Eid Gift

Omar Abdullah keeps coming to Delhi every now and then and the reasons are not hard to find.With total anarchy in Kashmir he seeks his little spa in Delhi,eases himself off by transfering his worries to whoever cares to carry the cross of Omar's blunders.

But yesterday was different.

For once he had an agenda.He was here,we are told, to push for removal of AFSPA or as the bleeding hearts would say,to make it more humane.Humane being the key word here.Now imagine here is a country beset with insurgency and here is an army which is fighting the likes of Lashkar and Jaish not to mention Hizbul and others and is expected to be "humane".It reminds me of Mark Antony's famous lines(from Shakespare's Julius Ceaser) '"we are so meek and gentle with these butchers".They who trade in death and their sympathesizers seek a humane face of the enemy!

It makes for an interesting reading as to how our neighbours in the subcontinent are handling their insurgencies.The Srilankan army simply bulldozed the LTTE into submission without a care in the world about collateral or any damages whatsoever.The country that is so worried about India's human right excesses in Kashmir uses air power,artillery,infantry and navy wherever needed to quell its insurgencies and after doing all this have the gall to lecture us on our human rights.

The argument for removal of AFSPA is that things have improved in Kashmir and hence it is no longer needed.Well have they?

The Army has made it clear time and again they do not wish to enagage themselves in counter insurgency operations yet it is being extensively used to do so.Now let us understand what it means to take off AFSPA and ask army to enagage in counter insurgency operations.They will have to seek a warrant from local police everytime before they have to raid a hideout or act on a tip off.What a dumbhead one has to be to believe that the terrorists meanwhile would munch biryani and wait at the "appointed spot" till the time army gets a search warrant.

The army's record in counter insurgency has been close to impeccable.It has instituted enquires and initiated action against its own people found to be guilty of any form of human rights violations.A concerted and orchestrated campaign has been unleashed by the separatists and the bleeding hearts to tarnish the image of the army.The NHRC and other institutions of the State have found that less then 0.02% of the complaints of human right violations carried any weight and the rest have simply been unsubstainted and baseless.Now this new demand of setting up "greviance cells" would simply mean that more unsubstantiated complaints would be lodged and then used by the bleeding hearts and some sections of the media to simply cast more aspersions on an institution that makes us all proud.

While we understand that the Manmohan Singh government wants to be seen as doing "something" to "assuage" the feelings of the "alienated" Kashmiri Muslims but pray what an Eid gift would it be to tie the arms of your armed forces behind their backs and make them sitting ducks so that the "alienated" population armed with stones,bullets and Islamic venom could tear them to shreds and we here in Delhi would await for the bleeding hearts to give us character certificates for good human rights record.

Kashmiri Pandits expose separatist propaganda - catch Aditya Raj Kaul and Radhika Koul on Face the Nation, CNN-IBN

Kashmiris protest against Separatists Propaganda in New Delhi

Under Separatists Threatning, Kashmiri Pandits forced to leave Kashmir valley

Media Frenzy

I have a question first up.Have more Kashmiris(Kashmiri Muslims-now the media uses Kashmiris for them so liberally that even people like are me are brainwashed into thinking that the only Kashmiris who exist are the Muslims,forgetting that I am not) been killed in the last one month or is it less than the average number of people killed in Kashmir.The separtists keep shouting that more than 1 lac(100000) people have lost their lives in Kashmir in the last 20 years.Now if I believe them as Barkhas and Sagarikas do then every year there are 5000 people killed in Kashmir which means approx 13 per day.Now since July11,the total number of people killed is only 50.Isnt it less than what the figure ordinarliy should be?Am I being a death monger or am I belittling the loss of human life?Quite on the contrary,I am only calling the separtist bluff and the media naivette or willfull suspension of dibelief whichever suits you better.

We are bombaried these days with columns in newspapers and TV programmes who lecture us on how the Indian State has failed in Kashmir.Well it has.And how should understand the anger of the stone pelters(read roiters).We are consistently told that these people need to be listened to and they be given emplyoment while the Islamic Don Syed Ali Shah says quite the contrary.He says we are not fighting for better civic facilities or jobs.He is unequivocal in saying that we want Independence and not good governance.Yet column after column,one programme after another makes this nation feel guilty of "genocide" of "innocent Kashmiris".Now can anyone please tell these self appointed moral guardians of our "collective conscience" to please listen to Geelani and hear the speeches of Hafiz Saeed that mosques in Kashmir are loudly playing these days.

Fathom this..a young man or a woman or even a kid who throws petrol bombs or stones,burns public property,tears the unfirom of a policeman or simply lynches him.Does it give any sane man but the sleeveless siren any idea of this "innocent victim".Yet for the Indian media(except for one odd man out) such a person symbolises the innocence and purity of thought (of the Islamic kind may I ask?).What is the state supposed to do with a person whose intenet is reflected in the way he appears on the street.Is it the time to hear his greviances-real,imagined or perceieved.What about the Policeman whose eye was taken out by such an innocent group of people?Doesnt he have a family or are his human rights less legitimate than those of the mobsters who are the Indian Media's idea of an "innocent Kashmiri".

