“34 years since the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits, there is no substantial change for them. Despite being used as symbols by the government, the Pandits remain culturally homeless. The community’s silence and the emergence of ‘Templocracy’ in India, intertwine religion with governance, making the fate of the exiled Pandits even more uncertain”
Bill K Koul
Kashmiris – past, present and emerging – have paid a heavy price for geographical location of their Maej Kasheer (Mother Kashmir). Several cataclysmic regional and global historic events in the past, coupled with internal dynamics in Kashmir, led to a militant uprising in 1989-90, which permanently impacted Kashmiris. Over the following decades, thousands of Muslims were killed and most Kashmiri Pandits were uprooted from their homeland, some died due to militancy and militancy related factors in and outside Kashmir.
Around 70-percent present-day Kashmiris, both Muslims and Pandits, don’t have any memory of what happened in the valley towards the end of 1989 and in the early part of 1990. The reason being nearly 60-percent of them were not born then and the remaining 10-percent would have been little children. But they inherited what they did not deserve. Both Pandits and Muslims – face an existential cultural threat. As for the Pandits, they may have lost their home forever. Life is not fair, never has been, nor ever will be. God must be on an extended holiday!
It has now been 34 years since the landlocked valley first heard separatist cries, beaming from loudspeakers, on the night of 19 January 1990, after witnessing sporadic incidents of violence and targeted killings (by armed militants) of a number of prominent Kashmiris – mostly Pandits and some Muslims who may have been seen as a threat to the separatist movement – in the weeks and months leading up to that day, during which the valley was ominously gripped with an unnerving political instability and a complete security paralysis. The separatist cries were unprecedented. Most of the distressed Kashmiri Pandits, and some Kashmiri Muslims, fled the valley in duress, to save their lives and dignity, and sought refuge in Jammu and other parts of India and elsewhere in the world, over the next days and months.
Indian government unilaterally removed the semi-autonomous status of the erstwhile State, on 5 August 2019, without any engagement with Kashmiris or any referendum in the State. Ladakh was also severed politically from the State, and both areas degraded to Union Territories, administered directly by Delhi. Ostensibly, all this was done to help the cause of the Pandits. Many members of the Pandit community publicly hailed and celebrated the revocation, much to the delight of the ruling party and the government. It has been nearly five years since and nothing substantial has changed on the ground for the uprooted Pandit community. They continue to be exploited, as poster boys of Hindu victims of Muslim atrocities. Many call themselves now as Kashmiri Hindus or Sanatanis.
Notably, since their exodus more than three decades ago, other than some basic financial assistance and the construction of relatively decent camp dwellings in Jammu (by Dr Manmohan Singh’s government, who is also known to have visited them in Jammu), nothing worthwhile has been done on the ground for Kashmiri Pandits, particularly, in terms of creation of a peaceful socio-political environment in the valley to facilitate their resettlement in their home. As such, they remain dispersed across the globe and culturally homeless to this day. Of course, they receive some lip sympathy in return to their political affiliation.
“Unlike the buzz seen during the last four years, there was no visible activity in Perth this year about the Black Day (January 19). The apparent reason being an unprecedented euphoria about the inauguration of a new Ram Temple in Ayodhya on 22 January 2024. It seemed nothing else mattered to people – nothing that would take away the fervour or sheen from the Temple inauguration.”
Readers may refer to the author’s books on Kashmir: (a) 22 Years – A Kashmir Story (2017); and (b) The Exiled Pandits of Kashmir — Will they ever return home? (2020).
Like elsewhere on the planet, some members the Kashmiri Pandit community in Perth, Western Australia, also celebrated the Indian government’s unilateral move to strip Jammu and Kashmir’s semi-autonomy on 5 August 2019. For the first time in Perth, on 19 January 2020, they also organised a public event to observe the Black Day (19 January), reportedly attended by activists of Indian socio-political organisations, prominent representatives of the Indian diaspora and local Australian politicians. Similar events were also organised annually in years 2021 to 2023.
