news details |
|
|
| Kashmiri Pandit a "whipping boy" for mainstream politicians | | |
Early Times Report
Jammu, Mar 23: When President of All India Kashmiri Pandit Conference, H.N. Jattu, was once asked whether he was prepared to return to Kashmir he shot back "I and my community people are ready to be back in Kashmir if the ministers, legislators and senior bureaucrats move about in the valley without the security cover." What Jattu had stated reflects the feelings of common people belonging to the displaced community.
There is no denying the fact that majority of Kashmiri Pandit, who have been living in exile for the last 20 years, are keen to return to the valley but the security scenario, notwithstanding some improvement, is still not conducive for them to go back to Kashmir. Peace and normalcy continue to hang by a slender thread in Kashmir. You have a normal day today and the next day peace is destabilised by either the roar of the guns or by the explosion of bombs and grenades. Even people belonging to the majority community, who were not hounded out of the valley in 1990, do not feel safe. If the atmosphere is yet to be conducive for the return of Pandit why then they be forced to take this risky step which may force another migration.
You cannot expect Pandit to live in ghettoes under security cover. These Pandit would wish to be back to their homes and mix up with their old neighbours. And to ensure this situation people belonging to the majority community have to play a vital role. They can create an atmosphere which can motivate Pandit to return to Kashmir and it is no safe to depend on the assurances given by the Government functionaries who themselves find unsafe in the valley.
Over the years a sustained campaign has been launched against the Pandit blaming them for delaying their return to Kashmir. This charge is being levelled against them as if they had been transferred to the plains by the Government and the same Government had posted them back to the valley but the Pandit were not honouring the transfer order. The vested interest has launched a campaign accusing the migrants for depending the Government doles when they had got settled in the metro cities. Yes a large number of the Pandit are settled in various Indian cities and towns. How and why did they decide to settle in these cities ?For all these years in exile their children spent hours on their studies and after doing well completed various professional courses enabling them to get suitable jobs. Once it materialised they invited their parents. But if the critics do not believe in the reports regarding miserable conditions in which Pandit were living need to visit camps in Muthi, Mishriwala, Purkhoo, Nagrota. There was a time when migrants lived in dilapidated huts and shanties in Udhampur, Kathua and Nagrota..
These migrants have suffered severe losses. They were forced to go in for distress sale of their land and houses. Houses of many were set ablaze. Still political leaders have been stating publicly that Pandit in league with General Insurance Company agents torched their houses to receive compensation. What a travesty of truth ?
Of late the vested interest has been pained after they learnt that migrant employees had been given concession to the effect that deduction of income tax at the source had been deferred for the last several years. The vested interest is against this concession as it feels that Pandit are well settled. They do not possibly know that migrant employees have not received any house rent. They were not given any promotion and annual incerement in several cases had not been released. If a minor concession had been given to them it had, in no way, compensated their losses they faced on migration and in the plains during the last 20 years.
After the migration the incidence of stress diabetes, heart diseases, renal failures, loss of memory and other physical ailments touched a new high. Majority of the migrants had no other alternative but to bank on paltry cash relief which has not been hiked during the last over 10 years despite inflation having touched new high.
Dr Ajay Chrungoo, chairman Panun Kashmir, said that a sustained campaign has been going on for the last 20 years against Kashmiri Pandit. He said there are agencies which do not want the Pandit to survive as they know that even paltry cash relief has helped many a migrant families to avoid starvation. He asked if such agencies want to force Pandit to suffer from prolonged destitution ?He said that reports indicating that a large chunk of migrants had managed to secure ration cards after registering themselves with the Relief Commissioner were baseless. He and other leaders said that registration and ration cards secured by several thousand non-Pandit migrants were cancelled during the last seven years after they had returned to the valley. And whatever ration cards of Pandit were cancelled it was done after most of them had died and others had settled outside Jammu.
They said that the Pandit have become a "whipping boy" for the mainstream political leaders and wished them to stop ridiculing a community in distress. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