True human life is pious and shouldnt be lost and we keep repeating here,that no cause is worth one human life but doesnt the onus lie on both sides.Isnt it for the parents of these "innoncent Kashmiris" to tell their young ones that there are other more civil modes of protest available than the Islamic mode of protest.What does the Indian Media want?Should the CRPF and the local Police Garland the people who hit them with an intention to lynch them,should they cook mincemeat for the "innocent Kashmiris" who attack them?

And now all this bullshit about the "children of conflict" which a senior journo keeps going back to.My daughter is 5 and goes to a local school in Delhi.A month back me and my wife were asked to come to the school to discuss about my child.I was taken aback by the teacher told me.She said, my daughter needs a psychatirst because she belives that her father's house was burnt and one day they will go back to some land which she hasnt even seen.The teacher told me that my daughter is imagining things and should be shown to a child psychologist.Is she a child of the conflict too or just because she is a Hindu none of it sticks to her or just because Barkha looks the other way.

13 July, 1931 in the pages of history...

Run a Google search for July 13, 1931 and Kashmir and you will be hard pressed to find one mention of Kashmiri Pandits.

Grand and nostalgic articles you will find – some call it ‘Martyrs Day’, some call it the ‘first day of the Freedom Struggle for Kashmir’…

21 Kashmiris (read Muslims whenever you read ‘Kashmiris’ in journalese) were ‘massacred’ by Dogra soldiers that day, not unlike the 15 Kashmiris killed by Indian security forces this past fortnight, due to their opening fire on demonstrators. This connection, of course, has ‘noted’ historians (whose only works of note according to Google have been predicting when Allah will bless Kashmir with azadi) waxing eloquent on how things have not changed – poor Kashmiris are still at the receiving end of the atrocities of Hindu/Indian governments.

Left to be tacitly understood is that these poor Kashmiri demonstrators of 1931, 1990, 2008 and 2010 - then as now, had and have all the right in the world to pelt stones at the security personnel, beat them and shoot them, not to mention riot, loot and kill people who just don’t feel like doing the same. How else can they express (and show to the world) the immeasurable frustration they feel? Listen to any of the Kashmiri separatists, representatives of the current Opposition in Kashmir (party doesn’t matter) or even any random stone-pelter talk and you will find yourself being asked to believe that even 5-6 year olds in Kashmir (who also pelt stones) have this frustration pounding in their veins. Never mind the phone tappings and video confessions of some of the same stone-pelters that explain, in nitty-gritty detail, just how these bloody protests come about.

So, coming back to July 13, 1931. The story has it that serendipitously, at a major Muslim political gathering of Kashmir on the preceding June 21^st, the ‘true problems, demands and aspirations’ of the Muslims of Kashmir got expression in the speech of a totally “unknown, robust Pathan” named Abdul Qadeer Khan. This one speech, like others in the subsequent politics of Kashmir, drove the normal peace-loving people of Kashmir to a frenzy, as it talked about how the holy Quran and the teachings of Islam had been violated by the Hindu rulers of Kashmir and asked the people to fight this autocratic force. So it was at the arrest of this one person on July 13 that Kashmiris felt necessary to protest outside the Srinagar Central Jail. A few ‘notable’ people have wondered aloud just what would have happened to the struggle for Kashmir independence had not that priceless man, Abdul Qadeer Khan arrived on stage that fated day – never mind the probable theory that this ‘accidental speech’ had been meticulously planned by the British to destabilize the reign of Maharaja Hari Singh as a little punishment for his patriotic demand for Independence of India from the British in the Round Table Conference.

It is also interesting how these people have tried to have it both ways - on the one hand they vociferously shouted out Allah-o-Akbar along with their demands of justice from the Maharaja and on the other they totally denied that the subsequent protests that took place in Srinagar, Vicharnag, Ananatnag and Shopian were in any way communal in colour. The Khatri traders of Maharajgunj were looted by crores; Hindu shops from Bohrikadal to Alikadal were raided and burnt, the Tribune reports Hindu boys returning from school being hurled into the river Jhelum, and there was general loot, murder and rape (yes murder and rape too) of the Kashmiri Pandits almost simultaneously in Srinagar and Vicharnag – but no, this was not communal. This was, as Yasin Malik will explain to you any day, a purely social problem caused solely by the economic disparity between the majority (poor illiterate Muslims) and the minority (rich educated Hindus). Kashmiris can just not be communal, get it? At any given time they are either secular or in one of the various colours of Kashmiriyat - which can come into the picture whenever you give food (and not attack) an Amarnath pilgrim or quote Lal Ded.

Hopefully now you understand why you don’t get Kashmiri Pandits when you search the web for Kashmir and July 13, 1931. 60 years hence you will probably find that January 19, 1990 was also just another day of turmoil in Kashmir – nothing too notable about it. Another day when Kashmiris found the oppression of just being in India too much to bear and hence resorted to release their pent up energies in whatever ways they could. Nothing else.

- Radhika Koul. The author is an undergraduate student of Yale University.

