Genocide of Kashmiri Pandits: Reconciliation and the Way Ahead

By Rahul Pandit

Originally published Swarajya

Supreme Court Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul in his judgment today (December 11, 2023) on Article 370 suggested setting up a Truth & Reconciliation Commission, and Acknowledgement of Violations to heal the wounds - same as what I had recommended in this August 2021 article. This is quite heartening!

Many people in India, especially the youth of this generation, are unaware of this holocaust. While various dialogs have focused on the pogrom and the plight of the community as refugees within their own country, there is a crying need to determine the steps ahead. This paper is an attempt at the solutions for reconciliation.

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Both my daughters were enjoying meditative serenity in the gardens of the Hazratbal mosque at Srinagar with birds in the azure skies above and the green waters of the Dal lake caressing it below. They had finished offering prayers at the shrine on their first trip to the valley in 2016. “What happened was wrong. I pray every day for Pandits to return” Sh. Ghulam Hassan Banday, the pious and fatherly Custodian of the Holy Relic of Prophet Muhammad, was speaking to my in-laws, tears welling up his eyes. I felt his sincerity, I was home.

This reverie was broken with the memories of the pogrom and the forced exodus of 400,000 Kashmiri Pandits from the valley in the 90s. Retired Justice Pandit Neelkanth Ganjoo, out to collect his pension, was shot dead in broad daylight. Author of 24 books, freedom fighter and poet Pandit Sarwanand Koul Premi and his son Pandit Virendra Koul were abducted from their house in village Soaf Shali, Anantnag. Their bodies were found hanging from a tree a day later with the limbs broken, hair uprooted and portions of skin slit open. Before being shot the killers had hammered nails between their eyebrows and mutilated the bodies with cigarette burns.

Sarla Bhat, 24 years old nurse at the Institute of Medical Sciences, Soura was gang raped for 5 days before her burnt and bullet ridden body was dumped on the roadside. Girija Tikoo, 21 years old laboratory assistant at Government High School Trehgam, Kupwara was abducted, brutally gang-raped and cut into two halves on a saw mill while still alive.

This mayhem continued for over a decade to accelerate the pace of ethnic cleansing. Panun Kashmir, an organization of displaced Kashmiris, has published a list of 1,341 murdered Kashmiri Pandits. Names of prominent Pandits were pasted on ‘hit list’ posters and their murders celebrated. Widely read newspapers Aftab and Alsafa carried advertisements asking Hindus to leave or risk being eliminated. Temples were desecrated and burnt, homes and shops of Kashmiri Hindus were looted and destroyed. Mosque speakers blared ‘raliv, tsaliv ya galiv’ i.e. convert, run away or be killed and raped. 

I remember my grandparents escaping the valley but dying outside since they were not used to the heat. They had left overnight with only some essentials quickly packed in a trunk or suitcase, thinking this to be a temporary move, not knowing that the decades to follow will have no remit. They were also psychologically broken - treated as second class citizens forced to leave their respect, land, orchards and generational homes behind. Children used to sleeping on pashmina died of snake bite sleeping on the barren land of the squalid tented refugee camps. Parents felt abandoned as orphans with their children within a country they called their own.

The Indian state’s pusillanimity hushed up the genocide. It left the Kashmiri Pandits to fend for themselves. It was like the Holocaust.The difference being that while the history and lessons of the Holocaust are taught globally in various curricula, remembered and the survivors taken care of - the Indian state has brushed it under the carpet.

The UN Genocide Convention of 1948 defines “genocide” as an act committed with the intent to destroy an ethnic group, including the killing of its members. In 1995, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) headed by the former Chief Justice of India M. N. Venkatachaliah, held the systemic ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Pandits akin to genocide. 

While mass hysteria engulfed the valley, many families were also saved and clandestinely helped escape by their Muslim neighbours. Government of India records 64,951 displaced Kashmiri families. It is a dubious distinction for the world’s largest democracy to also be the nation whose citizens are refugees within their own country.

Steeped in Shaivism that exhorts compassion and forgiveness, Pandits did not let the venom of hatred grow deep inside or plot violent retribution. They resolved instead to guide their children to a code of morality and pursuit of education. That is why the entire community over the past 2 generations, including all its women, are 100% literate. While you can easily find Kashmiri Pandit doctors, teachers, engineers, scientists, judges, civil servants, Generals, actors and even hoteliers, you will find it difficult to name one Kashmiri Pandit terrorist, criminal or thief even today.

It is amazing that despite this holocaust most Kashmiri Pandits still hope for peace in the valley, wish well for their neighbours and keep alive the hope of being able to return home and reclaim their lives and respect. 

Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it. Natives of the land established by Rishi Kashyap, this is Kashmiri Pandits 7th forced exodus from their birthplace since the 14th century advent of the Mughal empire in the valley. So, what should we be doing now to move forward and obviate a recurrence? 

1.     Acceptance and Apology: Acceptance is half the walk to closure. It is important to prevent the assassination of  India’s memory from denying or minimising this savagery of slaughter. ‘”In silence wounds deepen, in remembrance wounds heal”, President Joe Biden said recently remembering the 1921 Tulsa race massacre in America. 

The Prime Minister must issue an apology in the Parliament for India’s failure in preventing the genocide of Kashmiri Pandits. This apology will help douse the embers that burn the hearts of mothers who lost their children to this pogrom. A memorial should be dedicated at Lal Chowk, Srinagar to people of both the communities snatched by terrorism.

