamity that has struck; she has no time to wonder how it all happened. All she can think of is her husband’s safety, his well-being. After all, the lady just told her that his name was on the hit list! And, of course, she spares a thought for her daughter, playing in the crèche, oblivious to the impending dangers outside.
Her head heavy with turbulent thoughts, she keeps back the food in the box and starts wrapping up quickly. The thought of her little daughter scares her even more. She hurries with the packing and leaves. Her steps are quick but her thoughts slow; trying to gather all that has happened in the past few weeks. She finally gets herself out of the office and starts pacing towards her daughter.
She wants to call her husband meanwhile but alas! That wasn’t the year of cellphones. She will have to wait for another hour before she reaches his office. Thinking so, she quickens her pace when suddenly she sees that temple. She had been going there right since her childhood. That place had been special to her but today she doesn’t stop to seek blessings, well there is no temple there now. It had been razed a few days ago, just a few remains are left now. She curses under her breath at one moment and the very next moment, her eyes are filled with tears.
Slowly and steadily, the feeling had begun to sink in. It wasn’t random killings of Kashmiri Pandits here and there. It was complete ethnic cleansing; a planned massacre of her community. The sense of fear had been in the air for quite some weeks now. After all, it wasn’t without reason that she had stopped wearing mangalsutra and vermilion. There was a reason why she had stopped bowing her head every time she passed a temple on the road.
There was a reason why her husband used to leave for work at different times every single day and return home at odd hours. Her mother-in-law had stopped going out to buy grocery and the brave grandma preferred staying indoors. The family members would go off to sleep every night listening to the blaring sounds coming from loudspeakers. The life-threatening announcements scared her.
But she still went off to sleep like that on countless nights. But one morning, her heart heavy with fear, she was just outside her room when she saw her neighbour come out. She wanted to speak to her. They had been friends for quite some years now, or that’s what she thought at least. But sadly, Naseem just looked away; like she had never known her. That was when she knew, it was all over. Her homeland, her birthplace, her home, everything would soon be lost! She had hoped to see her neighbours, her friends, protest against whatever was happening but they chose to remain silent!
That moment scared her. She was still thinking about it when a sudden gunshot brought her back to her senses. She rushed to the crèche. Poshmal was still there doing her antics in the cot. She picked her up, ran out of there, went to her husband’s office, trying to keep a straight face. She didn’t trust anyone anymore. She did not want anyone to see the surge of her emotions, the feeling of being betrayed, that feeling of being rendered homeless, the feeling of hatred, and the biggest of all, that feeling of knowing that all she could take with her were her family members.
She walked up to her husband and gave him the news. They exchanged grim looks and left hurriedly. And yet again! While on their way back, they saw their small temple, the Vitaal Bharavi mandir, still not destroyed. The legend was no thief could ever enter that area surrounding the temple and it had held true all these years, but then how were these murderers allowed to come in? Who were they to throw them out of their homeland? Calling them kafirs and making death announcements over speakers; asking them to choose between bullets and their homeland, their sweet homes, their temples, their birthplace, their beautiful memories of a lifetime.
The couple looked at the deity and then at each other and walked past it. They went home, and even before the elders started asking them any question, they started packing up. Poshmal’s dad started giving instructions to all, quickly moving around the house and looking out of the window every now and then. He would see a few army jawans here and there. It gave him confidence. He said to himself, “I will get my family alive out of here.”
Thinking so, he got busy again, and all of them were done in a few hours. After all, they did not have a lot to take along, nor did they have the time to wait any longer. It was 10 in the night already. They had to leave under cover of darkness with the jawans posted there to make sure that the Pandits were taken to safer places.
Safer places meant, out of Kashmir, maybe to Jammu, Udhampur or anywhere; it did not make a difference. Anywhere out of the heaven felt the same. It was just Kashmir which felt privileged. Poshmal would never get to see where she was born, thought her mother. Like the others she would just have to be happy with the stories of the beautiful valley. They were leaving it all behind. They stepped out of the house, got into the truck, with a few other families and drove away. Never to come back to their birthplace. Never to come back to see how their motherland looked like, never to look at those lakes and never to experience the autumn season that looked the most vibrant only in Kashmir. On second thoughts, maybe they did experience the autumns again. After all, that is what they have been experiencing till date.
Like The Chinars that have fallen from their place
The valley too has lost its grace
The heaven doesn’t exist anymore
The charm is gone that Kashmir ever wore
The political gurus make claims lame and tall
The blood of our community is splattered on the wall
We rot somewhere; the media won’t say a word
This human rights violation, it goes unheard!!
(The writer’s email is sapna.mahaldar@gmail.com)
Keywords: Kashmiri Pandits, Kashmir issue, human rights
Excellent write up on the trials and trivulations faced by Kashmiri Pandits.
Being a Kashmiri, as far as I and my fellow friends and family from the community know, married Kashmiri women never applied vermilion and never wore a mangalsutra as written by Ms Mahaldar "...she had stopped wearing mangalsutra and vermilion". They used to wear and still wear "Dejhoor", which has the same significance among the Kashmiri pandit women as the mangalsutra has for the women of northern part of India.
