Exclusive Interview: Syed Salahuddin, Chief Commander, Hizbul Mujahideen

"Dialogue is useless, armed struggle will continue"

Originally published in The Sunday Indian magazine

Peace will elude Kashmir until separatists are involved in the dialogue process, says Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin. He spoke to Aditya Raj Kaul on phone from Muzaffarabad a day ahead of the Indo-Pak foreign secretary-level talks in Delhi.

Syed Salahuddin, Chief Commander, Hizbul Mujahideen

The Pakistan foreign secretary is in India for talks and he would be meeting all separatist groups. How do you see this meeting?
I think meeting with Hurriyat leaders before Indo-Pak secretary-level talks is good, but the basic issue is that the Kashmir dispute is tripartite. No effort will yield results until all three parties concerned are involved. It is not a border dispute between India and Pakistan that two foreign secretaries or heads of state can resolve it. Nor is it an internal security issue. There has to be a realistic approach to the problem. Has this dialogue process been of any help?
You say tripartite talks are necessary. The government says you should give up arms and surrender.
These are talks only for the purpose of talks or to just keep the stakeholders engaged. It has brought no result in the past nor will it do so in the future. During the past 65 years, hundreds of such exercises have been undertaken. But what is the result? The issue has to be resolved in a realistic way. India and Pakistan both have to agree that Kashmiris are the principle party to the dispute. Till they carry on bilateral dialogue, there will be no result just like it has happened in the past. There will be no breakthrough.

Is Hizbul ready for talks with India?
That is of no importance. India should first agree in principle that Kashmir is a disputed territory which has to be resolved as per the United Nations resolution. It is immaterial whether it is Mirwaiz, Geelani or Syed Salahauddin. It does not matter who represents Kashmiris in these talks. The core issue has to be resolved in a practical direction and that is our demand. Hizbul or any other group coming to the table is not of specific importance. In the process of dialogue, everybody (separatists) should be supported.

Hasn't this 23-year-long bloodshed and its high human cost gone against your cause?
I don't agree. Unless and until the democratic approach is respected and honoured, the armed struggle will remain relevant. The people of Jammu & Kashmir, during the last 65 years, have never compromised on their basic demand for right to self-determination. India, by using force, has tried to crush the sentiments of Kashmiris but it has been an absolute failure. Until India respects the aspirations of the people in Kashmir as per the commitment of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and others which were made in the presence of the international community, armed struggle will continue. It will be a statewide political armed movement in India till Kashmir remains a territory under the control of the military. Indian authorities are not serious about resolving the issue but are only buying time. How can we nullify the validity and relevance of the armed struggle? It remains important. The international community too has come to know of India’s militarisation in Kashmir. The military cannot be eliminated without our armed struggle. We have seen the successful role of armed struggles in Afghanistan and Iraq. We are well-wishers of our Indian brethren. If India accepts the reality of the Kashmir issue there will be no need for an armed struggle. But if India continues to use its military against the people of Kashmir, there will be no alternative to the gun.

Lashkar-e-Toiba and Indian Mujahideen have been in the news lately because of their violent activities. Have they taken over Hizbul Mujahideen?
We have tried our best and given everything to the movement. Hizbul Mujahideen is a militant organisation of local cadres. There was a time when Pakistani elements were in it. There are thousands of families who refused to stay under suppression on the Indian side of Kashmir and migrated to the Pakistani side in the last 40 to 45 years. We are half a billion people of Kashmiri origin. We are living in Pakistan Administered Kashmir and other parts of Pakistan. They are as much Kashmiris as any other Kashmiri living in the Valley. There is just physical distance. We are indigenous. The foreign elements in our group are negligible in number now. At the present time, I don’t think any non-local person has a role in insurgency in Kashmir.

The J&K government has said that infiltration has drastically reduced in the last many months, and only a few hundred militants are left in the Valley. Is it true?
If militancy has come to an end, tell me why are more than 7,50,000 Indian troops deployed in Kashmir. What is the purpose of them being there? More and more troops are being created in the name of Rashtriya Rifles, Indian Army and Task Force. More civilians are being targetted. There are so many innocents who have lost their lives in prisons in Kashmir. What is the need of this huge army deployment if peace has returned to Kashmir?

