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Joe Shearer
It seems that the video itself contains at least two distinctive narratives. Two Kashmiri Pandits saying they faced oppression from the start and were marginalized long ago and one old timer claiming peaceful times between communities and the known terror wave.
So does this mean that the Kashmiri Pandits were never accepted in the first place and were doomed to be thrown out ?? did the local Muslim populace use the aid from across the border as a tool ?? If so i am forced to ask the question how long will the valley be held with army presence not that any country can wrest it from us but from the people per se.
If the narrative lies some where middle then may be there is hope that some day in future things can change ??
What I know about relations between the communities is based on conversations with friends both among Kashmiris who are Muslim, and KPs, on the accounts on
Insaniyat of our senior member, a former bureaucrat of very high standing from J&K and from published literature available to us all.
Apparently, the Dogra rule had marginalised the Kashmiri Muslim, and Sheikh Abdullah's struggle was for democratic rights
for all Kashmiris. This was rigidly opposed by the Durbar, and it was Abdullah's alliance with the INC which got him to power in 1947. Thereafter, significant steps were taken for the upliftment of Kashmiri Muslims, but there was still an inbuilt advantage that educated Pandits had, being generationally ahead of the others. The poor of the community, and the majority were poor, along with their neighbours, enjoyed no advantage, but what was seen was the picture at the top, where educated people from both communities fought it out. This was not a competition marked by bitterness, and at other levels, the close cultural bonds and ties continued. This seamless, syncretistic culture is what commentators are given to calling Kashmiriat, a way of life unique to Kashmir.
What happened next was ghastly. When the temperature grew, and foreign money and arms started flowing in again, there was also a radicalization of Islam within the Vale. What was once acceptable was no longer acceptable; bonds with Kaffirs were also seen as a sign of weakness in people's loyalty to Islam, and it became more and more acceptable to take extreme attitudes towards the small number of Kashmiri Pundits who remained. There may also have been the malign influence of Jag Mohan Malhotra, an evil figure who looms over those days. There is a possibility that he took advantage of the growing tension to frighten the Kashmiri Pandits further, and to convince them that they were increasingly unsafe.
The actual events are not recorded in mutually acceptable fashion. The Pandits claim that they were given ultimatums to leave their homes and go out of the Vale. Muslims hotly deny this and claim either that the Pandits panicked, or that they were driven to panic by malignant forces.
My understanding is that things have changed, but many don't want to accept that there has been this change. I believe that the short term prognosis is uncertain because of the incompetent administration; the medium term is good as more and more Kashmiris find out to their surprise that life in the rest of India is a viable option; the long term is excellent as more and more Kashmiris integrate with life and the economy outside the vale.