Hurriyat Lie Nailed - Confession of Mobster Shabir Ahmed Wani

THIS IS THE TRANSCRIPT

My name is Shabir Ahmed Wani S/o Ali Aziz Wani r/o of Narbal. This Hurriyat takes out these processions through these small children and give them money which results in stone pelting. In this context I called Wasim Allahpuri on Wednesday whose actual names is Ghulam mohammed dar and is the district president of Tehrek-e-Hurriyat led by Syed Ali Shah Geelani. I told him that there is a procession going on here and where he was. He complimented me and said that in this at least 10 to 15 people should get martyred so that the pot (demonstration) keeps boiling..as in the disruptions continue. This is basically tehrek-e-Hurriyat which gives money and brainwash also some of the kids as they want that the situation should not improve at all in this place.

Who is this Ghulam Mohammed Dar?

He is the district president of Tehrek-e-Hurriyat and before this he was a militant of Hizbul Mujahideen and was known as Wasim Allahpuri.

Is he the man who incites mobs?

Yes he is the person who is responsible for taking out processions through small children which results in stone pelting and subsequent tears gas shelling from the other side resulting in killing of innocents.

Campaign to send books to stonepelters, Geelani in Kashmir‎

Press Trust Of India
New Delhi, July 09, 2010

Amid tension in violence-hit Kashmir, a group of activists have launched an online campaign asking people to send books to stonepelters and their instigators in the valley. The 'Peacebook Campaign' was launched on social networking site 'facebook' by 'Roots in Kashmir', a group of Kashmiri pandits who had migrated from the valley after outbreak of militancy.

The group is asking people across the globe to send books to hardline Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, who, they alleged, was instigating people to target security personnel and disturb law and order.

"Our campaign is not about people who are throwing stones but for the ones who are instigated them to indulge in stone pelting. Hurriyat leader Geelani is one among them. That is why we are asking people to directly send books at his residence," said Rashneek Kher, founder member of the group.

A total of 1,000 net users from different countries have registered themselves for the campaign, he said.

"We have collected about 300 books here which will be sent to Geelani once curfew is relaxed in Srinagar," he said.

Kher said schools children have been forced to throw stones. "Most of the stone pelters are school boys, who do not know why they are throwing stones. They should attend classes but they are instigated by people for their vested interest and forced to indulge in such anti-national activities," the activist said.

"We will continue with our campaign till violence in Kashmir Valley ends," Kher added.

Mr Geelani, were you served biriyani for the day? - by Dr Sanjay Parva

Dr Sanjay Parva was 'born and brought up in Kashmir in a sleepy village called Malmoh, that is on the connecting road between Magam (district Budgam) - Pattan (district Baramulla).' (quoted from Sanjay). He left the valley with his parents as everybody else did in what he calls 'one flourishing spring.' Sanjay says "I am still not able to forget home and feel life would have been different there had this turmoil not happened."

Instigated violence....

We had never had any doubts about where it all came from but here is the proof from one of the channels which is arguably pro-separatist. Listen to how Geelani's hounds want more "martyrs".

http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/kashmir-intercept-10-15-people-more-must-be-martyred-36362

Living in Denial

A pastor named Martin Niemoller lived in Germany during the Nazi period left us with these moving lines:

They came first for the communists
and I didnt speak up because I wasnt a communist

Then they came for the Trade Unionists
and I didnt speak up because I wasnt a Trade Unionist

Then they came for for the Jews
and I didnt speak up because I wasnt a Jew

Then they came for
and then no one was left to speak up


If there ever has been a blog post that I am writing with such a heavy heart as this one, it indeed is this one. There is an overwhelming gloom of the unnecessary violence in our home mixed with feelings of helplessness. Just when one thought things were finally looking better in the valley we are probably back to where it all began. It never occurred to me that the incentive for mischief in Kashmir would be such that it would lead us to a point that a handful of mobsters could hold the whole state to ransom.

J is a very good friend of mine,he is someone who has stood by me through thick and thin.We have known each other for 14 years now and never ever has an unkind word been exchanged between us. Our families are good friends too. The reader must be wondering why I am bringing the nice soul into what many call a "rabble rousing blog". The reason is that for two days now my friend has a couple of lines alongside his name in the facebook.

This is how they read:

"Sometimes I wonder why people are so apathetic towards the killing in the valley.It is time'that voice of sanity' needs to speak up.It is time that the anger and resentment of Kashmiri public is acknowledged and addressed to.It is time we stop living in denial"


The answer probably lies in the lines of the Pastor. You see "the voices of sanity" in Kashmir were mute conspirators when leaders of Kashmiri Muslims were shouting from the mosque tops and asking Pandits to leave or be prepared for the worst. The voices of sanity kept shut or simply absented themselves when the mobs were shouting, We want Kashmir without Kashmiri Pandit men but their women. The voices of sanity were unmoved when our age old temples were being reduced to ruins.The voices of sanity did not say a word when people celebrated the release of the butcher of the Pandits - Bitta Karate. The voices of sanity said nothing when the separatist leaders killed small voiceless Pandit children or raped their women.The voices of the sanity did not speak up because they were simply weren't Pandits as in the case of the Pastor's lines.It makes me terribly sad to say this but it is simply a case of bad Karma catching up.When you had time to speak for someone you didn't and now except for a few usual suspects there aren't many who would speak for you.

