They Shoot Kashmiri Pandits, Dont They? dear farzana,
since you chose not to reply to a few points that i had raised i am assuming that the discussion on this article of yours is closed. what disheartened me though is that you have time to reply to visa queries on your new article but nothing to help us(me and fellow members like ali and studebaker) discover what we seek by interacting on chowk-the many faces of truth.

They Shoot Kashmiri Pandits, Dont They? stude,
they are already crafting a future elsewhere and i fear it may be too late but their as well as the kashmiri muslim`s future lies 9as does india`s) in retaining it`s composite culture...otherwise kashmir will be a fav ex for hindu right to quote and the failue of indian secularism a fav ex for organisations like jaish and lashkar

They Shoot Kashmiri Pandits, Dont They? dear ali and studebaker,
thanks for responding...nobody has called me reasonable in years ...and stude, all i meant by the ticket thing is that it is hardly exaggerated-the jagmohan help-you can not expect a governor to reach out and help someone in remote`shopian` (for example)to leave and the city was constantly under curfew...in fact some muslim neighbours helped pandits get away because they had an ear on the propaganda in masjids and they wanted them to be safe...and jaan bacha ke bhagney ka credit to mat cheeno...most of us managed to do it on our own-no need to thank Jagmohan...as for gujrat remember chandra babu naidu made an offer to resettle them(and what wrong did he do...should chandra babu have been accused for being communal...wahtever his considerations, it should be seen as a good geture) but nobody wants to go...sometimes you have to and you shouldn`t grudge people who go away safely...i am sure you guys know what i mean...life is very precious...it must be saved at all costs...

They Shoot Kashmiri Pandits, Dont They? dear farzana,
apart from being the dialogue writer on kashmir, i also happen to be a kashmiri pandit and let say a fan...have read your articles often in midday and `gentleman`(alas like all good things it ended).well here are a few things i have to say-
1.karan singh is not a kashmiri pandit but a dogra rajput and the kashmiris (both pandits and kps)have their own unique notions about them.

2. like all minorities, the jews in europe, muslims in india, th kps were discriminated against and like jews and kashmiris have earned a nickname in common kashmiri language and mindset . the nickname suggests that thare weaklings, misers and effeminate.

3. you seem to think that they were holding key posts at all administrative levels. the actual figures will disappoint you-the maximum among them are primary and secondary school tecahers. the j&k state govt employs very few of them compared to the central(read hindu indian govt). they are not much of a business community and the literacy level is almost 100% and in this they are similar to the kayashtha community in bihar.

4. there was no support to them from abroad unless you in the typical kashmiri muslim fashion consider india to be a separate country. the only minority which got some aid is the shia minority after khomeni`s rise.

5. the kashmiri pandits compared to muslims in bombay is very less...if the pop. of muslims in gujrat is around 7%, the pop. of kashmiri pandits in the valley is not even 2%

6. they migrated due to fear psychosis but there was a silent pattern of migration which was already on.the toppers amongst them always chose bits pilani or the iits and got out. eduaction suffered in the early days of militancy and education is considereda passport to a good life amongst kashmiri pandits.

7. i left kashmir in a mini bus, my mom in a taxi, my maasi in a truck-when where these air tickets being distributed by our fav. whipping boy jagmohan...farooq abdullah who confirmed thsi for us must have a record of the boarding passes, the names of the travel agency or at leat details from the airlines can be obtained as to how many kashmiri pandits actually flew out of srinagar.

8. sometimes in a village like chandpora there were only 10 or fifteen families in a radius of 17 kms...what tokenism were they expected to show.

9.in modi we have a living example of a hindu against muslims, why is it so difficult to believe that muslim equivalents of him could have existed in kashmir at that time. refer to news track-sallauddin , the kashmiri commander of hizb, the notices in al safa asking pandits to leave directly by the org, look at the hizb`s rise and see the patterns of their early killings-the back drop rural, the killing predominantly innocent kashmiri pandits.

10.majorities have been rarely good to minorites even in secular india, why is it difficult to believe that kashmir followed the trend?

11.panun kashmeer has not been declared secessionist because they do not have a seccessionistic agenda...that we dsiagree with them is a different case.

12.ashok pandit has a thing for publicity and he talks non sense but he was amongst the only pandits to visit gujrat maybe to tell them,` we know how it feels` and is now shooting in kashmeer. it is the pandits that the news papars never cover who will probably never go back.

13. the story of the serial is set in 1989. prof kachru could go to bail out wani. once the militnats were finsished with kachrus, people like kachru amongst muslims were targetted. the islamistaion of kashmir runs exactly parralel to the rise of the right in india and the year 1989 is imp to both for this reason.

14. just as somnath or godhra is no justification for gujrat, pandit jobs or aid or that theywere stuck up is no cause for mowing them down and if they did not want to be killed and ran for their lives, we should not grudge them that

15. the kashmiri pandit claim that we suffered because we were secularists and nationalists is not true..they suffered becasue they were hindus and they know that...they just do it because it is fashinable.similary muslims in gujrat did not suffer because they were secualists or misers or exploiters, they suffered because they were muslim.

16.early noises were made about killings whether they were hindu r muslim-kps said tika lal taplu was killed because he was with the bjp, they said ok, kps said neel kanth ganju was killed because he hanged maqbool butt but they began quetioning jklf when they realised the 22 muslim witnesses were left alive?(and thank god for that)then lawyers , tecahers and doctors and nurses were seen as hindu killings and they did protest . akilling for a minority is never a smple killing because they are so few in no.

18. yes only a few pandits live in camps and thank god for that.

19. yes they lived a much more peaceful life in kashmir than their muslim counter parts in india. i believe that our muslim friends very very kind to us...barring some barbs in school , i have recieved mcuh love from them , now and then but one must call a spade a spade.the kashmiris became as communalised as the hindus in gujrat


20. do not fear to criticise their erstwhile neighbours just because narender modi also criticises them. criticise veryone who kills in the name of religion or asks for killings in name of it.`

21. the germans accepted killing jews, the hindus should admit to killing muslims in gujrat and the kashmiri muslim should accept it was his duty to protect the hindu, the day we do that, we would at least have made a beginning.

I hope you wil read this and possibly benefit from it as i have benefitted from you articles all these years.

Thanks and bye,
ritesh