“The Chief Minister (Mufti Mohammad Sayeed) assured the union home minister that the state government will acquire and provide land at the earliest for composite townships in the valley,” reads a press release issued by Press Information Bureau on April 7.
This routine press release issued after Chief Minister Mufti met Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh kicked a fresh controversy which refuses to die down. This has also put the coalition partners – Peoples Democratic Party and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) – in a tight spot. For BJP, the issue of Kashmiri Pandits has been an inalienable part of their politics on Kashmir and for PDP it hardly can afford to do anything that is construed as undermining the politics that is centered around the sentiments espoused by the majority community in the state.
For both PDP and BJP, the government formation was a hard-earned thing after a two-month-long back-channel negotiations. The government came into existence on the basis of a document called “The Agenda of Alliance”, in which the return of Kashmiri Pandits also figured, besides some other contentious issues. This is what the document says about the issue: “Protecting and fostering ethnic and religious diversity by ensuring the return of Kashmiri Pandits with dignity based on their rights as state subjects and reintegrating as well as absorbing them in the Kashmiri milieu. Reintegration will be a process that will start within the state as well as the civil society, by taking the community into confidence”. As far as the wording is concerned, it is straight and unambiguous; it does not talk about any township whether composite or separate. Surely a process has to be followed.
But the way the Home Ministry issued the press release, it led to a controversy and understandably so. Even as chief minister Mufti clarified on the floor of the House that there was no plan to have separate or isolated townships, the damage had already been done. Despite the state’s painstaking effort to clear the air, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh reiterated on April 9 that Government of India would go ahead with the plan to rehabilitate the Pandits. On the other hand, the response of separatists was also extreme. Concerns can always be genuine but to draw parallels with Palestine in such haste does not help in creating a scope for understanding the issue in the right perspective.
As pointed out by Sanjay Tickoo, the Srinagar-based president of Kashmiri Pandit Sangarsh Samiti (KPSS) that “in one breath they (separatists) are opposing their return and also talking about their return with dignity”. Tickoo is a genuine voice and cannot be ignored since he represents those families who have chosen to stay back in Valley despite the troubles Kashmir has seen.
Notwithstanding the fact that migration of Kashmiri Pandits was a dark chapter in the history of Kashmir, there is hardly disagreement on their return. If you ask a common Kashmiri he feels incomplete without his Pandit neighbour as his being part of a mohalla had made Kashmir a distinctive place about which we continue to boast about. But the unfortunate thing is that the murky politics takes over every positive effort when you try to resolve issues in a conflict. If BJP continues to play this politics and lay stress on anything which further isolates this community from rest of the people in Valley, it will not be doing any service to them. Since their migration, most of KPs had been aligning with BJP but in the last assembly elections it became clear that except for a section the rest have distanced themselves from the party, probably not to be projected as against the majority community.
Return of KPs at this stage seems to be their returning to Kashmir and not to their “homes” if we go by the proposals projected by some of the organisations representing them in Jammu and Delhi. Both state and central governments need to come clear on the terminology used by the Home Minister and others. “Composite Township” would generally mean that all communities will be part of it but technically it seems impossible to create such a space in changing landscape of Valley. Ordinarily the KPs should have returned to their homes. But most of them have sold their properties and there are only those families who used to live in rural Kashmir who have their homes (dilapidated) standing and land intact. All efforts to lure the KPs with doles in the past have not worked.
The previous government constructed safe colonies for them in places such as Sheikhpora and Vessu and provided out-of-turn jobs to more than 4000 KP girls and boys, but it did not work the way it should have. Many of them returned to Jammu and Delhi. How many KPs are ready to leave lucrative jobs within India and outside and return to live? Who will stand guarantee for their security when the government stands even on Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) which draws inspiration from the fact that “situation is not conducive for that”.
While separatists have every right to articulate their viewpoint, they too have failed to contribute to any workable solution for their return. How many times have they reached out to the community with a solution outside the government purview? By taking a particular stand they are also not helping to build an understanding based on logic and practicality. They are stakeholders in the process of resolution of Kashmir of which the issue of KPs is a part but past 25 years have seen that they lack direction. Then comes the “lone warrior for all issues”, MLA Langate Er Rashid who stretches it far by seeking apology from Pandits for leaving the valley. National Conference’s maverick Mustafa Kamal talks in same language. Seeking apology is bereft of logic and reason as the issue of their migration is caught in a narrative and a counter-narrative. But fear playing a leading role cannot be ignored.
With GoI adamant on rehabilitating the KPs the way they want to, it does not augur well for looking towards a stable Kashmir. Since GoI lacks commitment to engage with people of the state at large for resolving the issues which are bigger than the rehabilitation of Pandits, no proposal will find support on ground. By cherry picking issues in isolation and ignoring larger political issues, the Narendra Modi government is doing no good to Kashmir. It is just to send a message that New Delhi does not care about the ground realities of alienation and its priorities are based on its inherent political agenda. The BJP came to power purely on playing a communal card in elections. But Chief Minister Mufti Sayeed has repeatedly said that he joined hands with BJP to counter the increased polarization between two regions of Kashmir and Jammu. That, however, does not seem to be the case, going by the assertions of BJP leadership, which even goes against the Agenda of Alliance.
Return of KPs is an integral part of resolution of larger Kashmir issue and should not be seen or treated in isolation. It can be resolved by taking Kashmir’s civil society on board (not necessarily the political groups) and not by creating isolated pockets, which in turn can be used by them only as summer houses. But that will further the distances at both political and social levels. Reaching out to Kashmir’s majority is must for finding an amicable and dignified solution to the issue.
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