Concept and Perspective
From a demographic consideration, Kashmiri
Pandits form but a miniscule
ethnic minority of India's vast population. Yet they have all along played a
pivotal role in the country's cultural and civilisational history, making
outstanding contributions in various fields of intellectual activity, quite out
of proportion to their small numbers. Tragically this highly literate and
culturally important community stands uprooted today from its moorings due to
Islamic fundamentalist militancy.
In any situation, for the Pandits of Kashmir learning
and literature have essentially been an important part of life. The best in
Indian literary tradition bears an indelible stamp of their genius. To recall
their participation in a culture that is slowly being extinguished is to
understand the processes that have gone in to the shaping of the Indian mind. It
is fortunate that Kashmiri Pandits have been such a highly literate community
and that they wrote so extensively, for this has helped their attainments in the
realm of thought and culture from being obliterated in the face of constant
onslaughts.
Events which have occurred during last 100 years or so
have retained their immediacy for many Pandits today. Perhaps one of the most
drastic changes that have taken place in this period is that few young Kashmiris
can read what their forefathers wrote, for the script in which bulk of their
writing is inscribed has become almost indecipherable to them. This cultural
shift has had serious implications for preserving and continuing the Pandit
heritage. The fifty years following independence have in particular been cataclysmic.
On the cultural plane, Pandits of Kashmir are a
community with fascinating complexities and depth of sophistication, enjoying a
life of cerebral graces. They are important in north India for their positive
role as a bridge with other constituents of the Indian society. That Kashmiri
Pandits may be forced to abdicate their distinct cultural and civilisational
role due to present circumstances, will have disastrous consequences for the
community and the country as a whole. If there is a bias in this outlook, it
arises from a regret for this frightening prospect. Fighting a grim battle for
their survival as a cultural and social entity, the problem of how and why to
retain a commitment to their culture is crucial for the future of Kashmiri
Pandits.
History shows how, in absorbing and adapting to new
changes and facing new challenges, Kashmiri Pandits have responded as much out
of a sense of reality as out of a sense of fear and as much due to actual
dangers as to perceived threats. And with past holocausts still haunting their
racial memory, their present predicament has heightened their sense of
insecurity. This is mainly due to their minority status, a fate forced on them
by centuries of proselytizing and persecution. To understand their psyche, it is
important to know what it means to be a minority. The Pandits have always felt
vulnerable and weak as a people who have witnessed destructive onslaughts on
their past roots with new roots hardly showing any growth.
Known throughout the world for their literary
accomplishments, this community's heritage today lies scattered due to neglect
and unconcern. Five thousand years of their tradition and culture stand in
imminent danger of being wiped out from the face of the earth, with a vast
wealth of the community's literature, lore, artifacts, manuscripts and horde of
books on religion, philosophy, rituals, besides materials relating to art and
culture almost on the verge of being irretrievably lost for posterity to regret.
In such a disconcerting and difficult situation,
nothing but a concerted and collective endeavour on the part of the present
generation of the community's scholars, researchers, authors, intellectuals at
an organised and institutional level can be of help in salvaging whatever little
has remained from being vandalised and destroyed. It is against this background
that a group of concerned and committed community members have felt the
imperative need to make a beginning and set up a research institute which would
take upon itself to rework the Pandit's literary and cultural history to the
present, and preserve, protect and project their heritage and culture. Through
its endeavours such an institute could probably illustrate the manner in which
this highly literate community can reinterpret its past, make that past accord
close to the present and adapt it to the future needs. The philosophy of this
institute could well be summed up in the Kashmiri saying: "It is more
virtuous for a Pandit of Kashmir to worship Saraswati than Lakshmi."
The promoters of this research institute have decided
to establish it in Delhi, keeping in view the present Diaspora of the community,
and name it as N.S. Kashmir Research Institute to honour the memory of
Kashmir's outstanding Sanskrit scholar, Prof. Niyanand Shastri, a
contemporary and friend of European indologists like Sir Aurel Stein, Prof. J.
Ph. Vogel and Sir George Grierson. The setting up of the institute at Delhi
could also provide a better access to information systems and methodologies at
national and international levels and help it in its working.
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