In the annual Black Day events, the members of the community would reportedly make emotional speeches about the circumstances that forced them and their families, friends and relatives to flee the valley in and after January 1990. The speeches would, of course, melt the hearts of the listeners, particularly the Australians. In the year 2022, the activists also vehemently organised full-house cinema shows of movie, The Kashmir Files. Such events helped to earn a much-needed legitimacy for the Indian government’s Kashmir action.
A minuscule Kashmiri Pandit community, thus, became a significant part of the global outreach of the Indian government. What did the community receive in return? Most members of the community may not know but their leaders should be able to answer this question.
Unlike the buzz seen during the last four years, there was no visible activity in the town this year about the Black Day. The apparent reason being an unprecedented euphoria that had gripped Perth about the inauguration of a new Ram Temple in Ayodhya (UP), India, on 22 January 2024. It seemed nothing else mattered to people. It is expected the organisers of the annual Black Day event would have been under strict instructions to not say or do anything that would take away the fervour or sheen from the Temple inauguration.
Can it be said, therefore, 19 January will never ever be observed here in Perth or anywhere on the planet, given that 22 January is expected to be celebrated as the most important day in India and overseas for all times to come?
Have the Kashmiri Pandits gone past the ‘use-by’ date? Can their silence and repressed cessation of expectations from the Indian government be considered as their sacrifice for Bharat (India)?
In the context of the Black Day public speeches, the following vignette is significant.
Days before the inaugural Black Day in Perth, in January 2020, the Kashmir Pandit community decided to have a family picnic, to chart out the day’s programme. I too was expected to speak and formally invited do so. However, on learning that the speeches had to be submitted in advance to the event organisers for approval, I declined the invitation and did not attend the event, and never have. There is a basic difference in the philosophy why I would have spoken on that day and why I chose not to speak, which I voiced to the community:
“I have spoken at length through my books, articles, and interviews during my book launches across India, but the Pandit community here in Perth has not taken me seriously. In fact, some of you have been making fun of Kashmir and my reconciliatory efforts. Just read the last chapter of my first book on Kashmir, which captures a real conversation between many of you. I ask for reconciliation between the two Kashmiri communities, in order to stitch back our traditional bonds and facilitate the return of our community back to the valley. On 5 December 2017, on the live television (NewsX), when a member in the audience on the green lawns of Imperial Hotel in New Delhi asked me, in the presence of esteemed panelists, including BJP’s Subramaniam Swamy and ex. Indian Army Chief Gen. JJ Singh, if Kashmiriyaat was over, I said ‘no’ it was not over, it was well and truly alive through people like me.”
Kashmir in the context of India and the world
Kashmir, being an integral part of India, must be seen within the context of India and how India has been unimaginably transforming in the past decade. What happens in India has a strong bearing on Kashmir.
Stability of a part of a country contributes to the stability of the country, and vice versa. Internal chaos manifests in external threats. For peaceful coexistence, one must live responsibly. For earning respect, one must learn to respect.
During the past few years, two major divisions have emerged in the Sanatan Dharam (Hinduism). The first comprises the original Hindus, who follow the four Shankaracharyas (initiated by Adi Shankara, circa 788 CE – 820 CE) and are estimated to comprise about 62-percent of the Hindu population (about 700 million). The second are the deviant, neo-political Hindus, who follow the ruling elites and are estimated to comprise about 38-percent of the Hindu population (about 400 million). Note: The percentages are based roughly on (a) the results of the 2019 General Election; and (b) about 80-percent of the Indian population (about 1.43 billion) believed to comprise Hindus, although no census data is unavailable since 2011.
Populism undermines pluralism and liberal democracy. Populist regimes don’t govern; they just feed populism and appease their supporters.
