Arecent increase in attacks on civilians in Indian-administered Kashmir has sparked fresh fears among minority Kashmiri Pandits. Many of them claim that the situation is similar to that of the 1990s when the valley witnessed a mass exodus of more than 200,000 people.
The targets in the latest wave of killings, which began in the last quarter of 2021, appear to be members of Hindu and Sikh communities and non-Kashmiri migrant workers. On Oct. 7, 2021, Sikh school principal Supinder Kour and Hindu teacher Deepak Chand were gunned down inside a government school in Srinagar. Two days earlier, gunmen killed prominent Kashmiri Pandit Makhan Lal Bindroo, a pharmacist; Mohammad Shafi Lone, a cab driver; and Virender Paswan, a street food vendor from Bihar. Two more civilians were killed on October 2: Mohammad Shafi Dar and Majid Ahmad Gojri, both Muslims.
The killings so far have been claimed by The Resistant Front, a militant faction believed to be associated with Lashkar-e-Taiba. An Islamist group, Lashkar-e-Taiba targets people who are anti-Kashmir or worked with the Indian government.
Since the recent murders, at least 150 families have left Kashmir for other parts of India. According to Dr. Nitasha Kaul, a Kashmiri novelist and associate professor in politics and international relations at the University of Westminster in London, “things like targeted killings at any point in conflict can escalate, so the fear of people is understandable and one must empathize with it.”
These developments, however, fly in the face of the central government’s vision of a “Naya Kashmir (New Kashmir).” And officials have been scrambling to tamp down “rumors” of a fresh exodus of Pandits from the valley.
Family and friends mourn the death of Makhan Lal Bindroo, a prominent Kashmiri Pandit who was gunned down in October 2021.
Exits and returns
Kashmiri Pandits are of the highest caste in Hindu society and belong to the Brahman Saraswats. At the peak of the insurgency in Kashmir in the early 1990s, more than 70,000 Pandit families fled the valley. According to Sanjay Tickoo who, during that time had chosen to stay and live among his Muslim neighbors, 77,000 Pandit families lived in the valley before 1990. He says that only 808 of them remained after that exodus.
A large part of “Naya Kashmir” sees the return to the valley of the Pandits who fled it decades ago by assuring them of government jobs and housing.
In response to queries about the safety of minorities in Kashmir following the recent killings, Nityanand Rai, minister of state for home affairs, issued an official statement last December that said, in part: “In October 2021, about 115 Kashmiri Pandit families, mostly women and children, moved to Jammu. These families are of government employees and many of them move to Jammu in winter as part of the movement of officials and winter vacation in educational institutions.”
Tickoo begs to differ. The head of the Kashmiri Pandits Sangharsh Samiti (KPSS), a socio-political organization that caters to the needs of Kashmiri Pandits still in the valley, he has been seeking the government’s help in resettling distraught Kashmiri Pandits who fear for their safety.
Years ago, some of the families that chose were moved to fortified locations in the valley and given tight security. Yet, says Tickoo, who is now 54 years old, “from what I know, more than 50 families of the 808 (that had remained) have left the valley between 2008 and today. The migration is still going on.”
Tickoo confesses that he is now among those thinking of leaving as well.
“After those (recent) killings, the J&K (Jammu and Kashmir) police came to me in the middle of the night and told me that I am the next target,” he says. “They asked me to accompany them so that they can shift me to a safer place. I have never been so scared.”
“We are a small community now, scattered in different parts of Kashmir,” he continues. “The impact I had witnessed in 1990 was much larger when most of my friends left the valley. But since the last two to three years, we are experiencing the same kind of atrocities and massacres.”
In truth, uncertainty can be sensed across the entire valley, and not just among Kashmiri Pandits. Remarks a Kashmiri Muslim shopkeeper who declines to be named: “Kashmiri Pandit exodus should not have happened. They are like our brothers.”
He recalls being good friends with a Pandit family that lived across from his house years ago. But he says that the family left after the 2003 Nadimarg massacre, when 24 Kashmiri Pandits were killed in Pulwama district by Lashkar-e-Taiba militants.
“We had so many Hindu friends who came to our home during festivals and dinners,” says the shopkeeper. “But then they left after the 2003 attack on their community. It has been such a dark period for Kashmir.”
A land divided
The conflict in Kashmir goes back to the birth of India and Pakistan in 1947, when the subcontinent got bisected on religious lines. With the end of British colonial rule, the princely states were given the choice to integrate with India or Pakistan. Jammu and Kashmir, however, had a peculiar problem: a Muslim majority with a Hindu Dogra ruler, Maharaja Hari Singh.
More than seven decades later, Kashmir has turned into a restive region, controlled in part but claimed by both nuclear-armed neighbors in full. It has also been at the heart of an armed rebellion against the Indian government since the 1990s.
The recent attacks are not only reminiscent of the targeted killings by militants in the 1990s, but inculcate a sense of betrayal as well. While the central government had promised a new beginning for Kashmiris, these incidents have further widened the chasm of trust deficit between Kashmiri Pandits and Muslims.
“There is a long history of using divide and rule that makes the Muslim communities, justifiably or unjustifiably, see them as suspects,” comments Kaul. “So, when it comes to targeted violence against Kashmiri Pandits, then I think that it happens in a fog-of-war kind of scenario where there is absolutely no accountability. This means that the violence against Kashmiri minorities can be turned up by anyone for a range of strategic motives. Which makes them more vulnerable.”
She adds, “Kashmiri Pandits are victimized and misused by the Indian state, especially by the proponents of Hindutva, in the sense that they never really gave any protection or a concrete evidence of substantive attempts to ameliorate the overall situation, which would make it possible for their safe rehabilitation in the region.”
Some Kashmiri Muslims lament the exodus of their Hindu neighbors, who they considered their brothers and sisters.
“Kashmiri Pandit is a community that has privilege without power,” Kaul says. “Even though they are recognized as people that everyone claims to care for, and their historic privileges are highlighted, they don’t have any power. And what power they do have is [so] tenuous and fragile that [it] doesn’t translate into security.”
For sure, though, there are still many Kashmiris who are determined to stay put despite the current turmoil. Among them is former central government employee Roshan Lal Koul, who says that he is indebted to his neighbors and friends who have been there with him through thick and thin.
“I moved to Ompura Housing Colony in October 1989 from Habbakadal in downtown Srinagar,” recounts the 75-year-old. “People were running away from the valley when I built my house from scratch. By August almost 90 percent of my community had migrated. But it was also the time when I called a painter to paint my house. Even I was surprised at myself that people are running away and that I have no guarantee of safety. But I had a positive outlook and, most importantly, I made this house with my hard-earned money and didn’t want to leave it.”
Tickoo, however, seems determined to leave. He says, “I don’t want to live in the valley anymore. I don’t want to sacrifice any more lives for the system that does not give us any sympathy or support. It will be better for not just the government, but also the civil society that we are shifted from this place.”
“I feel that if any more casualties take place, you will not find the remaining 500 to 600 families, too,” says Tickoo. “Why live in such a helpless place?” ●
Kanika Gupta is a multimedia journalist based in New Delhi, India, and works out of Kashmir and Afghanistan. She reports on culture and human interest stories from conflict regions.
