Commentary/Dilip D'Souza

Defined By Our Minorities

If I know them at all, I know they will laugh at me for saying this: there was a kind of gentle warmth to the several Kashmiris I knew in college. I don't know how to account for it, but it was there. Better students than most of us time-wasters, they had their fun too. Two became my close friends. We shared affection, respect. Even today, every too-rare contact makes us wish we were in more regular touch.

I know now that some Kashmiris are Pandits. In those naive years I didn't even know the label. They were just fellow students. Sometimes we thought of them as Kashmiri -- especially when they taught us important Kashmiri swear words -- but only sometimes.

But it's something of a sign of the times that today, I am always aware that some of those pals of mine are Pandits. That some others are not. When I meet them, or hear from them, I can't help thinking that the Pandits among my Kashmiri friends have all had trauma touch them, one way or another, over the last few years. And I wonder, what happened to the others? Where are they? What are their traumas? What do they have to say about what has happened to Kashmir? To us all, college buddies till not so many years ago?

Nobody should have to go through what Kashmiri Pandits have suffered since about 1989. Wholesale, almost overnight, they were driven out of their homes in Srinagar and across the valley. Over three hundred thousand of them live as refugees in Jammu and in Delhi. They have lost their property, some lost far more. Their plight is one of the great tragedies of our time, a dark blot on our country.

And yet, at every contact with my Kashmiri friends, I also can't help thinking: the real sadness is not, despite the suffering, that they have been driven from their homes. The true tragedy is that they are an increasingly forgotten people. And when not forgotten, they are simply pawns in the hands of one agenda or another.

The Government of India looked the other way as Pandits were thrown out. So did the rest of us. The National Conference's government in Kashmir, run today by a man who is untrustworthy to the core, shows no sign that it will act to bring Pandits back to their homes soon, or not so soon, or at all. Or that it is even an important issue. Pandits are left to scrabble for help and support where they can get it. That search leads them to quarters about as worthy of trust as the chief minister of Kashmir is.

Now I can see that Pandits find some immediate help from men like Bal Thackeray. But to those men, the situation of Pandits is just today's convenient springboard for their own political ambitions. Nothing else.

All of which leaves Kashmiri Pandits where they really are today: utterly alone.

Agnishekhar, the convener of Panun Kashmir, the organisation of Kashmiri Pandits, told the press in Bombay a few days ago that Pandits are in a "difficult position" in Kashmir. Being Hindu, they are part of the national majority. Yet in that state, their home, they are in a minority. That ordinary fact, that old division into minorities and majorities, has definite implications for Pandits, for Kashmir, for the country.

But somewhere in that division, if we want to take them, are the seeds for a better future for Pandits.

Now Pandits have been asking the government of J&K to set up a state Minorities Commission that will address their particular interests and problems. Agnishekhar wondered why, when the government has a state Human Rights Commission, it is unwilling to have a Minorities Commission. When asked, it claims that with the HRC, there's no need for a separate MC. Then it points self-righteously to the National Conference's "minorities cell." But as Agnishekhar says, that is a wing of the party, not a government agency.

As I listened to Agnishekhar some days ago, I thought of my own state, Maharashtra. In his words, I heard the echoes of events here only two years ago. When the present government of Shiv Sainiks and BJP-ites came to power, it quickly disbanded this state's Minorities Commission. Minorities here protested, only to be told that there was a HRC and thus no need for a MC. Besides, said Sena and BJP leaders, we don't think of people in terms of minorities and majorities.

They forgot a crucial detail: minorities do. As Kashmiri Pandits know. That's why a Minorities Commission is necessary.

Agnishekhar also told the press about an "interim rehabilitation package" that Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah has recently drafted, aimed at displaced Pandits. The draft seems like it was meticulously planned to be a failure. That's partly because it says Pandits who return to the valley will have to "earn the goodwill of the majority community."

Oh yes? Exactly why should Pandits have to earn anybody's goodwill? They must return on their own terms, to the properties and homes that were stolen from them. That's all.

But the echoes sounded in my ears again: of demands that we've all heard over and over. Muslims must join the "mainstream", prove their patriotism, their love for India, their respect for Hindus. Take just one such, from only a year ago. That was when M F Husain's old painting of a topless Goddess Saraswati suddenly became an issue. When it did, the Sena's rag demanded that all Muslims "join Hindus in their relentless campaign against Husain. Or else the ordinary Hindu will get confirmed in his belief that what Husain is doing is the culture and tradition of Islam." You might say that Muslims were being asked to "earn the goodwill of the majority community."

But exactly why should all Muslims join in this "relentless campaign"? How did this suddenly become a test of the culture and tradition of Islam?

Think about it: why should either Muslims in Maharashtra or Pandits in Kashmir -- minorities anywhere, actually -- be asked to jump through hoops like these?

That's easily answered: because the hoops can always be moved, the demands can always be made, always with the surety of political gain. You see, whatever Pandits do or don't do, it can always be said that they did not do enough to "earn the goodwill of the majority community" (who's measuring?). Farooq Abdullah knows well the great political benefit of that accusation. Similarly, whatever Muslims do, it can always be said of them that they did not "join Hindus in their relentless campaign against Husain" (again, who's measuring?). Bal Thackeray knows well the boundless political benefit of that accusation.

That's the true value of these vague, meaningless and ultimately sinister demands of minorities.

The lesson in all this, it seems clear to me, is one about minorities. The true measure of successful, vibrant Indian democracy is the situation of its minorities. As Sikhs who lost loved ones in the 1984 riots know, as Muslims who lost loved ones in the 1992-93 riots know, as long-suffering lower castes know, as small fishermen all along our coasts know, and as Kashmir's Pandits know: India has not done well by its minorities. Therefore, India has not done well by its people.

The Thackerays and Abdullahs will not -- cannot -- lead us up and out of there. Urged on by them, we will continue to stray into violence and ruination. Until we find the will to recognise two things.

One, we are all minorities of one sort or another. We all have concerns, we all have rights. Those must be respected. Two, that is a definition of, even a tribute to, being Indian.

Those must form the basis of any solution to the tragedy of Kashmiri Pandits. Genuine support for their cause will come from people, parties and leaders who understand this. Nowhere else.

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