Interestingly, the privileged class uses a popular social messaging platform to vehemently spread an anti-West and anti-Muslim rhetoric (from a geopolitical and religious-cultural threat perspective). However, the children of the propagandists get educated in expensive English medium schools before leaving the country to find life and luxury in wealthy Islamic and Western countries. Why the political elites do this is understandable, however, what is not understandable, or is rather unbelievable, is why their supporters do this?
‘Loyalty to country always. Loyalty to government when it deserves it.’
… Mark Twain (1835-1910)
India seems to now follow a new system of governance, which is intricately interwoven with religion and India’s distant, imagined past. The new system is called herein as ‘Templocracy’, which is a new term coined by the author. It disallows any dissent or disagreement with the ruler, and actively pursues the promotion of ‘images’ of greatness, perfection, and grandeur. In it, religious beliefs and symbolism are central to the lives of the people and the policies of the government. It pursues an economic model through the establishment of a grand Temple industry, promoted by a vibrant Temple infrastructure, tourism and artefacts. It has nothing to do with the essence of the religion itself. Unlike democracy, where people are central to the power, it is the Temples and their benefactors who are central to power in Templocracy.
What will happen to the exiled Pandits of Kashmir? What will happen to the Muslims in Kashmir? Will Kashmir ever get its statehood back? Will Kashmir regain its lost pride and dignity? Elsewhere in India, in Templocracy, what will happen to the minority communities that comprise 20-percent of the Indian population, which, in itself, is a significant number – at least 285 million people?
Verily, India is heading into an unknown direction. Only the people of India can decide if that direction aligns them with the rest of the progressive world and prepare their nation to overcome existential environmental, economic and geo-political challenges ahead. A nation that obsessively can’t stop talking about freedom, remains fettered to slavery and regresses. A nation that constantly talks about the past, remains buried in history and can’t progress objectively into the future.
Rising Discontent in Pakistan-Administered Kashmir: A Call for Economic Reforms
A Legacy of Contradictions: Unravelling an Enigma Called Sheikh Abdullah
People’s Movement in Pakistan-Administered Kashmir: Peaceful Struggle for Democratic Rights
Kashmir in a ‘Templocracy’: A Home Lost Forever
“34 years since the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits, there is no substantial change for them. Despite being used as symbols by the government, the Pandits remain culturally homeless. The community’s silence and the emergence of ‘Templocracy’ in India, intertwine religion with governance, making the fate of the exiled Pandits even more uncertain”
Kashmiris – past, present and emerging – have paid a heavy price for geographical location of their Maej Kasheer (Mother Kashmir). Several cataclysmic regional and global historic events in the past, coupled with internal dynamics in Kashmir, led to a militant uprising in 1989-90, which permanently impacted Kashmiris. Over the following decades, thousands of Muslims were killed and most Kashmiri Pandits were uprooted from their homeland, some died due to militancy and militancy related factors in and outside Kashmir.
Around 70-percent present-day Kashmiris, both Muslims and Pandits, don’t have any memory of what happened in the valley towards the end of 1989 and in the early part of 1990. The reason being nearly 60-percent of them were not born then and the remaining 10-percent would have been little children. But they inherited what they did not deserve. Both Pandits and Muslims – face an existential cultural threat. As for the Pandits, they may have lost their home forever. Life is not fair, never has been, nor ever will be. God must be on an extended holiday!
It has now been 34 years since the landlocked valley first heard separatist cries, beaming from loudspeakers, on the night of 19 January 1990, after witnessing sporadic incidents of violence and targeted killings (by armed militants) of a number of prominent Kashmiris – mostly Pandits and some Muslims who may have been seen as a threat to the separatist movement – in the weeks and months leading up to that day, during which the valley was ominously gripped with an unnerving political instability and a complete security paralysis. The separatist cries were unprecedented. Most of the distressed Kashmiri Pandits, and some Kashmiri Muslims, fled the valley in duress, to save their lives and dignity, and sought refuge in Jammu and other parts of India and elsewhere in the world, over the next days and months.
