Epilogue

 

So this is my story, a collage of events pulled from eight decades of life. Many of these experiences have been happy and fulfilled by commitments kept to my family, my students and my neighbours. They have been sustained by the many friendships received, fortified by my belief in the innate goodness of people, yet tempered by disappointments too.

 

Others are similar, but perhaps less traumatic than those of other Kashmiri Pandits in the lead up to their exodus from the Valley. Many had built new houses and had invested their futures there, but had to abandon it all to seek refuge in squalid tents on the outskirts of Jammu and Delhi. The hardships they suffered were heart breaking. Bereft of their identity and homes, they wilted in the heat of the Indian plains. An intellectual numbness seemed to overwhelm the community. Many died prematurely, suffering from depression, disease or distress, while pining for home.

 

The central government beset by fractious politics and lacking clear objectives, engaged in political gamesmanship and ignored the rising tide of Islamic fundamentalism in the Valley. It soon had to confront a raging fire which it found hard to control, forcing Governor Jagmohan to resort to curfews, security clampdowns and searches. These harsh measures created great hardships and sufferings for the common people, and reinforced the Kashmiri Muslims’ negative attitude towards India. An angry and anguished generation grew up having seen only violence between the security forces and the militants. Both showed little respect for the common Kashmiri, many of whom got caught in between.

 

For years, the Valley was dominated by the mosque, the militants and the security forces. The militants, who held sway in the early to mid-nineties, eventually abandoned their fight due to differences in ideology, personal suspicions and a sense of exhaustion. A belated realisation also dawned on many Kashmiri Muslims that the dalliance with aazadi was causing immense damage to their lives, especially to the education of their youth.

 

Many Kashmiri Pandits, who had survived for years in refugee camps, moved into shoddy tenements on the outskirts of Jammu. The government wanted to deflect questions that a refugee problem existed thus making the search for a solution more difficult. One hundred or so were given jobs and resettlement packages as a pre-condition for them to return to the Valley. They now live under police protection there. Such an existence does little to build a sense of confidence for their future in the Valley. Instead, it reinforces a siege mentality and of being an alien in one’s own land.

 

Others attempted to restart their lives across India and the globe. Many can now be found in Mahendar Nagar, Jammu or even Melbourne, Australia. If and when they return to visit the Valley, they can only look fleetingly at what were once their homes, their places of worship, or familiar haunts, but now are no more. The plural character of the Valley has been reduced, portending a decline of secularism there.

 

Despite the uncertain security situation, assembly elections were held in 1996, after President’s rule ended in the state. This returned the National Conference, led by Farooq Abdullah, to power. This was a welcome start in that an elected government started to function. At the end of its term in 2002, a coalition government, formed by the People’s Democratic Party and the Congress, came to power. The elections of 2008 returned the National Conference, led by Omar Abdullah, scion of the Abdullah family, to power.

 

At each successive election the All-Party Hurriyat Conference, called for a boycott. However, larger and larger numbers of Kashmiris participated, thus demonstrating their belief that the ballot system is the best means for change. The idea of a carefree Shikara-ride, a picnic to Nishat Bagh or a walk in the fields of purple saffron, surfaced anew. Each passing year grudgingly yielded signs of peace and a semblance of normalcy returned. Sporadic incidents of violence are now largely confined to the areas bordering Pakistan. Tourism has made a comeback and horticulture has picked up too.

 

However, the current superficial calm hides deep resentments which course deeply through the psyche of the militants and many Kashmiri Muslims. For all they care, tourists can visit as they please, spend money to boost the economy and leave. It is the Kashmiri Pandits who are missing from the Valley.

 

The summer mirth can be easily washed away in cloudbursts of violence, set-off by an obscure event, the call of a firebrand, a video produced somewhere in the world, or by the ISI, which for years aided many shadowy groups tacitly in the belief that it was costly to India but cheap to itself. Fearful of the insidious impact of these groups on its own society, the ISI has cut its materiel support to the militants. However, it keeps the pot on the boil while artfully maintaining a position of plausible deniability.

 

Pakistan may be partially to blame, but it is the Indian politicians with their quixotic positions, their resort to identity-based politics, to obscure political calculations and to dynastic rule, to whom the finger points. Appeasement, drift, and an inability to convert tactical successes into strategic gains hobble India’s policy makers. The government seems unable to learn from lessons of the past. It also is reluctant to use the law against religious fanatics or those who commit violence for political purposes. In doing so, it succeeds spectacularly in alienating all law-abiding citizens.

 

Each thinking Indian must demand to know the government’s policy on Jammu & Kashmir. Anti-Muslim speeches in India only serve to strengthen the Islamist ideologues in the Valley. What is needed is a coherent policy developed in the light of democratic debate, implemented in a realistic approach and not one that keeps racing from fire to fire, rudderless and swayed by opportunistic considerations. Democracy although messy, noisy and difficult, requires both the government and the governed to follow the rule of law.

 

Kashmir continues to be a big commitment. The challenge is to address the aspirations of the majority while ensuring the safety and dignity of all groups other than the majority. This challenge is made more complex because the majority, split along the Shia-Sunni divide, is not of like mind. The Kashmiri Pandits do not figure in any politician’s calculus, and are out of the picture. Nevertheless, if India is to remain a secular democracy the rights of all its citizens, whether living in Kashmir Valley or elsewhere, must be upheld.

 

The bureaucracy continues to label us as ‘Kashmiri Migrants.’ The label is catchy and like all labels, is easy to apply. However, the government refuses to accept that its failure to allow freedom of political expression and to confront the Islamist ideologues in the Valley, encouraged and stoked the militancy. The fact is that nearly all Kashmiri Pandits were intimidated, directly or indirectly by Islamic terrorism, and forced to flee the Valley. The sting of the exodus, though dulled now, shoots up like a phantom pain when news on Kashmir is reported. Whether the ethos of tolerance can be resurrected in the younger generations and whether psychological unity with the rest of India can be achieved, is anyone’s guess. Will the Kashmiri Muslim youth reject the stridency of the Wahhabi mullahs who are fuelling a nihilistic ideology of sectarian hatred, or will they stay true to Kashmir’s Sufi Islam with its eclectic emphasis on tolerance and peaceful coexistence? Can a Kashmiri Pandit, if he so desires, go back to his ooul in the Valley, to live there permanently in peace and dignity, and not be seen as a bird of passage?

 

This idea, where Kashmir is once again borne on the pillars of plurality, progressiveness and peace, can only be imagined by an idealist. It is, however, not beyond the call of insaniyat (humanity). Then alone can we expect to achieve real aazadi – a state that sets us free from the poverty of ignorance, of intolerance, of narrow mindedness and of opportunism.