Post 370, Kashmiri Pandits wait to return to their homes

‘Government must come up with a rehabilitation plan so that the community is empowered politically, culturally’.

NEW DELHI: Several weeks have passed since the abrogation of Article 370, but the Kashmiri Pandits are still waiting to return to their homeland.

Rahul Kaul, national president of youth wing of Panun Kashmir, a frontline organisation of Kashmiri Pandits, told The Sunday Guardian: “Earlier, no initiative was taken for the return and rehabilitation of Kashmiri Pandits to the valley. It is now that the government has fulfilled some of our demands that we have been raising for the last three decades. The trifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir was an agenda of the BJP even before it came to power. But where is the place for Kashmiri Pandits in this structuring? To rehabilitate Kashmiri Pandits, the government must come up with a plan to centrally rehabilitate the Kashmiri Pandits so that the community can be empowered politically and culturally.”

Of the 70 lakh people in Kashmir, the population of Kashmiri Pandits is around three lakh and currently about 1,000 Kashmiri Pandits live in the valley.

The Central government has taken a number of steps for relief and rehabilitation of Kashmiri Pandits. Under the Prime Minister’s development package, 2015, the Centre has approved creation of 3,000 additional government jobs for the Kashmiri migrants at a cost of Rs 1,080 crore and construction of 6,000 transit accommodations in the Kashmir valley at a cost of Rs 920 crore. This is in addition to the 3,000 government jobs and construction of 725 transit accommodations that were sanctioned earlier, besides financial assistance for the construction of houses for the migrants and 5,242 two-room tenements constructed in Jammu (Purkhoo, Muthi, Nagrota and Jagti) and 200 flats constructed at Sheikhpora in Budgam district for the migrants. Recently, the Central government has included 5,300 families displaced from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir but living in India outside Jammu and Kashmir, in the list of the displaced. This will make them eligible for the Rs 5.5 lakh compensation package.

However, the Kashmiri Pandits feel that the issue of their rights and identity cannot be measured in financial or monetary terms or in the form of government packages. Rohit Ravi Bhat, a Kashmiri Pandit, told The Sunday Guardian: “We did not leave Kashmir in the 1990s for money. We left Kashmir because we were not secure there. We were totally helpless. We need a permanent solution to peacefully return to our homeland. The blood of our martyrs was not shed for money, but for our land and security.”

“Kashmiri Pandits have been saying since 1990s that we will only return to a Union Territory. Though it has materialised now, the government is confusing us again as they are saying the Union Territory status for Kashmir is a temporary provision and statehood for the valley would be restored soon. We are a minority in Kashmir. Hence, we don’t want to go back to our valley if it is not ruled by the Centre,” he added.