- COLOSSAL TRAGEDY
Within months of
the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits the Government,
whether out of misplaced optimism to placate and
appease the terrorists or with deliberate
intent, started recruiting and promoting Muslims
to the posts and positions vacated by the
Kashmiri Pandits. This has boosted the sinister
designs of the terrorists to discourage and
thwart the minority Kashmiri Pandit community to
return to the valley for it has neither the jobs
for livelihood nor the houses for shelter left
behind.
So a tragedy which
began with religious persecution and genocide,
climaxing with the exodus of the community, has
now attained colossal dimensions . This
ethno-religious minority is presently going
through a grim battle for survival and facing
the torment of a bleak and uncertain future.
Having been forced to live under torn and
tattered tents, in ramshackle camps or in one
room tenements and stables vacated by cows and
buffaloes and rented at exorbitant prices, they
are subject to the vagaries of a harsh climate,
a hostile populace and an indifferent and
callous administration. They have to go through
a tortuous procedure to establish their
credentials as exiles to be entitled to a meagre
relief and measly rations for which they have to
queue up for long hours and face untold miseries
and humiliation to satisfy the whims and moods
of relief commissioners and their minions. They
have become the victims of bureaucratic bungling
and corruption. They are pawns in the hands of
political parties and power brokers. They are
being pushed around and harassed for demanding
their justful rights; and kicked, cane-charged
and arrested for raising their voice against a
deaf administration. Thus they have been reduced
to abject poverty and a state of utter
helplessness and apathy. Their greatest tragedy
is that they have become exiles in their own
land, aliens in their own country which they
inhabited for thousands of years.
The community is now
caught in a piquant and unsavory situation as
the State and the Central Governments are
treating it as expendable. The authorities are
hushing up the genocide, the exodus and the
present plight of the Kashmiri Pandit community
which have resulted as much out of the total
abdication of their authority and
responsibility, as out of the religious crusade
of the terrorists. Nor is the international
community aware of the refugee status of this
community as countries around the world
recognize refugees only when they are forced to
flee into another country.
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