Knowing J, I hope when he talks of resentment and anger of Kashmiris he doesn't simply mention Kashmiri Muslims but Pandits too. Unfortunately the term Kashmiris is so loosely used today that most people tend to think that the only Kashmiris that are there are the Kashmiri Muslims but that's not J's fault.There obviously is a lot of anger among Pandits but then they don't take a stone every time they find the food unpalatable or the camps in which they are forced to live as unlivable.

The whole issue of denial is at the root of the problem that Kashmiri Muslims are dealing with today.For every issue that confronts them they find an imaginary ghost sometimes in India,sometimes in IB, sometimes in the cunning Pandits, sometimes even in Parveen Togadia or Jim Morrison but never do they look inwards to see if the fault could be there's too. Since they have driven the Pandits out they have ended up as a society which has a singular strain of obscurantist Islam and where dissent is crushed by death as we have seen in case of Maulvi Farooq, Abdul Ghani Lone and Sattar Ranjoor.

The young have been coaxed into believing that the road to Nirvana lies through a way paved with stones and bricks and people any other than them are pagans of stone and snake worshiping types.

I feel terribly sorry for poor Omar when I see the young forcibly anointed Mirwaiz - yes the one more helpless than me, shouting on television that India is killing Kashmiri Muslims. It leaves me wondering as to when he will have the courage to say the same about those people who killed his father. How strange is it that he and the Lone brothers are so scared that they have been forced to make friends with the very terrorists who killed their fathers. A strange society indeed... and they ask us to speak out...

STONED

The Amarnath Yatra began yesterday with some 3000 brave hearts being flagged off from Jammu. This was despite the fact the Kashmir has seen one more planned "summer of discontent". One should not be surprised at all with the timing of the "spontaneous outpouring of the anger of urban -jeans,chic t-shirts, Nike shoes and Reebok caps youth". The master mobster Syed Ali Shah Geelani had warned the government of large scale protests if the period of the Yatra was not reduced to 15 days. True to his word Geelani showed that he meant business. With covert and overt support from Pakistan (to where he bows when in prayer) he unleashed the power of what he is known best for-the Islamic mobs.

It is not Geelani that baffles us here but all those parents who send their children to riot, to lynch, to kill,to throw petrol bombs and to pump out all their adrenalin on the streets of Kashmir. I didn't know this was a way of channelisng pent up sexual energies in the new radicalized Islamic Kashmir .What kind a parent would send his son to indulge in riot I often wonder. But then there is a history to it.

Kashmiri Muslims are adept in the art of Stone throwing. The last I heard was that some Malik is writing a book on Zen and the art of stone throwing. Throughout the sixties, seventies and eighties when there was no "occupation force" the Kashmiri Muslims would indulge in this "sport" by throwing stones at each other. The Sher-Bakre (supporters of NC and supporters of Mirwaiz) would almost indulge in this Kane-Jung(stone wars) almost religiously and come what may every Friday post the Nimaz this would be a permanent fixture and would delay my return from the school because the Alikadal bridge would be hostage to this stone war. So to believe that they are throwing stones because they are mourning or protesting would be out-rightly comical if it wasn't terribly tragic.

There is no doubt in anyone's mind why all this is happening now. The answer is simple that the separatists no matter what they say see the Amarnath Shrine as an extension or a connect of India with Kashmir. They do not see the same in case of let us a Kheer Bhavani Shrine because even today it is not frequented so much by non-kashmiri hindus.

They feel that all the gains of cleansing that they clinically achieved so far are seemingly frittered because lacs of pilgrims from the mainland are visiting Kashmir and thus the connect lives on. It frustrates them to no end but at the same time they cannot openly oppose the Yatra because they do not want to be seen as foot-soldiers of the ideology of Islamic Hate that their mentors like Syed Sallaudhin, Hafiz Saeed and others stand for.

At the same time Pakistan and other donors ask for some performance for the money that they are giving the separatists so here we are.

The other reason for stone throwing is that Pakistan and its cronies in Kashmir have realized that is simply impossible to beat India by force of Kalaishnikovs. So this route of Intifada (the Palestinian model) looks more real. In all this Kashmiri Muslims do not understand the damage they are doing to themselves. Imagine a young man in teens or even younger who is made to believe that a solution to a problem lies in throwing petrol bombs and stones. What kind a society are we creating. We have already seen effects of violence in Kashmir when one Kashmiri Muslim boy killed another simply because he thought that his friend was wooing his girlfriend. It is this belief that violence is answer or a solution that is dangerous and fraught with problems.

As a fellow Kashmiri I would request with folded hands to all Kashmiri Muslims not to give their children a stone or a petrol bomb but a book. Don't let them get used by mobsters like Geelani. Ask him where are his children and grand children. Are they throwing stones too?

It is time Kashmiri Muslims realize the enemy within. It is time the people like Shabnam Hashmi do not just lecture the state on being humane but also tells these Islamic mobs not to lynch security personnel, not to burn temples, not to encroach on properties of Kafirs and not to think of a stone as a solution.

PS: I will today re-read Wazoo-i-khoon of Mansur bin hallaj who too was stoned to death at the directions of someone who was a Geelani of those days. The Stone throwers live on......

