Open letter to  Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Nardendra Modi

There is a conversation and fuss about our return back to Kashmir. While such a day would be a golden day in our present sordid history and like me, most of us would like to go home in the first opportunity, still I have a story to share with you sir.

I was barely an adult when all of a sudden our family one night decided to flee our home in 1990 and landed in Jammu in a camp. As a young man, that was start of a different kind of journey and now the journey and my life have become inseparable.

That initial shock and excitement is still traveling with me till date.

As a student, I can’t forget the days, when a dust of wind or shower of rain, would take away my notes from our tent and soak them in staggered water pools outside. Those long queues for gas cylinders, long waits and quarrels for a bucket of water from water tankers, long hours and sometimes days without power supply, everything looked part of our daily struggle.

The commotions and protests undividedly became my mindset. Every time, I was part of it. Every time, a delegation international, national or otherwise would come to meet us in the camp, I was among the front rowers always telling them my sufferings and expectations. For me as a youth, it was a gateway to tell the world about our struggle, our violation of human rights and pain of separation from home.

There were sympathies, patient hearings, promises and assurances. Some did deliver to their capacity and our story traveled to the world. But, like diabetes, the disorder and struggle from our lives didn’t go away, it only changed status. From tents to one-room quarters and now two-room flats at Jagti.

I am a personal witness and a person as well who has seen it all these 30 years. Most of the time, we Kashmiri Pandits were just used. And, the undercurrent is no different. In the camps, I had a parallel education about our heritage and thousands of years history. Being aborigines and part of at least 5000 years old civilization makes me proud. Contribution of my community to nation, economy, and secularism makes me more proud.

But still I find myself along with my community on the crossroads. We still are living a miserable life, as refugees in our country; the sense of insecurity still makes us shiver.

Meanwhile those who abetted and supported forces that brought about this status to us continued to be appeased. They used the opportunity to erase our heritage and footprint in the valley. While we are at the fag end of becoming extinct as an ethnic community, the national and international institutions like human rights commissions and others  never forcefully took up our case.

Now the question is, have I to forget all this and return to pre 1989 conditions and way of subdued living once again in Kashmir and our future generation will then again experience what I have all my life. We need a feasible solution that would address both my requirement of going back to home and protect my progeny from a similar fate in future.

The demand for the single township for KPs in Kashmir looks ideal way ahead and till then Kashmiri Pandit community be declared internally displaced people.

Pintoo ji

Social Activist

Jagti camp

Nagrota Jammu