This Rs 1,600 Crore Settlement UPA Built For Kashmiri Pandits Is Now A Ghost Town
Around 300000 Kashmiri Pandits a minority in the Muslim majority Valley were driven out in 1990 after Islamist insurgents killed several community members and threatened them to leave. In 2008 Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced a Rs 1600 crore package under which around 1500 youth have been employed with the state government and lodged in five transit camps across the valley.
Behind the high wall, rows of insipid quarters with closed doors and windows face each other uninvitingly. Except for the neatly arranged shoes that Kashmiri Pandits usually take off outside their doors, there is no sign of a bustling habitation in the transit camp of 100 odd Kashmiri Pandits, who were brought to the valley six years ago to slowly undo the community's ethnic cleansing.
BCCL
Around 300,000 Kashmiri Pandits, a minority in the Muslim majority Valley, were driven out in 1990 after Islamist insurgents killed several community members and threatened them to leave. In 2008, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced a Rs. 1,600 crore package under which around 1500 youth have been employed with the state government and lodged in five transit camps across the valley.
Reuters
In Kashmir's April bloom when everyone is out, the Haal camp residents suffer self-confinement, depression and fear psychosis. "We don't go out. Every time something happens in any part of the valley, whether it is the Handwara girl controversy or some shutdown call in Srinagar if a militant is killed, the camp gets attacked by stone-pelters. We are constantly made feel that we are not welcome here. So where shall we go? There is no one out there," said a woman who opened the door hesitatingly. The woman lives with her husband and two children in the transit camp, 40 kms from Srinagar.
Living a double whammy¡ªrefugees in Jammu camps or one room tenements for two decades and now refugees in a transit camp in their own native land¡ª most of the camp inmates like the young woman who originally belong to other parts of the valley, have not felt courageous enough to visit their home towns in the last six years. "Our life here is like a double penalty. We are under house arrest. We don't even let our children step out of the compound once they return from their schools," the young woman said.
BCCL
"How secure and happy can one feel when one often hears young boys shouting 'Bharat ka jo saath dega, woh gaddar hai, woh gaddar hai' (supporter of India--a traitor, a traitor) on the streets here?" she asked. "For us, there is no freedom of expression. No freedom to wear clothes that we would wear outside Kashmir. No freedom for us to express our political opinions or patriotism. One of us was threatened to shut up in a discussion among colleagues recently. The majority in Kashmir however can abuse India and Indians or express their love for Pakistan and 'azadi'," the mother of two said in English. She however added that the senior citizen generation in Kashmir was friendly and supportive.
A couple of rows away, (first name withheld) Koul sipping Kashmiri tea in his quarters, described the camp life vis-a-vis Kashmir's as a situation similar to 1989. "It is the same tension and hostility day in day out. Last year, they pelted stones on us even on Diwali. Two years ago, we noticed a dozen armed militants inspecting the camp from outside." The larger issue, he pointed out, is the same old contestation between religious and national identities. "For them we are Hindu Indians. SAS Geelani (separatist leader) keeps dubbing transit camps as Rashtriya Swayam Sevak (RSS) clusters. It is stressful because such campaigns against us generate hostility," he said.
Reuters
Most mothers in the camp complained about the Islamized education in private schools and frequent shut downs. "There are Islamic prayers in the morning assembly and a class on Islamiyat. Although, our children are exempted from both, but they sit outside the classroom during the period and hear everything out of curiosity. Religious education is not part of school curriculum outside Kashmir. But in Kashmir only government schools are secular. I did send my son to a public school for three years but there was no competition there. He fell behind. So I had to admit him in a private school. Our children ask us uncomfortable questions about religions and we don't know how to respond," said a mother who teaches at a public school.
Employment in Kashmir has disrupted family lives of most camp inhabitants. Many married couples are separated by the arrangement. "This is a divorce imposed by the state. We couldn't make our ends meet with just one salary. Private jobs in Jammu didn't pay enough. So I took up the job. Now, my one child is with his father in Jammu and one is here with me," a woman in her 30s grumbled.
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Koul said the camp had reached a "threshold" and on the verge of making petitions to the government of India for their transfer out of the valley. "We can't live here in this dungeon perpetually," he said while watching the April drizzle that added to the camp's sombreness. The Indian state's corrective experiment which has no parallel in the subcontinent's post-independence history, seems to be falling apart.
