Am I a Pappu ?

Kamal Hak

Nowadays I am scared to indulge in my favourite pastime while driving. Mind you I drive around four hours every day. I am very hesitant to tune it to any FM station for some nerve soothing music. It is not that suddenly music doesn’t hold my interest anymore. It is the intermittent messages declaring the people who won’t vote as Pappu that is giving me a complex. I realize I have been a Pappu all my life. Strange as it may appear but the fact remains in half a century of my life I have never voted.

But, am I really a Pappu?

Like any youngster, I still remember the day when my name appeared in the electoral rolls for the first time. It gave a strange feeling and the confidence of being an adult. I thought it also developed a parental feeling in me as my younger siblings started appearing like children who needed to be taken care of. I also remember an hour long wait in a long queue before gaining entry to the room in the Govt. Girls Primary School near my home, where the polling officers gave you the ballot paper. I also remember the disappointment and the humiliation after all this being told my vote had already been cast. That day my faith in my Muslim neighbours received a serious dent. That day my belief in the might of Indian democratic institutions also diminished. Subsequently, I chose to be a Pappu than face the humiliation. After every election, my caring neighbours would dutifully inform me that the records will show I have cast my vote.

For last nineteen years I have been living in Delhi NCR. I am a registered voter in my local constituency. I also have a voter card. The electoral officer in my erstwhile Srinagar constituency must either be obliged to my family, most unlikely, or may have taken me as Kamaal Haq, more likely. My name still appears in the electoral rolls there. I have never felt inclined to vote here. Some how and I may be wrong, I have always felt my voting here will suit my tormentors in valley and take me further away from my homeland.

Don’t be a Pappu.
It is not only the media, NGO’s and the election commission that is urging me. I am amused some of my own community men also have joined the bandwagon of ‘don’t be a Pappu.’ They want me to strengthen the very process that threw me out of my homeland. Nevertheless, I thought may be they are right. I am now prepared to pin my hopes on the democratic process for bringing me succor.

Please guide and advise me.
There are more than twenty candidates for Srinagar constituency. Nearly all of them including Autar Krishan Pandita of BJP are there just for a symbolic presence. Khalida Shah, wife of Gul Shah and sister of Farooq Abdullah is also not seen as making any significant difference.. The contest is mainly between Farooq Abdullah and Moulvi Ifftikhar Ansari of PDP.
Shall I vote for Farooq Abdullah, a founder member of JKLF and the chief patron of uprising in Kashmir, who abdicated his moral, political and constitutional responsibility towards me in my hour of need? Or shall I vote for Ansari, a perennial turncoat who represents a political party that considers me as a pariah?

I don’t mind being a Pappu.
I don’t want the people of Kashmir, the governments of J & K and India to ever believe every thing is alright with me and I have forgiven them. Either way my vote will not make any significant difference to my plight or state of affairs in this country. But as a Pappu I will always have a satisfaction of being a mirror which reflects the nation’s failures.

I can now tune in to my music station.
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The author Kamal Hak is a political analyst based in Noida, near New Delhi. Hak is the National Spokesperson of Panun Kashmir. He can be reached at kamalhak@yahoo.com

The Minorities also want their voices heard-Tanya Asharneea(Hindustan Times)

Click on the image to enlarge
Text:
The minorities also want their voices heard

Aditya Raj Kaul (19), a Kashmiri Pandit, has lived in Delhi for 18 years. But when it comes to exercising his franchise, he wants to do so as a Kashmiri.
“My family fled Kashmir when I was one, but I am extremely attached to my homeland. In the elections, I would like to vote as a Kashmiri, rather than a Delhi resident,” said Kaul, who is also the founder of Roots in Kashmir, a youth group of Kashmiri Pandits.
“As we did not willingly leave Kashmir, we feel the election commission should take steps to ensure that our voices are heard in the state,” Kaul said.
The sentiment echoes amongst several young Kashmiris. Forced to flee their homeland twenty years ago, they feel disheartened by the electoral system and say the process of voting for a migrant Kashmiri is discouraging.
The election commission has set up four polling booths in Delhi and one in Udhampur for Kashmiri migrants to vote. However, a sizeable number of Kashmiri migrants also live in other cities like Bangalore, Mumbai and Pune. “It is unfair that while others get a day off to vote, we are expected to take leave and fly to Delhi or Jammu to vote,” said 22 year-old Pooja Shali. She said such a process could erase Kashmiri Pandits from the geographical horizon and voters’ lists of Kashmir.
Kashmiris in the city are also against the compulsory M-forms (migration form) that they have to fill while voting. “The M-form system should be deleted from the process to ease the lengthy enrollment and voting process,” Kaul said, adding that even the ‘migrant’ term pains them. “We were forced out at gunpoint, so we feel the term is derogatory,” he said.
Church puts in a word
The Federation of Catholic Associations of Delhi (FCAD) believes that Delhi’s Christians — 3.5 lakh in number — should play a more proactive role in the polls and has urged them to vote.
“The community has not always had an easy time in playing their political role. Over 70,000 domestic workers from Orissa and Jharkhand remain disenfranchised, without a ration card. Another segment of the floating population, working nurses and the working class, have no vote,” said John Dayal, Christian activist and secretary general of the All India Christian Council.
Jenis Francis, FCAD president, stressed the minority choose a party that shuns sectarian politicians and has a secular record. “We should choose a party that ensures that minorities and poor are not demonised,” he said.