You have alleged that the 1987 J&K elections were rigged by the National Conference, which resulted in this brutal cycle of violence. Had there been no such episode, would Kashmir have been different today?
In the 1987 elections there was mass rigging when I contested as part of the Muslim United Front. Farooq Abdullah, the Congress government and others cornered us illegally. People lost trust in them. For overall change we had to go in for armed struggle. We had no option left.  The struggle, which has been going on for 23 years, is a result of the ways in which the confidence of the Kashmiri youth in the democratic process was shaken by the leaders of the National Conference and the Congress. But this was certainly not the only reason why things turned out the way they are today. There were many other crucial factors that led to the armed struggle in Kashmir. 

Celebration or mockery of freedom in Kashmir?

Published in Daily News & Analysis (DNA), Mumbai

It was August 24, 2007. Independence Day was still fresh in the memory.A group of politically aware girls pursuing journalism from the prestigious Kamla Nehru College in New Delhi, in association with a youth forum, Roots In Kashmir, were about to screen a documentary, ...And the World Remained Silent, by filmmaker Ashoke Pandit to question the state’s silence on the ethnic cleansing of exiled Kashmiri Pandits. On the eve of the screening, the organisers called it off. At Roots In Kashmir, the activists, mostly Pandits, were distraught. Again their voice had been silenced.

The organisers, however, quietly invited another filmmaker, Sanjay Kak, to screen his controversial film, Jashn-e-Azadi, which had been denied a public screening certificate by the censor board. It became clear within hours how some powers had changed the schedule. It didn’t need a political analyst to guess who had silenced the voice of the Pandits in exile. Though, as expected, the Delhi police asked Kak not to break the law and the screening was cancelled.

Yet another screening of Kak’s film has now been withdrawn by Symbiosis College of Arts and Commerce in Pune after the special branch of the police wrote to it asking it to refrain from showing the film during its three-day seminar, Voices Of Kashmir. 

Activists from the local ABVP unit also objected to the film’s provocative content. The college has organised the event in association with the University Grants Commission, which also received complaints against the director.

Kak, who has raised an alarm in the media over this apparent scuttling of his ‘freedom of expression’, was, however, singing a different tune a few months ago against the first literary festival planned in the Kashmir valley. The organisers of the Jaipur Literature Festival had planned a similar exchange — Harud Literature Festival — last September. While news agency AFP described it as “another sign at easing tensions in the revolt-hit Himalayan territory”, London’s The Independent described it as the “cultural rebirth” of Kashmir and “an attempt to aid the area’s cultural renaissance.” The Times of India wrote that the “valley had turned a page” and related the event to the fact that Germany had lifted its travel advisory against visiting Kashmir.

But normalcy wasn’t acceptable to a few fringe groups, who took it upon themselves to confront the free flow of ideas among writers from across the globe who would have assembled in Kashmir. Fundamentalist groups told the media that stones would be thrown at the venue. Kak and a group of cheerleaders became part of this campaign asking the organisers to cancel the event.

Before amnesia sets in, it is important to narrate how dangerous half-truths on Kashmir came into being. It all began on the evening of March 13, 2007, at the India Habitat Centre in New Delhi where Kak invited the cream of cultural and social activists who were regulars on the Page 3 circuit for the premiere of his much talked about documentary on Kashmir — Jashn-e-Azadi (Celebration of Freedom). On the front seat of the jam-packed auditorium was a frail man in his early forties. He was the centre of attention of the organiser all through the evening.

Yasin Malik had never been a film buff or social crusader. He had never been seen behind the camera either. Often, cameras were directed at him for all the wrong reasons. In 1989 he was part of a large group of Kashmiri Muslims who were brainwashed and sent to Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) for training on Kalashnikovs that would later that year and the following decade be used against the minority Kashmiri Pandits, who were seen as Indian agents.