Separatist Paid Goons target Security forces in Kashmir

Security personnel run for cover as armed riot mob targets them.

Also Read...

The New Stone Age

The Other side of the story in Kashmir: Blame it on Police

A J&K Police Constable is mercilessly beaten by a street goon.

A paid good targets J&K Police vehicle with stones.

A gang of paid goons attacks a lone J&K Police constable.

36 Shops of Kashmiri Pandits demolished by Delhi Government

It is a tense night for at least 36 Kashmiri Pandit families in Delhi. Yesterday (June 26th, 2010) morning bulldozers of MCD demolished their shops secretly with heavy Police deployment. They were not even warned to remove their belongings, not even the power supply was cut; which also resulted into a minor fire in few shops which was later doused by fellow shopkeepers and the as usual late fire brigade. Apparently for a road to be broadened for the upcomingCommonwealth Games.

The deserted look of Taploo Market just adjacent to the famous INA Market and right opposite Dilli Haat is terrible. It might not matter to us, demolition might be a daily routine in Delhi - most of which consists of illegal colonies and other such constructions. Sadly the government doesn't dare touch such illegal constructions because of obvious money laundering and mafia rule.

This tragedy is a grim reminder of the exodus of 1990 to these 36 families. In this hour of pain, we as a community need to support and stand hand in hand with our brothers in need.

The shop owners have all legal documents to prove their right over their ownership of these 6 by 7 area shops. Intrestingly, the honorable Courts have almost always favoured these shop owners and even called them Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), instead of the usual tag of 'Migrants' by the Government agencies.

No relocation plan or compensation has been promised for the victims who lie helpless on the pavements

Two people stand around demolished shops.

Shop owners sitting near the broken structure of their shops.

Some parts of the rubble.

Shop owners find space to sit around in between broken rubble.

A man looks through the rubble of the demolished shops.

A broken shop display board on the road among the rubble reads 'Kaul Sons'.

A victim shop owner sitting besides the rubble of his shop in a praying gesture.

Kashmiri Pandits living in exile stage protest, demand IDP status

Govt Ignored us, Kashmiri Pandits allege 

Protest on World Refugees Day


Ruchika Rai - The Times of India

New Delhi: On the occasion of World Refugees Day, members of Roots in Kashmir — a worldwide youth initiative of Kashmiri Pandits — came together at Jantar Mantar to protest against the indifference of the Indian government to their plight. It has been over two decades since the Kashmiri Pandits were forced to leave their land, following the atrocities of Islamist terrorists. However, both the government and political parties have ‘‘ignored our cause because we are scattered and less in number, thus not fit to be an important votebank,’’ said Rashneek Kher, founder member of Roots in Kashmir.

     The protesters demanded the status of Internally Displaced Persons. ‘‘This will get us international access and aid. The government has turned a blind eye to the exodus of over five lakh Kashmiri Pandits. At least international agencies should be allowed to look into the matter and save our identity. A committee should be constituted to probe into the matter and bring out the true story,’’ said Kher.

     The agitators also urged the media to take up the issue with more vigour. ‘‘The media is full of stories about refugees from all over the world. Only we are ignored. This is a case of ethnic cleansing and the attack on Kashmiri Pandits was indeed an attack on the presence of India in Kashmir,’’ said an angry Lalit Ambardar, who has been pursuing the cause for many years.

     Payal, a banker by profession, was there to support her husband. ‘‘I am a Rajasthani but I can relate to my husband’s struggle to go back to his homeland. Even as a parent I want to make sure that my children have a sense of belonging to Kashmir. After all, that’s where they belong.’’

     And the issue is not only about those who were ousted from the place of their birth. People who were educated enough were able to find jobs in the cities and are living a near-normal life, but almost 50,000 Kashmiri Pandits, who did not have the resources, are still living a miserable life in the valley. ‘‘There is just one toilet for every 100 persons and the death to birth ratio is as high as 14:3. We need an answer to all this,’’ said Kher. 

A Kashmiri Hindu or Pandit attends a rally to mark the "World Refugee Day" in New Delhi June 20, 2010. Two decades after they were forced to flee Kashmir, thousands of Hindu Pandits seek to return to their ancestral homeland, their hopes lifted by a fall in Islamist rebel attacks against New Delhi's rule.

Photograph by Reuters

Displaced Kashmiri Pandits seek special status

IANS

Over 150 Kashmiri Pandits, along with members of civil society, held a silent protest at the Jantar Mantar here Sunday and demanded that the government recognise them as internally displaced persons (IDPs).

The protesters, including children, students and professionals, were dressed in their traditional firhan attire and wore headbands. The children wore dresses with 'Born in exile' written on them.

'We wore white firhans which signified the death of this (Kashmiri Pandit) community and headbands on which was written 'Ignored'. This is how we feel, ignored and left out,' said Rashneek Kher, one of the organisers from Roots in Kashmir, a global youth initiative of Kashmiri Pandits.

The group demanded that they be recognised not as migrants but as IDP's citing the fact that they were forced to leave their homes and did not come to Delhi or other cities willingly.

