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| Create atmosphere conducive for return of Pandits | | | During the last five years the cam
paign, whether from the Government
side or from various political groups, for the return of Pandits to the Kashmir valley which they were forced to quit with the advent of insurgency, seems to have gained momentum. However, there does not seem to be any progress in the plan to encourage Pandits to return to the valley of their birth.Of late even the separatists have voiced their support to the plan but there is lot tobe done as far as the issue of building confidence among the Pandits is concerned.In fact if there is no marked progress in the programme of taking pandits back to the valley many factors are responsible for it.One cannot say that just one factor or reason has been the basis for a very slow response of the displaced people to the Government's plan to ensure return of Pandits.If about 3.50 lakh pandits left the valley between 1990-1992 they did not do so out of pleasure or out of any personal choice.
When the members of this microscopic minority found honurable living impossible in the land of their birth they had to opt for migration to the plains where they have had a quite tough time while negotiating with the adverse weather conditions. During these 21 years the displaced people have undergone tribulations of varied sorts which have generated,in them,a spirit of despondency, withdrawal syndrome,creating a sense of insecurity in the community.What seems to compouded their problems is the way the community members have not been involved in the political,economic and social activities by the su ccessive state and central Governments. The community members were treated as migrants destined to live in one-room or two-room tenements deserving sympathy in the shape of cash incentives and free ration.If the Government held this view it was wrong because despite inherent problems a section of the displaced people have done better than what they could have done had not they migratd from the valley.What pains those who have watched the displaced families in Jammu, Udhampur, Nagrota, Delhi and elsewhere from close quarters is the loss of one generation,a generation that really craved for returning to Kashmir where they could die while cool breeze blew from the chinar trees or while the runnels in their villages flowed lazily with song on their ripples.
No doubt majority of displaced boys and girls have succeeded in finding highly lucrative jobs in Government departments and in the multi-national companies in different areas of Jammu and Kashmir and in some foreign lands,what continues to worry senior community leaders is the growing lack of unity among the displaced people,whereever they are settled.
Lack of unity has not allowed a community of intellectuals to throw up a leader who has to capacity and support for representing the entire Pandit. Lack of effective leadership has not allowed the comunity to take up various issues, that bother the displaced people,with the Government in one voice.
Possibly this can be one othe reasons for the successive state Governments to take the minority community for granted. Those among the displaced people treat Government's campaign in favour of their return to Kashmir as lip service argue that had the authorities in Srinagar and Delhi been serious on the issue Prime Minister's employment packag would have not remained implemented partially.
They say why has not the Government,in Srinagar or in Delhi,initiated measures to fill all the 6,000 posts that had been created under the Prime Minister's employment package for the displaced people.
Supporters of "return" policy should know that majority of tthe displacd people are not ready to go back bcause their wards are well settled outside the valley and for them Jammu and Kashmir has no scope for their employment. Hence the Government,the separatists and members of the majority community need to join hands and create conditions which may be conducive for the return of a few thousand pandit families to Kashmir.
Side by side Pandits need representation in the state legislature and the council of ministers besides various state Government offices, including the civil secretariat where the number of Pandit employees can be counted on finger tips. |
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