2.     Punish the Guilty: The Supreme Court of India in 2019 rejected a PIL for the prosecution of the accused on the ground that the gap in the interim will make it difficult to collect evidence. Most Kashmiris see it as a let-down. They point out that if the SC after 36 years in 2020 can decide conviction for the 1984 anti Sikh riots it should do so too for the genocide carried out over a decade plus in the 90s.

A Judicial Commission under a retired Chief Justice of the Supreme Court should be immediately constituted, akin to the Justice G.T. Nanavati Commission, formed in 2000 to probe the 1984 riots. Those found guilty should be given exemplary punishment as per the law. 215 FIRs that have not been acted upon by the state should be clubbed and given to the NIA for a comprehensive probe leading to a time bound charge sheet.

3.     Teach the Nation:  As civilised human beings, we must understand how a genocide of such barbaric proportions was allowed to take place in Kashmir? How such inhumane ideas spread like wildfire in the state instigating the organised rape, murder and plunder of a native community? The valley needs a Centre of Kashmir Renaissance to research Kashmir’s history and culture. It should showcase knowledge and learnings through the ages including lessons from this genocide.

Historians need to research and peel off the layers of distortion created to serve narrow political interests. They need to study and credit the Gonand, Karkota and Lohara dynasties that ruled the valley for over 1,000 years. It is extraordinary that in the last century it was not an Indian but a Hungarian British archaeologist Sir Marc Aurel Stein who researched Rajtarangini – the history of Kashmir - written by Kalhan Pandit in the 12th century. German Indologist Dr. Johann Georg Bühler saved the manuscript of the 6th century Nilamata Purana and brought to fore the history of the times. Earliest references to Kashmir are available in Panini’s Ashtadhayi written in the 5th century BCE.

India’s school syllabus has to include lessons from the 7th century King Lalitaditya, also called the Alexander of Kashmir, who ruled a kingdom twice the size of the Mughal empire - stretching from Afghanistan to Central Asia and major parts of India. Class 11 and 12 syllabi must include national pride and basic human rights to guide students’ behaviour as responsible adults.

The Kashmiri language, Koshur, with its Indo-Aryan Vedic Sanskrit roots and unique Sharda script needs to be revived and included as a compulsory subject in state schools. Koshur needs to be actively promoted as the administrative language of the state at par with Urdu.

4.     Reparation & Resettlement: Return of the exiled Pandits with pride, is a matter of enforcing India’s Constitution in Kashmir, both nationally and on the global arena. The government must pay reparation for the families forced to flee their homes, children who were orphaned and youth who had their entire lives destroyed. 

The establishment of a Reconciliation Commission, headed by a retired Supreme Court Justice, with eminent members from both the communities, will be an important first step in this direction. Its mandate should also include complaints of human rights violation against the security forces during the same period. The “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” formed in South Africa to probe apartheid atrocities can serve as an excellent model.

Resettlement cannot just be an exercise in restoring the physical status quo pre 1990 but a holistic approach that seeks to enable political empowerment and economic independence. The National Minorities Commission Act must be extended to Kashmir and a permanent State Minority Commission, led by a retired Supreme Court Justice must be constituted. Its ambit should include compiling a comprehensive list of properties and land of the Kashmiri Pandits, which have been forcibly taken over, and laying down the process to restore the usurped lands, orchards and homes. Its remit should also be the restoration, protection and preservation of the valley’s shrines and temple properties.

Economic revitalization: These initiatives will succeed only if backed by an economic agenda that creates jobs for the valley’s youth and economic prosperity for all its citizens. Four key sectors to drive this agenda could be 1) Sustainable Tourism 2) Holistic Healthcare 3) Geographical Indication (GI) Food Processing, and 4) Education.

India has the opportunity to make Kashmir the sustainable Tourism Capital of the World – flanked by the Zabarwan mountains and caressed by its gardens, lakes, rivers, valleys and wildlife with opportunities for river rafting, trekking, mountain climbing, golf, camping, paragliding, skiing and rural tourism. 

Its salubrious climate makes it an ideal choice for promoting health and healing solutions – ranging from unani, naturopathy, siddha, yoga, sports rehabilitation to sanatoriums, detox clinics and holistic fitness centres.

Kashmir’s Chinar caressed air, nutrients rich soil and minerals rich Himalayan waters give its produce a distinct taste and unique health advantages. The state needs to apply for GI tagging of its produce ranging from the world’s best saffron to  dairy, meats and fruit to hand knotted carpets and walnut wood carvings. Government needs to incentivise the establishment of small and micro food processing enterprise and promote a people’s co-operative, a la Amul, to export Kashmir’s culinary secrets to the world.

Kashmiris should be exhorted to commit their intellectual capital and establish the Eton of the East and the Oxford of the Orient in the tranquil settings of their homeland.

A corporate tax holiday to these priority sectors, and a zero personal tax regime - a la Dubai – will incentivise the diaspora to return and contribute to rebuilding their motherland. An empowered Kashmir Economic Resurgence Council led by the Niti Aayog Chairperson should supervise a roadmap for accelerated implementation of this agenda. 

The acceptance of a shared culture and admittance of the integrity of the other’s experience will  promote catharsis and re-establish trust in the valley. This will initiate the process of healing and help wash dirty blood stains of the genocide off India’s fabric. Lord Rama was exiled for 14 years, Kashmiri Pandits have now been in exile for over 30 years. It is time for India to get them home.