Malik’s Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), which was banned till 2000 as a terrorist outfit, had the main role in orchestrating the forced exodus of Pandits after their selective killings in the valley increased. And here was the revolutionary of freedom among an elite audience to witness a film revolving around the separatist movement. Kak, main organiser for the evening, had already ensured that Pandits were denied entry into the auditorium. As a result, several young and old Pandit scholars, professionals, journalists and activists stood outside the closed main gate.

Malik, one of the lead characters in the film, says India wants to impose Brahminical imperialism in Kashmir. Does he even know the meaning of the term ‘Brahman’? The most significant mischief played by the film is with the portrayal of statistics. It says 200 Kashmiri Pandits were killed and 1,60,000 exiled. It goes on to support the Kashmiri separatist claim that 1,00,000 Muslims were killed since 1990.

Rashneek Kher of Roots In Kashmir, who was among those asked by Kak to remain outside the auditorium, says in his account published in Greater Kashmir: “When I asked Sanjay Kak the source of these figures, he said he had obtained these from some joint secretary in the MHA, New Delhi. The movie director being a respected man, I had no doubt that he had got them from the Government of India (GoI). When I asked him what’s the source of his figures, 1,00,000 killed in Kashmir since 1990, he strangely had no GoI statistics to support his figures. Who believes GoI anyway? I have received a reply to an RTI saying only 16,455 civilians have been killed in Kashmir since 1990. Now who would believe that? If GoI would have been sacred as Kak wants us to selectively believe, we wouldn’t have the movie in the first place.”

One of the flashes in the film says “Kashmir is the most militarised region”. Maybe it is. What then explains the presence of army and paramilitary forces when, till 1989, it hadn’t even seen an armed policeman? The forced exodus of Pandits also took place in 1990. The film does not mention why the army had to be placed there after 1989. Isn’t it imperative for a filmmaker to show the complete picture and not half-truths?

Jashn-e-Azadi didn’t face protests only at its premiere. In August 2007, Mumbai’s anti-terrorism squad received inputs about a secret screening being planned at Prithvi theatre. The police raided the premises and sealed DVDs of the film. The senior officer who ordered the raid was martyred by bullets of terrorists from Pakistan in the 26/11 attack. Kak faced similar police action in Gujarat, New Delhi, and other places.

“It wasn’t a film on Kashmiri Pandits,” remarked an angry Kak when challenged by an equally angry audience at a screening at Stanford University in the US last year. There can be no disagreement on this. But why then did he use Pandits for a minute or two in the 138-minute documentary? The film gives a falsified account on the Pandits, not just by statistics but by showing images of abandoned houses for a few seconds to rub salt into their wounds.

“A good documentary does not take sides, it simply documents and presents facts as they are, the director is never seen to be endorsing or negating what he shows. When Sanjay Kak explains the meaning and essence of the term shahadat, the swell of adrenalin is clearly audible in his voice, that’s when he moves from being a director to an invisible but strong spokesperson of his concept of what constitutes the celebration of azadi. To prove his point of view he has even borrowed footage that makes it look exactly like the sexed-up PowerPoint presentation that the USA made to the UN as its premise for attacking Iraq. History is replete with neo-converts going that extra mile to prove which side of their bread is buttered, but I believe the director wants to walk all through the Safar-e-Azadi to prove his loyaltyto the only leader of Kashmir, Yasin Malik,” writes Kher.

In 2010, on Independence Day, Mumbai’s Free Press Journal carried a feature on young Kashmiris and what they felt about India. A bright girl, a budding artist from Srinagar, spoke frankly about the concerns of ordinary Kashmiris and praised chief minister Omar Abdullah. Soon, all hell broke loose. Through a Facebook group called BekaarJamaath (Idle Group), and on e-mail and phone, she was threatened and abused by fellow Kashmiris. She was so scared that she went into hiding and sought help from security agencies.

Kak wouldn’t know of such stories. He couldn’t care less. Terrorists who have changed colours to suit their careers are important for his screen space. Kak won’t ask for their conviction under the law for killings against humanity in Kashmir; he would rather showcase them as ‘Gandhian activists’.

Ordinary Kashmiris have always been overshadowed by separatists who are given space by New Delhi-based intellectual mercenaries, making it a mockery of freedom. The spin doctors have made business out of Kashmir just as self-styled activists have worked for an ‘agenda’ unknown to the common man searching for peace in the valley.Is there any spring of hope for this intolerance to end?

