DOST KHAN
JAMMU: Mainstream is a most vague term used in Kashmir for those contesting elections to remain glued to power. They speak for India only when in power and when out of it they are as good or as bad as secessionists or separatists. There is a razor thin difference between the two. Now the so-called mainstream leaders have become so brazen that they speak separatists’ language even while being in the government under an oath. Therefore, believing these parties to welcome Kashmiri Pandits back in the Valley is like expecting a moon. They are fashioned to raise hollow slogans like ‘Kashmir is incomplete without Kashmiri Pandits’ but when actually it comes to their return, they create obstacles. The mainstream parties, during their turns to throne, did pretty little to get the encroached upon properties of Kashmiri Pandits vacated or their worship places saved from encroachers. They presided over a process wherein distress sale was made possible despite enactment of J and K Migrant Immovable Property Act 1997. They are clueless about the properties of KPs, either sold in distress or usurped, and, still they cry hoarse over their ‘honourable and dignified return to their homes and hearths. The separatists and secessionists too speak similar language notwithstanding being a party to ethnic cleansing in nineties under General Zia-ul-Haq’s Operation Topac. Return of KPs will be something they must not be expecting in their wildest of dreams.
The terse response to Home Minister Rajnath Singh’s requisition for 850 hectare land for rehabilitation of KPs at their native places speaks about the mindset of rulers and opponents in the mainstream camp. They will keep beating their chests for safe return of terrorists, (misguided or reformed youth in their terminology) but term as communal the NDA Government’s plan to rehabilitate KPs in safe zones. Shamelessly, they keep talking of ‘ray of hope about secularism emanating from Kashmir’ but refuse to acknowledge how communal the Valley has turned. They are the people who have tagged KPs as migrants and not displaced or refugees. They have been playing politics on the exodus and return of Kashmiri Pandits. In the same breath, they talk sweet and sour about them. They accuse and abuse KPs of having fallen prey to the conspiracy ‘hatched by’ the former Governor Jagmohan while leaving their homes and hearths and at the same time Kashmir is seen incomplete without Kashmiri Pandits. The mindset of Kashmiri leadership can be gauged from the statement of a north Kashmir legislator, who is on record having stated: “Let us accept the bitter truth that majority of the Kashmiri Hindu migrants do not want to lose the packages, perks and privileges, which they are enjoying because of being migrants and as such they are not interested in their return”.
Kashmiri Pandits have not forgotten how Chief Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed created obstacles in raising Jagti Township, reportedly saying that creating facilities for them would delay process of their return. But, he never unfolded his vision of ‘dignified’ return of Kashmiri Pandits. Same is true about the leaders of Congress and National Conference. Remember the resentment shown by controversial Congress minister Ghulam Ahmed Mir and NC MLA Dr Bashir Ahmed Veeri on Kounsar Nag Yatra. If they can’t accept a few Kashmiri Pandits just for a few days, how can they embrace them as permanent settlers in the Valley?
Did any of the Kashmiri leader, party or organisation ever spelt out a road map as to where KPs will go on their return back? Their houses; their orchards; their huge properties have turned into Mals and residential hubs of neo-richs. The worship places are deserted, dilapidated or encroached. Flavoury and ornamental statements do come from Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar or Mufti Bashir-ud-Din but did they ever use their religious clout to seek vacation of KPs’ properties from unscrupulous elements across the Valley? They won’t and hence it is incumbent upon the new government at the Centre to see things moving on rehabilitation of KPs.
The Union Home Minister has taken up the issue of identifying suitable land for raising secure and safe satellite colonies in the three major districts of Baramulla, Srinagar and Anantnag. Rajnath Singh is reported to have suggested that the land should be made available near their native places from where they migrated and this should be done in such a manner there was adequate security in and around the area. The NDA government has pushed the ball into the court of ‘secular’ government in Jammu and Kashmir, which may either buy time till elections or wait for separatists to vitiate the situation thus making it difficult for the Centre to go ahead with its rehabilitation plan. In both the cases, it will be a win win situation for KPs to see real face of Kashmiri leadership getting exposed before the nation. Hitherto fore, the pseudo secularist governments at the Centre had been providing a cover to ‘mainstream’ junta in Kashmir to insulate communal credentials of ‘secular entities’.