Are Kashmiri Pandits communal and racist? For a community that is living in other states of the nation for decades and in some cases centuries - do Kashmiri Pandits have some distinct communal traits?
I HAVE seen Kashmiri pandits cry for their homeland and even post maps of a separate state of Kashmiri Hindus on websites and on various Facebook forums. The only reason for this can be that a particular group of Kashmiri pandits enjoyed some kind of economic superiority in their state and were in the most comfortable jobs before their sudden departure from the state in the 1990s.
Their sudden departure to which these forums and websites call genocide and holocaust, took place in a very organised manner with government support transport and accommodation and free rations….yet a few forums refer to the nation as cruel India and have several posts on just one issue - 'Government of India bashing'.
Most of the young Kashmiri pandit boys who hailed from very rich families of Kashmir, and today are still the jet-setter variety have links with extremist political organisations and parties, and preach violence on these forums as the only method to take back Kashmir for the Kashmiri pandits.
There is a school of thought that Kashmiri pandits, despite being in a minority in their own state, had monopolised all the best jobs and businesses available, and the benefits of the economy were not reaching a particular class and community. Unemployment was rampant and so was the difference in the standards of living of the two communiites. As such it was easy for those seeking the opportunity to start an anti-India tirade to turn it into an anti-Kashmiri pandit movement. Against a weak and hopelessly outnumbered enemy it would have an immediate nation wide impact and boost the morale of terrorist cadres tremendously in the nation.There have been other instances of violence against a particular community in several states. In Assam, the Assamese long deprived of the best business opportunities asked all personnel from outside their state whether it was Bengali or Tamilian or Kashmiri to leave their jobs and seek their livlihood elsewhere. This movement claimed several lives but today no community refers to this as a holocaust. The militancy in Punjab claimed thousands of lives of both Sikhs and Hindus and but again here too no one says that it was a holocaust.If there was a holocaust, it was the riots in Mumbai after which thousands of Muslims fled the city and lost their livelihoods. Today, the same Mumbai is witnessing another movement that of Mumbai for the Marathi Manush only.The Kashmiri Pandits blame the government for not providing them with a base camp in Srinagar where two lakh persons could have been safely housed. What they fail to realise is that no government or police or army can guarantee 100 per cent security. An attack on such a camp and the death count would only have earned the enemy more laurels as the purpose of terrorism is to terrorise.My experience of most of the sites and forums I had chance to visit was an extremely backward looking people despite their education. They are steeped in ignorance, superstition and religious and political intolerance. So are they racist and communal? The answer is that most of them are.