Aditya Raj Kaul is India editor of the monthly The Indian published from Australia.

Kashmiri Pandits: The Forgotten Victims

Published in Mid Day

Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth. - Buddha 

 

In Kashmir there is no common truth. Every individual perhaps has a distinct version of truth. The conflict ridden valley, however has over the past two decades hidden one significant truth, that of the forced displacement of Kashmiri Pandits in 1990.

As India was inching towards reforms to transform its economic outlook in 1989, its northern-most state of Jammu & Kashmir faced a sudden violent rebellion from separatist groups who took up arms against the state machinery. While V.P. Singh took hold of the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) in December that year, situation had turned grave as terrorists aided by Pakistan began selectively targeting the minority Kashmiri Pandits.

The Pandits' story today is one of the tragic and often overlooked catastrophes of a conflict that has claimed thousands of lives, and forced hundreds of thousands from their native land into exile in their own country.

The roots of this tragedy are immersed in 1986 with a well-planned strategy to execute Hindus from the valley. By 1990, the population saw their age old temples turned to ruins and lives at risk.

Pakistan stepped up their campaign against India, new Islamist terror outfits swiftly mushroomed in the state; even as Jamait-e-Islami financed all madarsas to poison them against the minority Hindus and India, Pakistan further dictated youth to launch Jihad against India. A terror strike so meticulously planned that its unprecedented display was terrifying. The camps in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK) began to provide training to innumerable Muslim men; India witnessed the emergence of the bloodiest Kalashnikov culture in the valley.

Almost after two decades of the exodus, the Abdullah family - who are politically the strongest family of J&K - broke their silence over the issue. Omar Abdullah wrote a detailed post on his official blog blaming the local Muslim population to be 'mute spectators' to the forced exodus.

On May 15th, 2008 Chief Minister of J&K Omar Abdullah, who back then was the president of the J&K National Conference, wrote in detail his views about the Kashmiri Pandits exodus. Excrepts: "It's so easy to say that we will lay down our lives to bring Kashmiri Pandits back to the Valley and I appreciate the sentiment as I am sure the Kashmiri Pandits reading it will. Pity that sentiment was missing when our mosques were being used to drive these people out."

"None of us was willing to stand up and be counted when it mattered. None of us grabbed the mikes (microphones) in the mosques and said 'this is wrong and the Kashmiri Pandits had every right to continue living in the valley."

"Our educated, well-to-do relatives and neighbours were spewing venom 24-hours a day and we were mute spectators either mute in agreement or mute in abject fear but mute nonetheless." 

"And talking about mosques -- what a great symbol of mass uprising they proved to be. While I can't claim to have lived through it I have enough friends who did and they tell me about the early 90's where attendance was taken in mosques to force people to pray."

There has been a persistent silence over the issue of the Pandits' exile in the lofty corridors of power in New Delhi. The revolutionaries in the Human Rights camp too have conveniently ignored the hapless community. On the other hand, the comparatively free press, at least free of ideological compulsions, has rendered lip-service to the ethnic minority community of Kashmir. In this process, history may have been led to erase one of the most haunting chapters from its custody.

"Kashmir should get Azadi (freedom) from bhookhe-nange (starving-naked) Hindustan (India)," said Arundhati Roy, seen by many as a champion on 'human rights', at a seminar in New Delhi in October 2010 where a Maoist frontline group Committee for Release of Political Prisoners (CRPP) hosted Kashmir secessionist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani. The seminar which was conducted few kilometers away from the Parliament of India saw sudden clash between people protesting against the speech of Roy and police. Almost eight people including Roy and Geelani were booked for inciting violence by a Delhi Court later.

Human Rights groups in India, mostly tilted towards left have remained silent on the displacement of Pandits or demanding justice for the acts of violence perpetuated against the community. People's Union for Civil Liberties, one of the oldest Human Rights groups existing in India went on to make sweeping statements and vague conclusions on the forced displacement of Kashmiri Pandits. 