'The IDP recognition will help us get international attention and our rehabilitation and relief work will then be taken care by the United Nation Human Rights Council (UNHRC) and not the government of India, which has not done much for us since the last 21 years of our forced exile,' added Kher.

'We want to be identified,' was written on many placards amongst others held by the protesters.

Amal Magazine, a protester, said that by terming them migrants, the Indian government was robbing them of their identity.

'We are refugees not migrants. Give us that identity. If the prime minister can ask the Sri Lankan government to give the Tamils in the island country IDP status, then why not us? We were thrown out of our own homes just because we called ourselves Indians,' Magazine told IANS.

'I am very worried about the new generation. Using guns to do the talking is not a part of our culture. The impression that the young get now is that our silent protests is of no use. When there is violence, people wake up. If the government doesn't pay attention to us, there may be serious repercussions,' said Veerji Wangoo, another protester.

There are around 100,000 Kashmiri Pandits in the Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR).

'According to government figures, there were approximately 4.5 lakh who were displaced during the exodus in the early 1990s from the Valley. Some were not registered, so I asume there are more,' said Kher.

The protesters also demanded setting up of a commission to probe the exodus, its reasons and the exact number of 'refugees'.

Kashmiri pandits stage protest demanding IDP status

PTI
New Delhi, Jun 20 (PTI) Kashmiri Pandits today staged a demonstration here to demand status of Internally Displaced People (IDP) claiming that they were forced to flee the Kashmir Valley in 1990s in the aftermath of insurgency.
Clad in white firhans and sporting head bands, over 100 Kashmiri Pandits staged a protest march here against the"treatment meted out"to them by the Government."Today being the World Refugees Day, a lot of attention will be paid to plight of refugees in the country. Our main aim is to bring to public focus the circumstances Kashmiri Pandits live in today,"said Rashneek Kher, the founder member of Roots In Kashmir, a global youth initiative of Kashmiri Pandits living in exile, that spear-headed the protest march.

He said that among other things, his team sought to push the government to grant IDP status. Thousands of Kashmiri Pandits fled the Valley in the 1990s when insurgency was at its peak."In 1989, about 14,000 Pandits were in government job in the state and today their number is only 1500. These figures reflect the sad state of the community,"said Rashneek.

The protesters expressed their disappointment over the Government's"apathy"to their cause."We are still classified as migrants by the Government which is a gross violation of the UN Charter for Refugees,"alleged Amal Magazine, a Pandit residing in Faridabad.

"A migrant is someone who has willingly come out of a place but the truth is that we have been pushed out of the state. The administration should show a little more consideration,"he added.

Many of the protestors also pointed to"disparity in the differential treatment"by the Government to the refugees in the country."Sri Lankan Tamils were given refugee status within six months, while we are being ignored for the last two decades. It was the Government's duty to protect the Pandits in Kashmir. Since they failed to do that, the least they can do is grant us the refugee status,"said Sincad Kachroo, a member of Roots In Kashmir.

Plight of the Pandits; Silence of the Pundits by Chidanand Rajghatta(TOI)

The World Refugees Day is coming up again on June 20 and Lalit Koul is
making the rounds of Washington DC wonks and writers, lawmakers and
legislative aides, just as he did before World Human Rights Day on December
10 and the Kashmiri Pandits’ Exodus Day on January 19. In a city where every
cause has a proponent, every émigré and exile has an advocate, “we are
nobody’s children,” he complains. He can’t even rustle up a decent
demonstration on the Hill or in front of the White House. The best he can do
is drum up an occasional letter of support from a Congressman or schedule
the screening of a documentary to highlight his community’s plight. It has
an eloquent title: “...And the world remained silent.”

Some two decades after nearly half a million Kashmiri Pandits were
expelled from what were their homes for millennia, Koul and a small band of
his activist colleagues are fighting to keep world attention alive to their
cause. It’s hard; seemingly hopeless. In a city where Palestinians, Kurds,
Tibetans, Armenians, Burmese and dozens of other ethnic nationalities and
sub-nationalities are fighting for attention, the Pandit cause is just
another blip on the human rights radar. “We don’t have the backing of
Pakistan nor the funding of petrodollars,” says Koul, an info-tech
professional who heads the Indian-American Kashmir Forum, referring
obliquely to the support Kashmiri Muslims get from Islamabad and elsewhere,
“We are just falling through the cracks.”

Indeed, for the 1,500-strong Pandit community scattered across the
United States, it’s not so galling that they have no traction in America as
much as the neglect they say they suffer in India. When India itself is not
moved by half a million Pandits expelled from their homes and turns its back
on 50,000 lodged in refugee camps in the capital, why blame America — or
expats here, they say. It’s like Bhopal: when the people of

India, and their political and judicial representatives, sold them cheap,
why blame others? They rage against Indian civil society, which they say is
all a-bleeding about Kashmiri Muslims, but is unmoved by the plight of the
Pandits. And they note with more than a hint of bitterness that the
government of the day is pressing for rehabilitation of Tamil refugees in
Sri Lanka while concern for Pandits fades.