Indian government unilaterally removed the semi-autonomous status of the erstwhile State, on 5 August 2019, without any engagement with Kashmiris or any referendum in the State. Ladakh was also severed politically from the State, and both areas degraded to Union Territories, administered directly by Delhi. Ostensibly, all this was done to help the cause of the Pandits. Many members of the Pandit community publicly hailed and celebrated the revocation, much to the delight of the ruling party and the government. It has been nearly five years since and nothing substantial has changed on the ground for the uprooted Pandit community. They continue to be exploited, as poster boys of Hindu victims of Muslim atrocities. Many call themselves now as Kashmiri Hindus or Sanatanis.
Notably, since their exodus more than three decades ago, other than some basic financial assistance and the construction of relatively decent camp dwellings in Jammu (by Dr Manmohan Singh’s government, who is also known to have visited them in Jammu), nothing worthwhile has been done on the ground for Kashmiri Pandits, particularly, in terms of creation of a peaceful socio-political environment in the valley to facilitate their resettlement in their home. As such, they remain dispersed across the globe and culturally homeless to this day. Of course, they receive some lip sympathy in return to their political affiliation.
“Unlike the buzz seen during the last four years, there was no visible activity in Perth this year about the Black Day (January 19). The apparent reason being an unprecedented euphoria about the inauguration of a new Ram Temple in Ayodhya on 22 January 2024. It seemed nothing else mattered to people – nothing that would take away the fervour or sheen from the Temple inauguration.”
Readers may refer to the author’s books on Kashmir: (a) 22 Years – A Kashmir Story (2017); and (b) The Exiled Pandits of Kashmir — Will they ever return home? (2020).
Like elsewhere on the planet, some members the Kashmiri Pandit community in Perth, Western Australia, also celebrated the Indian government’s unilateral move to strip Jammu and Kashmir’s semi-autonomy on 5 August 2019. For the first time in Perth, on 19 January 2020, they also organised a public event to observe the Black Day (19 January), reportedly attended by activists of Indian socio-political organisations, prominent representatives of the Indian diaspora and local Australian politicians. Similar events were also organised annually in years 2021 to 2023.
In the annual Black Day events, the members of the community would reportedly make emotional speeches about the circumstances that forced them and their families, friends and relatives to flee the valley in and after January 1990. The speeches would, of course, melt the hearts of the listeners, particularly the Australians. In the year 2022, the activists also vehemently organised full-house cinema shows of movie, The Kashmir Files. Such events helped to earn a much-needed legitimacy for the Indian government’s Kashmir action.
A minuscule Kashmiri Pandit community, thus, became a significant part of the global outreach of the Indian government. What did the community receive in return? Most members of the community may not know but their leaders should be able to answer this question.
Unlike the buzz seen during the last four years, there was no visible activity in the town this year about the Black Day. The apparent reason being an unprecedented euphoria that had gripped Perth about the inauguration of a new Ram Temple in Ayodhya (UP), India, on 22 January 2024. It seemed nothing else mattered to people. It is expected the organisers of the annual Black Day event would have been under strict instructions to not say or do anything that would take away the fervour or sheen from the Temple inauguration.
Can it be said, therefore, 19 January will never ever be observed here in Perth or anywhere on the planet, given that 22 January is expected to be celebrated as the most important day in India and overseas for all times to come?
Have the Kashmiri Pandits gone past the ‘use-by’ date? Can their silence and repressed cessation of expectations from the Indian government be considered as their sacrifice for Bharat (India)?
In the context of the Black Day public speeches, the following vignette is significant.
