The exodus of Kashmiri minorities and realisation by the world of the true nature of terrorism in Kashmir, gave a jolt to the secessionists' designs of projecting their movement as one of independence. So they have been deliberating about the desirability or otherwise of giving a call to the exiles to come back and fight "shoulder to shoulder" for their so-called freedom movement. They understand that the exiles who are going through a life and death struggle and are yearning to return to their homes and hearths can easily fall victims to this trap. Many exiles have even remarked that it was better to get killed in the valley than to suffer the trauma of being refugees at the mercy of administrative vultures. Others are ready to accept to live as aliens in their own land under "Nizame-Mustafa" and that is what the handful of Hindus, still living in the valley, have reconciled to. 

It is unfortunate that many of the displaced Kashmiris are waiting for such a call. Such is the distress of living in exile that the people who were butchered and hounded out yet feel that a change of heart could take place in the very people who swore to weed out the Hindus and other secular elements and push India out. Can one trust the very people who have been indoctrinated in hatred from the time they grew up in the lap of religious schools, which taught them Islam the wrong way? How at all can the very people be trusted who stand sworn on pain of death to take orders from their masters, even if it be to kill their own kith and kin? The Kashmri Hindus have already committed the mistake of trusting their Muslim counterparts five times in the past; needless to mention here that this is the sixth time, the Kashmiri Hindus have been driven into exile by the Muslim religious zealots. 

Do we want to wait for a 'welcome' by the terrorists so that we are thrown out once again when it suits their whim or design? Do we want to live again in subservience as second fiddles in perpetual fear and uncertainity? 

It will be appropriate to recall the recent experience of those eighteen displaced families who were prompted to return to the Valley in July, 1992, and draw some lessons from it. These families were promised safe passage to their homes by some unscrupulous politicians in league with some terrorist outfits. However, on reaching the valley there was a clamour in the people and other terrorist groups who prevented them from again moving into their abandoned homes. Instead, they were herded in a temple and subsequently asked to take refuge in the police station where they were kept in suspended animation while their fate was being discussed by the terrorists. Finally it was decreed that they should immediateIy quit or face death. One member of this unfortunate group ventured out of custody and was shot at. These helpless families so eager to settle back in the valley in their homes at the mercy of the terrorists, thus, faced another banishment. It was a cruel joke played upon them. These families surrendered in the most abject manner while making the whole community a laughing stock. 

This certainly was a cunning trick to create a cleavage in the community by trying to encourage the return of a few families under a sinister ploy aimed at lending credibility to terrorists being secular, at the same time discrediting those members of the displaced community who are opposed to the return without guarantees of a Homeland. 

The terrorists who have been blowing hot and cold, whenever it suits them, have laid stringent conditions for the return of Hindu minority to the valley. They want the displaced people to agitate for the release of all terrorist detenus and to fight shoulder to shoulder with them for the secession of the State of Jammu and Kashmir from India and for the enforcement of the Islamic laws. And only after achieving "liberation", will they consider whether the displaced community will be allowed to retum. 

It is high time for tbe exiled community to realise that the call for a Homeland is not just an escapist slogan but a positive assertion of their right to life and liberty. How long can the minority Hindu community live in bondage and at the mercy and whim of the Muslim majority? The nation has to clear the fog in its perceptions about the situation in Kashmir and stop treating Kashmiri Hindus as guinea-pigs at the altar of the so-called secular experiment in Kashmir. The security situation in the valley and the changed socio-political milieu shall aIways endanger the lives of the repatriates except when such repatriation is to a well carved out Homeland. Any possibility of return to the valley, without guarantees of a Homehnd, is not only bewildering in complexity but also fraught with disaster of ultimate annihilation of the displaced community. 
 

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