Jammu, Jan 17 (KNS): In connection with the 37th 'Kashmiri Pandit Holocaust Day', Panun Kashmir organised an important meeting at Jammu on Saturday.
In a statement issued to news agency Kashmir News Service (KNS), organisers said the meeting was chaired by Kamal Bagati, General Secretary (Organisation). It was attended, besides others, by H.L. Jalali, J.L. Kaul, P.K. Bhan, K.K. Kaul, Ashok Chrungoo, V.K. Mattoo, Sameer Bhat, and Vikram Singh.
The senior BJP and KP leader Ashwani Kumar Chrungoo attended the session as a special guest speaker.
The meeting discussed the current socio-political scenario of the displaced Kashmiri Pandit community. It reiterated the community's resolve to keep the torch of the struggle for existence burning until the goal is achieved. The statement maintained that the Kashmiri Pandit community is committed to never forgetting or forgiving what was done to it in the Kashmir Valley from 1986 onward by Islamic fundamentalist and radical elements. The genocide of the community has a background in which mosques in Kashmir played a devastating role, threatening minorities with open slogans of "Raliv, Chaliv, or Galiv" on their public address systems.
The original question of resettling the Kashmiri Pandit community in the Valley remains unresolved. There is no doubt that the Government of India implemented a large part of the operative portion of the historic Margdarshan Resolution on August 5, 2019. It was a revolutionary step in the context of Jammu and Kashmir that brought great positive constitutional, administrative, and political changes to J&K—sans the resettlement of the exiled Hindu community of Kashmir.
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Many important people in national-level political circles believe that these changes will be followed by shifts in the social, cultural, and demographic balance in the Valley as well. They opine that such changes can pave the way for resettling the displaced Kashmiri Pandit community back in the Valley.
The Margdarshan Resolution explains in detail the reasons for the perpetual genocide, agony, distress, and repeated exodus of Kashmiri Hindus. It maintains that Muslim majoritarianism is inherently communal in nature and refuses co-existence—Kashmir being a glaring example. For the last seven hundred years of history in Kashmir, native Kashmiri Pandits have been refused co-existence in the Valley every time.
In recent history, this happened in 1931, 1947, and 1986, when Hindus faced attempts at genocide in which their lives, properties, and places of worship were attacked mercilessly. Statements issued by certain Kashmir-centric political parties regarding the government's surveillance campaign ignore the role of mosques in the ethnic cleansing of the Pandits from Kashmir. Had this exercise been undertaken by the government during the 1980s, the forced mass exodus of Hindus from Kashmir would not have happened.
Panun Kashmir welcomes these administrative efforts by the government. It also appeals to the Government of India to seriously consider opening a formal dialogue with the Kashmiri Pandit community. On this occasion, the organisation reiterates its demand for a Homeland for the displaced Kashmiri Pandits in the Valley of Kashmir with Union Territory status. (KNS)