Hate us for this too..

“Without raising their voice, they decided to pool money from their meagre resources to perform the last rites of Asiya Bi's deceased brother…”

When Asiya got the news of her brother's death she was consoled by Kashmiri migrant women all through the night. Her only son Ajaz Ahmad Mir stayed back in the hospital to bring back his uncle's dead body for last rites…”

“The last rites were performed by Kashmiri Pandits with the help of few local Muslims at a local graveyard in Janipur…”

“After performing the last rites Shambu Nath said, "Asiya Bi has been living in their neighbourhood and it is their responsibility to share each others grief and sorrow. Kaul said, "When we came to know that Ghulam Mohi-ud-Din died in the hospital on Sunday evening, we started making arrangements to perform his last rites. In the absence of Muslims in the vicinity, we decided to perform the last rites and collected money to ensure all rites were performed without facing shortage of money…"

By Mohit Kandhari, Jammu, The Pioneer

Link - The Daily Pioneer

Thus continues a legacy of compassion, generosity and efforts to unite. Like always the Kashmiri Pandits decided to lend out a helping hand even if it meant making an excruciating effort for last rites of some people from the majority community- some fanatics of which destroyed their culture, traditions and lives. A way of life in the midst of crisis, the Hindus in Kashmir still remain expectant of a peaceful future. Watching the massacre of their brethren by their own neighbours, Pandits are undefeated.

Weapons are still not an option; retaliation still not an excuse; vengeance still not a preference. We, as a community, might remain ambiguous of our future but we still store resilient hope close to our hearts.

We, as a community, maintain a dignified separation between fanatics and innocent followers of religious faith. A certain writer Suhail Showkeen might echo frightful thoughts where he believes that Islam and Kashmiriyat/Secularism/Nationalism contradict each other.

Link - Sarai Reader's List (The web edition of Greater Kashmir for strange reasons, no longer has this article listed in its archives.) However, the educated community of Kashmiri Pandits regards its culture as equal to the sovereignty of our state. Maybe he (like the seperatists) ought to take an advice or two from us.

However, Kashmiriyat remains a misnomer to us having witnessed slaughter like a torrid chain every decade. The word is enforced in the press as if there has never been a problem between the communities before terrorism emerged in 1990. However, if there’s such a term at all, the minority Hindu community is a model of that exemplary strength unseen in today’s Kashmir.

The potency of those few family members who arranged for the last rites of their Muslim neighbours goes on to prove their efforts to formulate a Kashmiriyat never heard before:- ‘amity to reject successive violence’. The writer would like to believe that there have been efforts from the Muslim side too, even though I am yet to see from my own eyes to judge.

As separatists try and shift their tag from an Islamist foundation to a secular hypothesis, they have a long way to go before they prove their false argument.

Till then the angelic souls (like mentioned in the article above) are performing their duties without screaming out their secularism.

Sometimes little efforts can do for the state what the jingoistic communal revolutionaries have failed at.

We have the ability to bring out that change… and we are not afraid to flaunt it. Like always.

The author Sonzal is based in New Delhi.