Days before the inaugural Black Day in Perth, in January 2020, the Kashmir Pandit community decided to have a family picnic, to chart out the day’s programme. I too was expected to speak and formally invited do so. However, on learning that the speeches had to be submitted in advance to the event organisers for approval, I declined the invitation and did not attend the event, and never have. There is a basic difference in the philosophy why I would have spoken on that day and why I chose not to speak, which I voiced to the community:
“I have spoken at length through my books, articles, and interviews during my book launches across India, but the Pandit community here in Perth has not taken me seriously. In fact, some of you have been making fun of Kashmir and my reconciliatory efforts. Just read the last chapter of my first book on Kashmir, which captures a real conversation between many of you. I ask for reconciliation between the two Kashmiri communities, in order to stitch back our traditional bonds and facilitate the return of our community back to the valley. On 5 December 2017, on the live television (NewsX), when a member in the audience on the green lawns of Imperial Hotel in New Delhi asked me, in the presence of esteemed panelists, including BJP’s Subramaniam Swamy and ex. Indian Army Chief Gen. JJ Singh, if Kashmiriyaat was over, I said ‘no’ it was not over, it was well and truly alive through people like me.”
Kashmir in the context of India and the world
Kashmir, being an integral part of India, must be seen within the context of India and how India has been unimaginably transforming in the past decade. What happens in India has a strong bearing on Kashmir.
Stability of a part of a country contributes to the stability of the country, and vice versa. Internal chaos manifests in external threats. For peaceful coexistence, one must live responsibly. For earning respect, one must learn to respect.
During the past few years, two major divisions have emerged in the Sanatan Dharam (Hinduism). The first comprises the original Hindus, who follow the four Shankaracharyas (initiated by Adi Shankara, circa 788 CE – 820 CE) and are estimated to comprise about 62-percent of the Hindu population (about 700 million). The second are the deviant, neo-political Hindus, who follow the ruling elites and are estimated to comprise about 38-percent of the Hindu population (about 400 million). Note: The percentages are based roughly on (a) the results of the 2019 General Election; and (b) about 80-percent of the Indian population (about 1.43 billion) believed to comprise Hindus, although no census data is unavailable since 2011.
Populism undermines pluralism and liberal democracy. Populist regimes don’t govern; they just feed populism and appease their supporters.
Interestingly, the privileged class uses a popular social messaging platform to vehemently spread an anti-West and anti-Muslim rhetoric (from a geopolitical and religious-cultural threat perspective). However, the children of the propagandists get educated in expensive English medium schools before leaving the country to find life and luxury in wealthy Islamic and Western countries. Why the political elites do this is understandable, however, what is not understandable, or is rather unbelievable, is why their supporters do this?
‘Loyalty to country always. Loyalty to government when it deserves it.’
… Mark Twain (1835-1910)
India seems to now follow a new system of governance, which is intricately interwoven with religion and India’s distant, imagined past. The new system is called herein as ‘Templocracy’, which is a new term coined by the author. It disallows any dissent or disagreement with the ruler, and actively pursues the promotion of ‘images’ of greatness, perfection, and grandeur. In it, religious beliefs and symbolism are central to the lives of the people and the policies of the government. It pursues an economic model through the establishment of a grand Temple industry, promoted by a vibrant Temple infrastructure, tourism and artefacts. It has nothing to do with the essence of the religion itself. Unlike democracy, where people are central to the power, it is the Temples and their benefactors who are central to power in Templocracy.
What will happen to the exiled Pandits of Kashmir? What will happen to the Muslims in Kashmir? Will Kashmir ever get its statehood back? Will Kashmir regain its lost pride and dignity? Elsewhere in India, in Templocracy, what will happen to the minority communities that comprise 20-percent of the Indian population, which, in itself, is a significant number – at least 285 million people?
Verily, India is heading into an unknown direction. Only the people of India can decide if that direction aligns them with the rest of the progressive world and prepare their nation to overcome existential environmental, economic and geo-political challenges ahead. A nation that obsessively can’t stop talking about freedom, remains fettered to slavery and regresses. A nation that constantly talks about the past, remains buried in history and can’t progress objectively into the future.
—–
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Rising Discontent in Pakistan-Administered Kashmir: A Call for Economic Reforms
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People’s Movement in Pakistan-Administered Kashmir: Peaceful Struggle for Democratic Rights
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