Manoj Joshi, senior journalist, writes in his book The Lost Rebellion - Kashmir in the Nineties, "In an article in The Times of India, Harish Khare rightly blamed the entire 'secular establishment' for turning 'its back on the Hindu migration from the valley'. Indeed, its most extreme, the PUCL, went out of its way to skew testimony to prove that Jagmohan had engineered the migration, ignoring the brutal rapes and killings that preceded it."

Former National Vice-President of PUCL, Yogesh Kamdar denies such an occurrence, "I do not think PUCL ever believed that one individual (Jagmohan) and his "propaganda" can result in the migration of lakhs of people in such a short span of time and lasting so long. Holding such a view implies that the victims lacked basic intelligence and common sense."

On the Pandits' plight, he says the media and the human rights groups have "unfortunately remained muted all through. In my opinion it is largely due to the desire to assume politically correct postures (rather than to be true to one's brief). And sadly, there has not been adequate attempts of introspection by either of them."

"I protested against the deception and distortion of the so-called human rights bodies like People's Union for Civil Liberties. I was not listened to; rather I was run down by the members of the present day ruling-party who cited false and motivated reports of these bodies in the Parliament," writes the than Governor of J&K, Jagmohan in his book The Frozen Turbulence citing several reports of the PUCL ignoring plight of the Kashmiri Pandits.

The exodus of Pandits, largest forced migration since partition of India, is a bitter saga in the modern day history. It is seldom repeated on news-channels and newspapers as are the anti-Sikh riots of 1984 in New Delhi, the Babri Masjid demolition of 1991 and the Gujarat riots of 2002. Even though several hundred temples continue to remain desecrated in the Kashmir valley and an entire community waiting for the wheels of justice to move, not much is expected more than two decades after their forced displacement.

Will Government of India prosecute those responsible for the exodus of the community? Will the Kashmiri Pandits return to their homeland? Or, will the community remain in exile, at home?

"Freedom became a prison for the exiles", wrote Siddharth Gigoo, author of The Garden of Solitude, first-ever novel on the exodus of Pandits. Perhaps, the Pandits will remain confined in the prison. 

Aditya Raj Kaul is the India Editor of the monthly The Indian published from Australia. The article is an excerpt from the research, 'The Forced Displacement of Kashmiri Pandits - Myths & Half Truths' conducted for the Xavier Institute of Communications, Mumbai. Kaul blogs at activistsdiary.blogspot.com and can be reached at kauladityaraj@gmail.com

Featured as Youth Achiever in the India Today Magazine (Simply Delhi)

(Click on the image to enlarge)

From the diary of an exile

This piece was also published at NEWSGRAM

The fear of turning old has been recurring all through these last few months. Not that the grey hair would bother my ego, not even the flab of dry whitish-brown skin protruding out from the calcium-less bones. I for once haven’t tried being conscious of my looks or even the ever growing beard lately. Most of my life has been without any particular fear. In more liberal fashioned tone, it has been ‘fearless’.

As I’m driving away in the dark to seek solitude, the fear develops stronger. It brings some quick sweat on my face and the deep forehead, added along is some rattling effect on my nerves. With my right foot pressed hard against the accelerator on this empty city road far away from the city of my thoughts. The racing heart is faster than the car at this point. I wish to stop and run away to my ‘home’. Though I know I can’t.

There seems no ‘bring to an end’ to this journey. The farther I travel, more I seek to return. The time dissolves into memory. In this thorny path ahead of me, I see an identity-less non-stop journey into darkness. The journey itself begins in darkness of hope. An ironic life of a wandering soul!

Most nights are spent in the ‘white and black’ of the unseen past. Past being a predicament as much as the future.

I stare at the photograph of a rare sparrow sitting on the gate of a mausoleum with her back turned towards me; on the front is a ‘hazy green’. One of the many photographs pasted above my work desk. The haziness of this forced journey is unpredictable. In this concrete jungle, I do not long for another machine. All I yell for is my lost abode.

Is it the fear of turning old? Or, perhaps of being a ‘homeless’ at the fag-end of life; an ordeal haunting an exile. ‘Freedom is a prison for the exiles’, says an author friend.  I remain confined in that prison lark.

