Srinagar- Away from their homeland for around four decades, the displaced Kashmiri Pandit’s regarded the maiden assembly election, conducted five years after abrogation of Article 370, as a ‘potential way of easing their return’ to the valley.
The overenthusiastic KPs cast their ballots in the first phase of election to the J&K Legislative Assembly with the hope that taking part in the political process would open the door for their ‘eventual return’ to their homeland.
“We still feel like we are in exile even though Jammu is a part of the state. For anyone, being thousands of miles away from home is nothing short of a nightmare. We voted for our honorable return to our motherland and aspire to be able to establish a homeland in Kashmir in the near future,” said Ashok Bhat, a migrant voter who voted at Kulgam assembly segment at a polling booth at Jagti camp.
Calls for a boycott of the polls by Panun Kashmir and other KP groups, seeking a legislation to be tabled to guarantee the legal recognition of alleged crimes perpetrated against the community, had a little impact.
The first-time voters of the community support creative approaches to the humanitarian issue and demand that all sides work together to preserve the valley’s traditional culture.
The pragmatic way to pursue rights through a democratic process, in the opinion of a seventy-nine-year-old Kashmiri Pandit Bhat, is to ‘vote’.
Besides rightful return to Kashmir, they also sought relocation to guarantee that their lineage would be preserved for future generations.
While KPs acknowledged the government’s proposal to provide 5,000 Kashmiri migrant youths—including Muslims and Sikhs—jobs and official quarters in Kashmir as a symbolic move, they contended that it may jeopardize the community’s return and rehabilitation needs of the 300,000 strong-community.
“Our collective right to a homeland in Kashmir is the sole demand we have continuously pursued with our votes over the years and the fact that this desire has consistently been ignored is disheartening,” Bhat told Kashmir Observer.
For almost twenty years, the government’s ‘return and rehabilitation policy’, he claimed, had not been executed successfully; instead, it had served just as an intent symbol.
“Out of our 300,000 people, only 6,000 have received government employment and official accommodation till retirement under the policies of successive regimes, including the Congress and then the BJP. Does this really constitute rehabilitation?” he questioned.
Likewise, Ram Chandra, an eighty years old voter, expressed reservations about political pledges to return and rehabilitate KPs in the valley while casting a ballot in the Shangus-Anantnag seat, where three Pandits from Kashmir are running for office.
As promised in its election campaign, he said, the Bhartiya Janata Party-led centre will adopt the Tika Lal Tiploo project on the ground and guarantee the repatriation of the Kashmiri Pandit people to the valley as soon as the new government is formed in the state.
Ram Chandra underscored the need to restore their homes and mailing addresses in the valley prior to their death, offering comfort and reuniting the younger generation with their heritage instead of forcing them to flee the nation.
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