There are Kashmiri Muslims who outright deny the tragedy of the Kashmiri Pandit Community, there are Kashmiri Pandits who wrongly blame their tragedy on all Kashmiri Muslims and deny the tragedy of the Kashmiri Muslim Community. The below Excerpt from one of Sualeh Keens Articles is a Must read for every Kashmiri who is interested in Truth and Reconciliation. Denial is the name of the game. However, it needs to be emphasized that one cannot really blame KM kids who were not born in 1990 or were too young to understand the events that unfolded back then. Their knowledge is second hand and they are not to be blamed; the older generation is responsible for the misinformation that the new generation has been fed. It also needs to be emphasized that not everybody was aware of what happened, due to a number of reasons: 1) Some were too preoccupied by the volatile situation to take notice what happened to the minorities. 2) Some lived in a locality where there was little contact with the minorities. 3) Due to curfew, some couldnt even know what was happening next door. 4) Some forgot what exactly happened during the build-up to the exodus, because new incidents were happening everyday in 1990 — massacres, killings, blasts, crackdowns, protests, encounters, targeted assassinations — and each days news obliterated the previous days news, until the exodus became a footnote in our (KMs’) own experience with the conflict. This is also why many KMs genuinely don’t recall the night of 19th January, for it was a night one among many similar ones that were to follow. 5) There are also many instances where a panicked Pandit family did not even inform their closest relatives that they intend to flee during the night (Rahul Pandita too has mentioned this in his book). This secrecy was maintained because there were incidents where militants looted the Pandits who were about to leave. This vacuum of knowledge of why did my Pandit neighbour leave / why the Pandits left was soon filled by conspiracy theories conveniently supplied by separatist militants who orchestrated the entire thing as they saw no role of Pandits in their violent political project. THUS, one cannot blame the Muslims who had no role in the exodus or those who used to mouth the Jagmohan conspiracy theory because they dont know better. Besides, there were no Pandits left in the valley to ask the truth from. This cannot be called Denial; the word for it is “Ignorance.” HOWEVER, now that due to internet, one can directly ask any Pandit individual what made him / her leave their home, one can learn the truth right from the horses mouth. One will come to know of threatening letters, of religio-fascist slogans that made the entire minority community cringe in fear, of targeted assassinations, of them having been advised by their well-wisher Muslim friends that it is beyond their ability to save them (Pandits) so it was advisable to leave. Ask the victims. Simple. We all should realise that all claims to victimhood are interconnected. If we dont believe the victims of the minority community, how do we expect them to believe or sympathise with the victims of our own community? We need to acknowledge the truth — the good, the bad, and the ugly. Truth comes first in Truth & Reconciliation, and there can be no reconciliation without the former.
Posted on: Mon, 10 Nov 2014 12:41:00 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015