Just as the withered dislocated leaf of ‘Chinar’ which narrates the agony in its fire brown tint before being crumbled, the fear in me shall pass. The silent journey alone to my homeland shall never end. I shall remain young forever to recount the ‘untold story’ of a forgotten tribe. The tribe that existed in their homeland, not so far long ago!

In the words of Gulzar,

ज़िन्दगी यूं ना हुई बसर तनहा, काफिला साथ और सफ़र तनहा!

हमने दरवाजे तक तो देखा था, फिर ना जाने गए किधर तनहा!

Taking on Separatist Syed Ali Shah Geelani at the India Today Conclave 2011

Aditya Raj Kaul, India Editor of The Indian, Australia and Founder of Roots In Kashmir who was participating in the India Today Conclave 2011, talked about his own experience and accused Geelani of being true only to his "masters" in Pakistan and not even to his own moderate leaders, such as Abdul Gani Lone who was allegedly killed by the Hurriyat hardliners.

Dhoope ke Sikke and my home, lost home...

Never has a song really reminded me of my home, lost home. Never at least a bollywood song. Kashmir, which meant home till the first 9 months of my life has been in centre frame of my mind always. It has brought tears, longing along with imagination of my neighborhood, my garden back in the valley. My three storey house near the famous Dal Lake, which was filled mostly with old and new books. I’ve heard.

It would now be hard to trace the ashes of those old and new books on that barren land. They burned it all to the bottom.

धुप के सिक्के उठाकर गुनगुनाने दो उसे,
बैंगनी कच्चे हथेली पर सजाने दो उसे!
भोली भाली भोली भाली रहने दो
ज़िन्दगी को ज़न्दगी को बहाने दो..!

Prasoon Joshi, famous lyricist has a magical gift of writing Hindi songs. After the much adored ‘Meri Ma’ from the film ‘Taree Zameen Par’, he has returned with yet another surreal ‘Dhoop Ke Sikke’ in the newly released film ‘Sikander’, which I’m told has an undercurrent of terrorism. I would refrain to comment on the film from what I’ve observed of it till now. No offence meant. I know at the most it would talk about the present locals of the valley (their suffering), or the army and the state. Peace would be its message. Though it would as always not touch me or my community. I’m still considered untouchable by our intellectuals. I’m not a revolutionary mass-murderer; I’m just a Kashmiri Pandit. The Pandits (Hindus) of Kashmir valley who were ethnically cleansed.

मगर धोके से तुने उसका बचपन भी तोह लूटा है,
ज़रा देखो तोह उसकी आँख में वोह कबसे रूठा है!!
जुगनुओं की रौशनी में दिल लगाने दो उसे...

Sanjay Suri is my only hope for now. He plays a reformed terrorist in this film. Many rumours claim he is being portrayed as a mixture of Hurriyat's MirwaizUmar Farooq, JKLF's Yasin Malik and slain separatist Abdul Gani Lone. In real life, Virenderveer Suri, Sanjay's father was gunned down one morning in 1990. His only crime, being a 'Hindu' in a predominantly Muslim Kashmir. Sanjay may have been 19 then.

Today we complete 19 years in exile from our land. The above lines by Prasoon, made my mind travel, it reminded me of my pain. I'm missing my home that I've never seen. Perhaps, never will.

अकेले छोड़कर उसको क्या कहने चाह रहे है हम,
क्या कहना चाह रहे है हम!
एक गहरी नींद से हमको जगाने दो उसे!!

I've been alone in these gone years. I've been left alone..

19 years to the 19th day of 1990: Exodus of Kashmiri Pandits

I haven't been writing on the blog for long. Though I couldn't think of a reason strong enough to mention for this but maybe I have been a bit too occupied with college, newspaper writings and to top all reasons 'friends' (read:friend!). In last few months I earned some new friends (read this as friends!) and discovered some new ideas to explore in the times to come. I even drove straight to 'Neemrana' in Rajasthan for a day long trip with friends recently.