Brilliant writing Sapna!..
Sir,
I applaud The Hindu for giving voice to a community mercilessly hounded
out of their homeland by religious extremists. There is a conspiracy of
silence when it comes to discussing the forced expulsion of Kashmiri
Pandits. It is like denying the occurrence of Holocaust. Any accord on
Kashmir should include compulsory resettlement of the displaced people
in their native places.
How the Kashmiri Pandits are driven from their birth-place. To whom these Kashmiri Pandits should approach to get justification for their plight? Vitaal Bharavi mandir deity only should come to the rescue of these people who have been driven out. Agencies like Amnesty International or similar agencies should help these people.
Great piece.
I am not a Kashmiri but I have fed well on visions from Gul,Gulshan,Gulfam. The TV series we had in the 80s.
Then the charm of Kashmir thorugh Shammi Kapoor movies - Kashmir ki kali and the likes.
Then Salman Rushdie's Midnight's children and the part where he describes how the blue in the Kashmiri sky is from the blue sky that has fallen into them... and Tai the boatman...
Two of my visits to the valley have an ethereal place in the pot of essenses I have, from quite an insignificant life I have had.
Not sure if you can mourn somebody else's loss, something like longing for the era when my parent's were youthful and I wasn't born even!
Hope you get to visit Kashmir as often as you can... Hope that the mad men get weak and the syncretic culture overtakes your homeland.
Even though its lost to you, you are still lucky to have had it.
Dear Sapna,
Your words have summed up the fear the people felt & how systematically they were forced to flee.
You have rightly written that it was a systemic ethnic cleansing of the valley of Kashmiri pandit.
Kashmiri's like me who were school/college going in 90's were worst hit.I have always felt rootless,they was hope initially that we might go back but it was just a illusion we were believing in,hoping that returning to valley was a possibility.
Of course now we go back but as tourists not to resettle there.
I wonder how long before they don't even want us like tourists,in case we feel too comfortable & think about coming back.
This exodus have also worked very well for us as youth in a way that we are getting professional degrees in all areas.
"Like the others she would just have to be happy with the stories of
the beautiful valley".I have never been to kashmir.And my heart ached
reading this beautiful,straight from the heart,writeup.Sapna
Fear gripped our hearts,shadows of danger lurking everywhere
Faith is long lost,there are no answers to any prayer
But the charm will be back,our Heaven will be free of fear and disdain
The leaves may have fallen for now,but autumn will be back again.
Excellent writing. The story represents one of the biggest ethnic cleansing in the history.
The central government, media and citizens of the vibrant democracy called 'India' let it
happen by becoming silent spectators. Kashmiri pandits are refugees in their own country.
This and worse than this has been the story of kashmiri pandits which
went unheard.. Kudos to your true journalism..
why does our great so called secular leaders talk about this and the
media keep mum on this ..does secularism means hitting majority and
upholding minorities???
What the Govt. has done all these long years to rehabilitate these people
Very touching and chilling! Different perspective from kashmir
Beautifully written! One of the best articles I have ever read.
Dear Sapna,
You are an exceptionally brave girl.You did not lose heart even after knowing that your husband was on the hit list.Your love for your family has inspired you to act courageously and bring them to a safe haven.I have learned a lesson from you.Please accept me as your elder brother from the land of Shiwaji Maharaj.His blessings will inspire us to regain the lost paradise for all the Kashmirees.My blessings and regards to you and your family.
Very well written article.
The Islamisation of Kashmir is one of the saddest chapters in the Indian history. The exodus of Hindus ,who were the indigenous people of Kashmir, from Kashmir, which was brought about by the Muslim extremists , was one of the worst of this kind of forcible evacuation of people of one community.
This was akin to the ethnic cleansing of Jews by the Nazis in Germany. This fiasco was , without a shadow of doubt, orchestrated with the help of our fiendish neighbor , i.e , Pakistan. They were activly sponsoring Muslim extremism in Kashmir.
But , it is unbelievable, that our government at the centre remained a mute spectator to this humantarian crisis brought about by this religious fanaticism.
Knowing that the state was gravitating towards a religious turmoil, the central government should have imposed "State Atheism".
This would have prevented people from expressing their religion and disciplined the unruly people.
This is one more heart-wrenching personal account of the predicament of
the Kashmiri Pandits uprooted from their native lands. The media
reports in the past few decades have been flowing into the outside
world incessantly, and there seems to be no respite for the outrageous
acts committed on these innocent men and women—children and the old
people. There seems to be virtually no law-enforcing agencies in
Kashmir, and the State is in the grip of both religious zealots and
other unruly militant offshoots. It is the law of the jungle that
forces them to choose between bullets and their homeland, their sweet
homes, their temples, their birthplace, their beautiful memories of a
lifetime. How can such events happen to people of this land? Is there
an unseen hand that is working against these people? It is time the
Centre and State governments work in unison to bring lasting peace to
this beautiful land and its faultless inhabitants. The charm is gone
that Kashmir ever wore.
