Srinagar, Sep 14: On the eve of Kashmiri Pandit Balidan Divas, the Kashmir Policy & Strategy Group Chaired by Ashok Bhan a noted Senior Advocate organised a web meeting in which,eminent intellectuals, former bureaucrats, academicians, media personalities,social and women’s rights activists, past and current representatives of apex community organisations, overseas diaspora representatives and youth icons participated and paid rich tributes to the martyrs of the community,who were killed by terrorists and inflicted Genocide.
Resulting in eviction and forced exiled of the whole KP community from their ancestral roots.
The participants recalled the enormous human and civilisational cost of 37 years of exile—death, destruction, demographic dislocation and a rupture in the community’s unique heritage and culture.
The participants reiterated the community’s unwavering resolve to return to its roots in Kashmir on its own terms—with dignity, security, equality and a meaningful stake in their ancestral homeland.
The meeting emphatically affirmed that Kashmiri Pandits have an existential stake in Kashmir. They are not a displaced community seeking a new homeland; they are an indigenous people of Kashmir whose civilisational roots in the Valley extend back more than five thousand years. Their temples, traditions, scholarship, language, literature and cultural memory are inseparable from Kashmir’s civilisational identity.
The participants stressed that the return of Kashmiri Pandits is therefore not merely a question of rehabilitation or resettlement. It is a question of historical justice, dignity, identity and restoration.
Without the physical presence of its indigenous Pandit community, Kashmir’s civilisation and composite character will remain incomplete, and lasting peace will continue to elude the region.
The meeting urged the Government of India to formulate a comprehensive and time-bound Return, Rehabilitation and Restitution Roadmap, in meaningful consultation with representative community organisations.
The roadmap must guarantee security, facilitate voluntary and dignified return, address property restitution, provide housing and livelihood opportunities, protect temples and cultural heritage, and ensure that returning families have a meaningful stake in the social and economic life of Kashmir.
The participants called for a clearly time bound defined implementation framework, with measurable targets, dedicated institutional responsibility and periodic public review. Thirty-seven years of exile is too long. The time has come to transform the community’s longing to return into a national policy of action.
Kashmiri Pandits belong to Kashmir. Kashmir belongs to its composite civilisational heritage.Our resolve is unequivocal: We shall return—to our roots, to our homeland, and with dignity.