Last week, I was done with my college internals and now plan to get back to writing and as usual reading books which I've piled for days and kept in a strange order of sequence on my bookshelves. For days I've been thinking to write, write and write here...but sometimes the brain can just not 'zero in' on a subject. A subject, so different, so challenging and yet so simple, yet so common. This is just that time which people term as '..one of those days' when mind is in constant warfare within; with thoughts contradicting thoughts and much more happening inside me. What I could however come down to and know well enough was that I've a strange habit of writing during 'nights' or rather 'in dark'.

After days of procrastination from a friend, I had to bow and get on to writing yet again. Not to satisfy the said friend's wish alone, but for myself; for me to get better each day with writing skills. It was 19th last Monday, and I completed 19 years in exile, quite strange but even I'm 19 years old.

'..19 years ago I was - 19 years after I still am - but 19 years I lost..'
Thought of sharing an article I wrote for my Campaign Blog here. It is reproduced below. It was very encouraging to see storm of comments and a debate being generated on my writing. Few others also thought of re-publishing my brief piece at the following links :

1. Vijay Vaani - http://www.vijayvaani.com/FrmPublicDisplayArticle.aspx?id=353

2. Sachiniti - http://sachiniti.wordpress.com/2009/01/20/19-years-to-the-19th-day-of-1990-exodus-of-kashmiri-pandits/

and here it goes..

I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day
What hours, O what black hours we have spent…