Excellent writep.A real narrative of a child grown now in twenties.Experience of pre-exodus phase of a helpless minority given a revisit.Long live the auhor with more ink to her pen.Good prose,simple words articulate expressions and then, a real story.
Will you please ask that Khan (whatever is his name Amir, Salman or Shah Rukh, to project this in one of their movies instead My name is Khan, I am not a terrorist etc. or Satyameva Jayate.
You are right. The media will keep quite. The politicians will keep quite. The Hindu organisations will keep quite. Shiv Sena will show its muscle in matunga and Dadar. BJP will take a procession in and around parliament House, convinent to get back home. Congress, SP, BSP, Communist Parties and the Regional ones will not make sound. From the media's stand point a few less Hindus in Kashmir is not Headline. For the political parties, majority communities woes cannot translated in votes.
This heart rending account moves me. But, it is not the stuff that the Hindu normally publishes. Thanks for publishing it.
If it reaches the eyes of our Government in slumber it would be good. Hope they develop courage to act against the goons.
At last the Hindu has had the courage to publish an article on the
plight of Kashmiri Pandits, a noble community who have contributed so
much to India. Back in the 1990s I grew up on everday news of mass
massacre of Hindus in Kashmir. However, since many years now, the media
along with conniving politicians have chosen to remain silent on the
issue of Pandits, and have instead tried to glorify the separatists'
cause. But the people of India know the facts.
We have apologized and will keep apologizing!
I, a Kashmiri, who happens to be a muslim, was a child when the heaven was led on a path of hell.
I dont want to weigh the injustice done to either sides of our community. One lost his home and the other lost his son, yet the damages are beyond repair.
But I cant end it before mentioning this fact. Many Kashmiri Pandits hold high and dignified posts all over India and are well settled. Many are settled abroad and say that it was a blessing in disguise for em. Notwithstanding these facts the ones who are suffering were the poor ones. They had to take refuge in camps. The state has introduced many policies to rehabilitate K pandits but unfortunately has not been successful enough to re-instill faith in em.
I know that more than 90% Muslims miss their neighbors which includes my family and we still share good relations with em where ever they are, be it over the phone or visits.
A paradise ceases to exist at the first instance of atrocity. I hope poshmal has grown into a smart young women with a vision and values to build a new paradise.
This is a chilling account of the tragedy faced by the Kashmiri
Pandits. Nobody raises their voice for them, because while it is
politically correct to speak for Muslims, it isn't so to speak for
these people, who are also very much a part of the Indian fabric. How
could we let this happen? What happened to our State? Don't our Muslim
sisters and brothers know that having other cultures in their valley is
not a threat to their existence?
This is saddest development of Independent India. we have not cared
for our own people and failed to provide security , which should have
been done , at any cost. when national values started a to be
compromised and manipulated then nation should expect disaster sooner
or later. Moreover, Assam problem is also of same nature , rather
worse. In Assam infiltrators were purposefully allowed to make entry ,
though local population were objecting to such onslaught. More sad
and shocking is that infiltrators are of same stock, who were
actively instrumental in creation of Pakistan,gives a wrong
indication as same people could resort to for same kind of demand .
Now , time has come , whoever rules , they all have to should to
first see National Interest and talk in same language on major issues.
A moving account of the loss one's homeland. It reminded me of what I read regarding the fate of Zoroastrians in Iran after the arrival of Islam. The ones who did not convert to the new faith were systematically marginalized, discriminated against and hounded out, leaving the remaining few to live as refugees outside their homeland. But I am not sure if the case in Kashmir is similar, since it seems to have started after the infamous vote rigging in the state elections by the then Union government, in which case the Indian government is to be held responsible for the current situation as well. The crucial question I have in my mind is whether the Kashmiri separatists considered the pandits as infidels (religious) or as traitors (political)? I hope it is the latter, in which case there is still chance of reconciliation if a future deal is reached with the Union government on the status of the valley.
Killing in the name of faith - how stupid! If people show half the compassion (to life on earth) they show in the zeal for their faith, world will become a better place.
Shame on indian government, which proud itself being a democratic and secular country.
Govenments have repeatedly failed to provide security to it's citizens. All bullies, terrorists should ideally be dealt in the strictest possible way by the state, central governments. There is obvious lack of attention from media and government is cruelly tolerent, for whatever reasons (be it to please the muslims vote bank or surrendering in front of local state parties).
Very poignant. I hope that the emergence of peace in the valley, a
climate is created for the Pandits to return. As a fiercely secular
citizen, I have spoken out time and again against the events in
Ayodhya and Gujarat. The issues faced by Pandits are no less unfair,
and no less a breach of human rights.
Bigotry, hatred and chauvinism are indeed the biggest scourge India
has to eliminate.
Anand
It is distressing to note that this sort ethnic cleansing took place and is still taking place in these modern times. The government needs to provide security and justice at the right time to its people.
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