Journeys can be extended and unsettling. More so, when one is forced to live in émigré, away from one’s roots. It is excruciating an experience, second to none, with the feeling of helplessness creeping, day in and day out. You draw on whatsoever resources there are at your disposal to impress upon the policy and decision makers of the country to initiate steps in advancing a meaningful policy on the rehabilitation of ethnic Kashmiri Pundits.  However, our establishment beset in deep slumber has no ears to heed, leaving people in enforced-exile to run from pillar to post.

Kashmiri Pundits (KP's), a fundamental ingredient of the glorious heritage and legacy of Kashmir find themselves at crossroads in their 12th year of exile; thousands of families still languish in ‘grotty and tacky’ refugee camps, devoid of appropriate amenities for sanitation, medical care, and education - a state that can be aptly described as 'pitiable.' In the past one-decade, thousands have putrefied in the red to snakebites, and sunstrokes. Toll due to unnatural deaths has been put at 6000; psychological trauma and morbidity resulting in incalculable damage to the 'collective mind' of the community.

This ethnic society has its erudite lot spread across the length and the breadth of the country to earn means of livelihood for their families, and in most of the cases are their only breadwinning members. Thank God, education has been our foremost priority for all times, otherwise we might have been reduced to entreating on the streets to meet our ends. Stuck in a rut, there are still thousands of hapless members - with tears of excruciating pain and pangs - who still after over a decade in exile, fade away in camps, and wait for better times to arrive on the scene.

It is regrettable that in spite of a notable track-record in the growth and development of the country, the original populace of Kashmir witness themselves being discriminated, preference being given to the opinionated tribulations that the Muslim majority face in the Valley. That seems to be the only priority, rest all being secondary, and inconsequential. The establishment appears to have a freewheeling attitude towards this ethnic minority.

Bhartiya Janta Party [BJP], a party with (no) difference, which has always advocated the “complete” integration of the Valley with the Indian Union, and despised the special status, which according them is the primary cause of alienation, has given up all these core-issues and now their only priority, despite difference of opinion within its rank and file seems to back Abdullah’s to the hilt. The party even fails to keep in mind the sacrifices of its founder-President Shyama Prasad Mukherji, who died under mysterious circumstances in Srinagar, protesting against the special status to J&K.

Despite fervent appeals from all quarters to exercise their franchise in larger national interest, Pundits chose to overlook the electioneering process, which goes onto show the apathy of the political parties. Right-wing Pundit groups including Panun Kashmir have ensured that there is near total boycott of the electioneering process, which according to them is insignificant, given the fact that the establishment chose to ignore their genuine aspirations over the years, including the grant of “Internally Displaced” (commonly know by its acronym, IDP) status as advocated by a United Nations’ body.

To rub salts to their wounds, Minister of State for Home in the BJP-led government, I D Swami chose a wrong time — just before the elections — to announce the much puffed up package for the Kashmiri Pundits, which turned out to be a “crude parody” so much that it was outright rejected by the community. One look at the whole scheme of things devised and formulated by the Home Ministry was adequate to comprehend that it was a mere gambit on part of New Delhi to entice Pundits into participation. Moreover, it backfired much to the dismay of the establishment.

The political leadership of this ethnic minority has repeatedly accused the Indian establishment of using KP's as 'scapegoats,' and transgressing the limits of decency. Their pathetic existence in the camps is being exploited by New Delhi to substantiate its claim over Kashmir in the eyes of the international community, which the community vehemently opposes, terming these attempts as manipulations by the government and vested interests of the state to play fraud on the constitution and to draw mileage from human sufferings.

National Conference, which boasts of its rich political history did nothing during its present tenure to ameliorate the hardships that Pundits are facing. Jammu, the winter capital, and the nearby town of Udhampur are home to a sizable number of Pundits, who have borne the brunt of unresponsive manner of the state administration. They continue with their journey in émigré; better living and basic amenities becoming a distant day dream with each passing day.

A well-knit community, which is proud of its distinctive culture, is fast losing hope even to uphold its distinct identity as an ethnic minority, an issue that is very close to their hearts. Pundits also hold a genuine bitterness against the Indian intellectual establishment for their partisan, and unpardonable act of ignoring their ethnic cleansing from the Valley by the Jehadi elements. The community is distressed by the way in which national media highlighted the suffering of Muslim minority in the western Indian state of Gujarat, while completely ignoring similar incidents in early nineties, when Pundits were being persecuted on similar lines in the Kashmir Valley. In doing so, the larger section of Pundits contend that just because Pundits in the given dispensation didn’t form a sizable chunk of the vote-bank, both electronic and print media half-informed the country about the prevailing truth, clearly reflecting the poor mindsets they seem to epitomize.

This journey of misery has extended far too much, and there is an earnest need to initiate measures both at the national as well as the regional level to end this extending and unsettling nightmare by looking into the matter. Initiating talks with the Pundit representatives is the need of the hour to restore their due respect as the proud citizens of this country. Watching the turn of events with bated breath, these refugees have not given up their intent to return to their motherland nor are they at the liberty of returning to it as long as terror and violence continue to haunt the valley. The prejudice meted out to these proud countrymen has to come to an end, earlier the better.

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