- Gerard Manley Hopkins

19th January 1990. Kashmir was breathing still; Kashmiri Pandits lay hidden like frightened pigeons in their own nest. Today on behalf of my fellow brothers and sisters, I wish to revisit the pain of my separation from my own home 19 years ago, when the cruel hands of Allah-Wallahs butchered members of my community for being idol worshipers, for rejecting the call for unholy Jihad and for siding with their own nation India. The Islamic murderers played dire warnings from their Mosques which pierced each nerve of anybody who held a Hindu name. As the sun turned pale, exhortations became louder, and three taped slogans repeatedly played their terror: 'Kashmir mei agar rehna hai, Allah-O-Akbar kehna hai' (If you want to stay in Kashmir, you have to say Allah is great); 'Yahan kya chalega, Nizam-e-Mustafa' (What do we want here? Rule of Shariah); 'Asi gachchi Pakistan, Batao roas te Batanev san' (We want Pakistan along with Hindu women but without their men).
The roots of this unparalleled tragedy are immersed in 1986 with a well-planned strategy to execute Hindus from the valley. By 1990, the population saw their age old temples turned to ruins and lives at risk. As Pakistan stepped up their campaign against India, new Islamic terror outfits suddenly mushroomed in the state. As Jamait-e-Islami financed all madarsas to poison them against the minority Hindus and India, Pakistan further dictated youth to launch Jihad against India. A terror strike so meticulously planned that its unprecedented display was terrifying. As camps in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK) began to provide training to innumerable Muslim men, India witnessed the emergence of the bloodiest Kalashnikov culture in the valley. The victims- innocent and non-violent minority- the Kashmiri Pandits.
The Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah, abandoned his responsibilities and the administration, the state and people lay like cattle on an open road. The hidden fact of rigged elections in 1987 had by then become a lucid statement. Today 22 years later, Omar Abdullah takes position of the same majestic throne, though I wonder how efficiently he would carry forward the state of affairs. Will he like his father ruin the backbone of the state and leave the minority Hindus helpless as always, or will he rise above politics, religion to create space for Pandits in their valley? The unanswered question lingers on.
When Farooq Abdullah escaped underground, Jagmohan took reigns as the governor of the state. Though not very competent to handle an already ruined socio-political situation, he as a mark of remarkable leadership helped Kashmiri Pandits receive safe shelter. Jagmohan charted out an exceptional strategy to counter Islamic fanatics and also opened his Durbar (Office) to public irrespective of time. He visited families of the martyred Hindus. About one such meeting with the family of Satish Tickoo, murdered by communal JKLF goon Bitta Karate , he wrote an outstanding excerpt in his book, ‘My Frozen Turbulence in Kashmir’- “In Habba-Kadal, except for the long row of our vehicles, nothing was seen on the streets. The afternoon rain appeared to have soaked the houses with depression. The few windows that were open were without even the usual dim light. The dark clouds overhead completed the picture of gloom… The house of Tickoo was like a shattered nest. Everything lay scattered. The grim atmosphere around told the tale more vividly...”
He further wrote, “As I was about to leave, Satish’s uncle who was a bit vociferous and assertive, insisted that I should go upstairs and see the family deity. I agreed. A calm majestic figure was soon visible. It looked so imposing even in the darkness… With tears in their eyes, the family members thanked me and the accompanying officers. We were all moved over the sad plight of the family”.
However one excerpt that mirrored my anxiety of 19 years was composed in words by Jagmohan, “Looking at the compact and enmeshed houses, and the by-lanes which acted like fine threads of a well-knit fabric, I wondered how these families, who had all their Gods and Goddesses here, and had deep roots in the soil, could leave and settle in distant and unfamiliar lands. Sometimes life is unaccountably cruel. And we human beings have, perhaps, no option but to suffer – suffer in silence, or wail”.
Satish Tickoo was not the lone martyr who fell to the bullets of so-called revolutionaries. Tika lal Taploo, Nilkanth Ganjoo, Sarla Bhat, and countless others followed the target list of JKLF and other Islamic Terror outfits backed by Pakistan financially, psychologically and politically. An absent government, collapsed administration, and a petrified community saw despondency set in. As the moonlight of January 19, 1990 wore itself out, despondency gave way to desperation. Tens of thousands of Kashmiri Pandits across the valley decided to take an agonizing decision, to flee their homeland and save their lives and religion from rabid Jihadis…
..Thus took place a 20th century Exodus.
Pandits left the valley, with an approximate statistics of more than three lakh and fifty thousand. Almost a thousand Pandit men, women and children were slaughtered to death in 1990 alone by these revolutionaries of Islam. Surprisingly on paper, official figures clogged at only 209 killed! Alas! Soon the J&K government shall disown the whole Pandit community as aborigines of Kashmir.
In this 19th year, a few hundred frightened Pandits still live scattered across the valley in far flung areas hoping against hope for peace and their brethren to step on the snow once again.
This 19th year embarks upon a history of bullets to makeshift camps in Jammu with torturous summer heat to snake and scorpion bites and finally dreadful diseases. Seven camps in Jammu are an uninhabitable asylum for around 50,000 Kashmiri Pandits. The only perceptible change is an upgradation of some to permanent structures.
My heart bleeds when I watch communal turned pseudo-secular Kashmiri separatists grab the headlines while the plight of the Pandits remains a non-issue. It isn’t the so-called Azaadi that the people of Kashmir desire. They long for an immediate crackdown on terrorists, an end to the separatist elements and those unbearable puppets in the Valley- all for normalcy to return. Though sidelined for now, the political patronage they enjoy could soon take the voices from the Hurriyat and JKLF spreading propaganda of terror and hatred to the frontlines of politics.
An entire community uprooted from the land of their ancestors is today struggling for its identity. The weak-kneed Indian state shamelessly panders to Islamic terrorists and separatists who claim they are the final arbiters of Jammu and Kashmir's destiny. A part of India's cultural heritage is destroyed; a chapter of India's civilization has been erased. And, our jhola-wallah brigade of ‘secular’ activists unabashedly turns their back to the plight of Kashmiri Pandits. To them I believe, ‘Hindu sorrow, inflicted by Islamic terror’ is a truth perhaps too harsh to accept. Thereby hangs a tragic tale that is completely wiped out from public memory.
I am reminded of a stanza by a Jewish poet: ‘...without identity in a street nameless to me, I am a stranger: I am longings, I am fears. I am child longing to belong to his lost childhood and not be outside the present, always withdrawn, apart...’
I’m as old as the terrorism in the Valley. In these 19 years, the only time I felt the breeze of my land was through the closed windows of my airplane. She beckons me and I am too desperate now to grab its serene quilt. My mother nature has summoned me, and I shall answer her call soon, very soon.
Till then, in this 19th year of exile like the unanswered questions of our human rights …my struggle for existence also continues.