‘Kashmiri Pandits aren’t a vote bank anywhere in country’

JALANDHAR: Displaced from their homes 30 years ago, the 100-150 odd Kashmiri Pandit families in the city have been gathering at the office of the Photographer’s Association for the past about a decade to remember their ‘Isht Devi’ – local deity Raginya Bhagvati – an incarnation of Durga who is venerated at the historic temple of Kheer Bahawani nestled amid Chinar trees in Srinagar, Kashmir.

Aparna Banerji
Tribune News Service
Jalandhar, April 14

Displaced from their homes 30 years ago, the 100-150 odd Kashmiri Pandit families in the city have been gathering at the office of the Photographer’s Association for the past about a decade to remember their ‘Isht Devi’ – local deity Raginya Bhagvati – an incarnation of Durga who is venerated at the historic temple of Kheer Bahawani nestled amid Chinar trees in Srinagar, Kashmir.

As the city’s few Kashmiri Pandits gather at the annual havan to venerate their local deity, they say: “It’s that annual occasion to ask the Goddess for kasht nivaran (alleviation of troubles). She put us in this dilemma, she will take us out.”

Sunita Kak (49) says, “In January of 1990, I along with my mother and sisters fled Kashmir after villagers began threatening to murder all men and take women. We spent days in agony. My mother kept a live wire at the attic and asked us to electrocute ourselves if any attackers came. We, my sisters and brother and mother, moved out in the night to Jammu. For days we survived on one pair of clothes we washed in the night. My aunt was among the first Kashmiri Pandits to be killed. Eventually, after weddings we migrated here. If we weren’t educated, I don’t know what fate would have befell us. Our house was burnt in 1992.”

Kak hails from Habba Kadal in Srinagar.

Kak said: “The government has told us it would rehabilitate us. But here we are, still dreaming of our erstwhile homes. The government has done a lot for 10,000 Kashmiri Pandits in Gujarat but the rest of us continue to languish. Bal Thackeray was the only politician who ensured jobs for us. For the rest of the parties, it seems like talking about our plight isn’t even fashionable, since we are a minority. I want to vote from Habba Kadal (Kadal means bridge).”

Rajinder Kaul, who originally belongs to Zaina Kadal in Srinagar, says: “The greatest problem for Kashmiri Pandits is they are not a vote bank anywhere in the country. We are a minroty everywhere. I have been a migrant all through. I was born in Kolkata and moved to Punjab. I wasn’t essentially displaced. But my relatives were. We had a beautiful 100-room house in Kashmir. I want to visit it. But can’t. It is stifling. Terrorism of all kind is bad. I have seen Devdutt Khullar being killed in front of my own eyes during the Punjab terrorism days. Our house in Srinagar lies in shambles. We can’t visit Kheer Bhawani or venerate our Gods there. It’s not the same here. The BJP has still given ear but no one else thought about us. I still have the hope to fulfill my dream of visiting my 100-room house one day.”

While there are about lakhs of Kahmiri Pandits in the country, members of the community in the city also say they are scattered and do not come together on one platform.