Press Coverage of "Elections for you:Exile for Us"

TRIBUNE

Kashmiri Pandits demand Voter ID Cards

New Delhi, May 3Covering their mouths with a black cloth, hundreds of Kashmiri Pandits today protested against the alleged discrimination faced by them at the hands of the government and the Election Commission. The Pandits were holding a dharna at Jantar Mantar.
The protesters demanded that the voting procedure for them should be simplified to ensure their full participation in the democratic process. They also asked for the issuance of voter ID cards for them.
An agitated protestor, Kulwinder Sharma said, “Despite the assurance of Chief Election Commissioner in this regard, nothing has been done so far. We have to fill in migrant forms—M-forms—in our own country. It is extremely painful. We are not migrants but refugees in our own country. We are Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) under the United Nations guidelines,” Sharma added.
Another protestor said, “We fail to understand why this M-form system is there when photo identity cards could be made for the exiled Pandit voters. The M-form system should be removed.”
Raising his voice against the system, Aditya Kaul said, “It seems the state ensures that over a lakh Pandits living in towns other than Delhi and Jammu don’t get to vote. While others get a day off to vote, we are expected to take leave and fly to Delhi or Jammu to exercise our franchise.”
“At a time when registering as a voter is a mere mouse-click away, the Election Commission has made a very difficult procedure for us. We too are Indians so why we should face such discrimination?” said an angry Ranish Hangloo, a youth activist in the group.
Sanjay Peshin, chief coordinator of Roots in Kashmir said, “To escape persecution, more than 4,00,000 Kashmiri Pandits had to leave their homes in the valley. Even after 19 years of exodus, more than 50,000 of these refugees are living in ‘animal-like state’ in camps. We are denied of our basic rights.”

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2009/20090504/delhi.htm

THE HINDU

Kashmiri Pandits protest against “discrimination” in voting procedures

“It is an attempt to erase us so that we can no longer claim to be Kashmiris”
NEW DELHI: To protest against the “discrimination” faced by them at the hands of the government and the authorities in voting procedures, a global youth initiative of the Kashmiri Pandits called “Roots in Kashmir” organised a protest at Jantar Mantar here on Sunday.
Along with Roots in Kashmir, members of Panun Kashmir, All-India Kashmiri Samaj, Kashmiri Sewak Samaj and Internally Displaced Kashmiri Pandit Youth Front also participated in the protest wearing black bands across their face.
The protesters demanded that voting procedure for the migrants be simplified to ensure their 100 per cent participation in the democratic process.
According to Roots in Kashmir, the number of members of the Pandit community in the voter list of Jammu and Kashmir had dropped considerably in the past two decades. “While the year 1996 saw 1.47 lakh of them, in 2002 their number slipped to 1.17 lakh and further down to 0.71 lakh during the Assembly polls held in the State last year,” added Aditya Raj Kaul of Roots in Kashmir.
A youth activist in the protest group, Ranish Hangloo, said: “At a time when registering as a voter is a mere mouse click away, the Election Commission in connivance with the State is making the registration process more tedious for us to ensure that we are denied even a basic human right.”
Criticising the voting procedures for Kashmiri migrants, Chief Coordinator of Roots in Kashmir Sanjay Peshin said: “With polling facilities in only two cities in India, the State ensures that over a lakh Pandits living in cities other than Delhi and Jammu do not get to vote.”
“It is but a part of the larger process to erase us not just from geographical horizon of Kashmir but from mind-spaces, voter lists and ration cards so that one day we can no longer claim to be Kashmiris,” he added.

ASIAN AGE

THE STATESMAN
NAI DUNIYA(HINDI)

HINDUSTAN

Pandits demand ‘Right to Vote’, wear black bands in protest

Migrant Kashmiri Pandit voter number halved in 12 years (IANS)

http://www.sindhtoday.net/south-asia/93060.htm
New Delhi, May 2 (IANS) The number of voters among Kashmiri Pandit migrants has dropped “considerably”, from nearly 150,000 in 1996 to just 71,000 presently - a 52 percent dip.
In 1996 there were 147,000 voters among the migrants all over the country, in 2002 the number went down to 117,000 and during the assembly elections last year it was only 71,000, according to the Roots in Kashmir (RIK), a migrant Kashmiri Pandits’ organisation.
Kashmiri Hindus were forced to flee their homeland when Muslim militancy erupted two decades ago in Jammu and Kashmir.
Some 300,000 Pandits fled the Kashmir Valley from 1989 as Muslim militancy peaked, at times targeting members of the community.
Today, most of them live in Jammu, New Delhi, Chandigarh, Bangalore and Mumbai. Only about 3,000 still reside in the valley.
Angry over the “considerable drop” in the number of Pandit voters, the RIK accused the Election Commission of discriminating against them “in connivance with the Jammu and Kashmir government”.
“At a time when voter registration is just a click away, the Election Commission in connivance with the state (government) is making the processes tedious for us so as to ensure that we don’t get a basic human right,” said Ranish Hangloo, a young activist of the RIK.
He said polling facilities for the exiled Pandits were only available in two cities and the migrants living in towns other than Delhi and Jammu “don’t get to vote”.
The Election Commission “expects us to fly to Delhi or Jammu to vote” he said.
The RIK is organising a silent sit-in protest at Jantar Mantar in the capital Sunday against the “discrimination”.
“It is to erase us from geographical horizon of Kashmir, from mind-spaces, voter lists, ration cards so that one day we can no longer claim to be Kashmiris,” said an angry Sanjay Peshin, the chief coordinator of the RIK.
The RIK is demanding that voting procedure for the migrants be simplified to ensure their 100 percent participation in the democratic process.
The exiled Pandits are required to fill what is called an M-form (migration form) to be included in the voters’ list. “When photo identity cards could be made for the Pandit voters, the M-form system should be deleted to make the process simpler,” Peshin said.