Their one hope is that like Palestine and Bhopal, the issue will
re-ignite somehow, catch world attention, and activists will pick up their
cause with renewed energy. The genocide of Kashmiri Pandits happened before
the internet age or instant 24/7 television. There were no TV cameras when
the judges and academics were murdered by Islamic militants with the stark
message — get out of Kashmir. There was no Facebook and Twitter and no viral
messaging.

Now technologies and techniques are available, but they lack benefactors
and big name support. The 1,500 Pandits in the US came mostly as students
and professionals, not as political refugees, and so lacked the voice and
the drama that asylum seekers bring. Most of them are too busy making a
career and home to spare time and bandwidth for their homeland.

In fact, some years back there was a poignant situation when a certain
Vikram Pandit became the top honcho of Citibank. Initial joy that finally
one of their own had risen to top of the corporate ladder and might be the
benefactor (in terms of face and voice if not with finance) they were
looking for was followed by dismay when they discovered that he was not from
Kashmir, but from Nagpur; “a Pandit by name, not by blood.”

Indeed, there is a sense of irony that even as the Pandit issue is
fading from the world’s conscience, the term Pandit is more in use than ever
before in the US — where it is spelt “Pundit”. If Koul and his fellow
activists could collect a dollar for every time the term was bandied about,
they would be lolling in lolly. TV talking heads and op-ed columnists are
now routinely referred to as Pundits, and there is a whole new media
subculture of Punditocracy, a term used to describe a group of powerful and
influential political commentators. From a book titled Sound and Fury: The
Making of Punditocracy to the website punditicracywatch.com, it is a much
overused term. Not a day passes without the tribe pontificating on issues
ranging from Obama and the BP oil spill to the Gores’ divorce to World Cup
soccer. Everything, except the plight of the people who gave them the word.
•
chidanand.rajgha...@timesgroup.com

June 20- World Refugee Day

It is ironical that when the Srilankan President came to India recently everyone right from the Prime Minister to the local Tamil politicians stressed on him to ensure rehabiliation of seventy odd thousand Tamil refugees who had to flee Jafna when Srilankan army annihilated the LTTE.Yet when it comes to its own refugess who are numerically much higher than those of Tamils and have been living as refugees now for more than two decades the same milk of human kindness seems to have dried completely.
We the original inhabitants of the Kashmir valley are now in the 21st year of our being refugees in our nation.Pity we dont even get the lip service that the Tamils of a different nation get from our Prime Minister and our politicians.
20th June marks the World Refugee Day and brings to focus the plight of refugees across the globe.On that day newspapers in our country would be full of heart rending stories of people who are refugees from Waziristan,Serbia,Iraq and even Albanians but alas there will be no mention of us.

The silence that marks our being refugees actually is an iconvenient truth that our politicians our media and our secular polity are unable to come to terms with hence they push it under the carpet.
Let us all on this day register our being refugees in our own land,the forgotten refugees,the inconvienent truth and the shame of our nation.

Roots in Kashmir requests you to be there at Jantar Mantar on 20th June,2010,Sunday at 4 PM.

Be there...let this nation know we exist.

-
Sinead Kachroo- 9717058747
Sanjay Peshin - 9910394999

‘Amnesty International’ a Jihadi Collaborator: Kashmiri Pandits

May 25^th 2010

New Delhi: Roots in Kashmir, a frontline initiative of Kashmiri Pandits in exile came down heavily upon the Government of India today to allow a tainted organization and a known Jihadi collaborator for ignoring the plight of half a million Kashmiri Pandits living in forced exile due to their human rights violation at the hands of the very people who Amnesty International met on their six-day visit to Kashmir.

The recent visit of a two member team of Amnesty International to "assess human rights situation" in Kashmir comes in the wake of its already maligned image of having collaborating with the Jihadis. As if Gita Seghal's revelations were not enough proof already of what Amnesty stands for its meetings with killers and mobsters like Yasin Malik and Syed Ali Shah Geelani left nothing to imagination.

While there is definitely a need to assess human rights situation in Kashmir one must ask is Amnesty the right organization to do so? Could Jihadi collaborators be human right assessors too? “We at Roots in Kashmir strongly condemn the Government of India which allowed a tainted organization to send its members to "assess human rights situation" in Kashmir. We ask what could these people whose motives are already known, assess but collect data to make reports that are pre-conceived and biased.” said Mr. Sanjay Peshin-the coordinator of the group.

“And if they really did want to know about human rights of Kashmiris why did they not meet Kashmiri Pandit leadership or for that matter visit camps of Kashmiri Pandits in Jammu. Does Amnesty not believe that a forced exodus of a million people is a reason enough to "assess human rights situation"? Does it not believe that the ethnic cleansing of Pandits too deserves its attention?” asked Mr. Amal Magazine, an activist of the group.

“Such attitude where only Pak backed Muslim separatist leadership is attended to simply goes on to show which side of Amnesty International's bread is buttered” said an angry Mr. Piyush Kaul of the group. To escape persecution, more than 500,000 Kashmiri Pandits had to leave their home and hearths back in the Valley of which more than 50,000 refugees are still languishing in uninhabitable refugee camps in Jammu and Delhi.

It simply doesn’t matter what report they give because as an organization its credibility is already eroded but the very fact that government allows such kite flying missions makes light of what is a very important matter.

