Srinagar: Expressing concern at its declining population, a Kashmiri Pandit organisation has asked the community to shun divorce, inter-caste marriages and sterilisation.
Family planning, divorce and inter-caste marriages pose a grave danger to Pandits survival, the Kashmiri Pandit Conference, an organisation of the migrant community has warned.
After migration, Pandits have faced numerous issues with grave dangers to thier social existence and and cultural identity, it said.
Family planning and abortion have reduced the Pandit population significantly as births are outstripped by the death rate, it said.
The Conference urged Pandits to shun the two child norm, and asked them to shun the practice of divorce.
The social fabric of the Pandits is being unravelled by growing divorce and inter-caste marriages, it said. It is in the interests of our community to bid goodbye to the hum duo hamarey duo slogan, and not marry our children into other castes.
The incidence of Pandits marrying in other castes has grown dramatically after most of the community migrated from Kashmir at the onset of militancy, the organisation said.(Observer News Service)