Praznath Launch: A Review

 

Praznath: a discourse on Kashmiri identity and culture , an effort at dispelling the myths prevalent about Kashmir and its history in a form of quarterly cultural magazine was formally launched on March 18^th 2010 at Gulmohar hall, IHC. A dire need to challenge and question the hegemonic discourse regarding Kashmir provided the necessary impetus for starting this magazine. The launch was marked by a panel discussion on the topic ‘Identifying Identity in Kashmir’ which broadly looked into the grave issues of identity politics.

The tempo for the event was set by a photo exhibition by Veer Munshi’s latest photographs of Kashmiri Pandit houses in Kashmir. The blown up and sensitively photographed shots were displayed strategically juxtaposing the majestic and grand mansions with  vacated, burnt down ruins of what once were imposing houses and institutions. The powerful visuals narrated a sad story of oppression and loss. One could see people reacting to certain images, identifying certain houses and not without a gloomy look in their eyes.

The curtain raiser too was a video shot by Munshi in 2009 in Kashmir. The screen here was divided into two frames. On the left hand side one could see a KP house in flames and on the right hand side the artist walking towards an unknown destination, crushing chinar leaves under his feet and leaving the random foot prints on snow. The endless walk again a metaphor used for the deep longing to go back was harshly interrupted by the shrill bullet shots and screams one could hear from the burning house.

On this melancholy note started the program. Mr.Sushil Pandit, a senior member of Praznath welcomed the audience and gave a brief introduction to Praznath which was followed by a key note address by Radhika Kaul, the youngest member of the team. In her short and effective address Radhika hinted upon extremely important points on identity especially from a point of view of someone who was born after exodus. She ended on an optimistic note that our silence has found appropriate voice in Praznath, a view that all of us at Praznath share. With this she recited the fiery and powerful poem by Dr. Shashi Shekhar Toshkhani ‘Phelega Phelega hamara maun’ which drew huge applause from the audience.

After the panelists were duly felicitated, Dr Toshkhani ,the editor of the magazine gave a broader insight into Praznath and the objectives it aims to achieve. He focussed on the issue of deliberate misrepresentation of historical facts and in particular talked about the efforts being made  to see Kashmir as an integral part of Central Asian cultural belt with no ties with India. He stressed on the fact the pre 14^th CE Kashmiri society was an open and liberated one and we need to give a proper glimpse of that era to our people. The lopsided ,distorted and many a times purely fabricated view of Kashmir history and culture  slowly trying to erase an important part of our indigenous culture and identity was strongly emphasized and so was emphasized a  need for thinkers, researchers, artists and sensitive and coherent individuals from the community to come together and fight this intellectual injustice.

The discussion continued with Sir Mark Tully, an eminent journalist, drawing attention on the need to preserve the culture for a community in Diaspora. The necessity to understand and highlight the links that Kashmir had with India was stressed upon. Agreeing with Dr. Toshkhani he also stressed on the need to counter the misrepresentations of Kashmir. However he also stressed on the fact that any debate on Kashmiri identity  cannot neglect Kashmiri Muslims(KM) as they are now an integral part of Kashmir. He went on to categorize Islam in Kashmir as purely Sufi as opposed to Wahabi Islam.What one could gather from the brief talk was that he deliberated on the idea of a utopian culture where KP’s and KM’s would live happily and peacefully , the notion that did not go well with the audience, and the resentment could be felt in the next speaker Dr. Kshama Kaul’s emotionally charged speech.

Dr.Kaul’s invocation of ‘Pratibigya Darshan’and a need to realize ones hidden powers had immense depth and actually was more than enough to illustrate her point. The emotional outpourings accompanying the talk though somewhere diluted the strength of her statements drew a great round of applause from audience. Her personal first hand experience, honesty and point blankness came across very vividly in her talk. She out rightly rejected the notion of KM’s and KP’s living together in peace and harmony stressing on a fact that a culture that takes refuge in violence has nothing to do with Kashmir.

The next speaker Dr.Swapan Dasgupta,right in the outset talked about the counter productiveness of an emotional approach and advised KP’s to be purely strategic in their approach. Moreover he stressed on ‘memory’ as an important aspect of retaining a culture. He raised an important point by suggesting that a culture or a community can easily slip away from people’s memory and hence there should a constant effort to keep the memory of the culture alive. He also talked about how issues of KP’s had become an embarrassment  to be shoved under the carpet for the Govt.. He boldly used the term’ Ethnic Cleansing’ with respect to the exodus of 1990 and implored the KP’s to fight for their identity with passion and a strategy at hand.

With this came the panel discussion to an end and the session was closed by a mellifluous recital of vakhs of Rupa Bhavani, a 17^th century saint poetess from Kashmir  by Mr.Dalip Langoo.Dalip left the audiences mesmerized with his recital and it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that his voice reverberated in our subconscious much like the eternal meaning of Rupa Bhavani’s vakhs.

The vote of thanks was given by Mr. Pandit.Gradually the over filled hall started to vacate with people forming groups and discussing the events.Once outside you could  see a decent queue at subscription counter and people going through their copies of Praznath.

The writer is faculty in the Delhi College of Art. She can be reached at gkawkher@gmail.com