“There are so many ways of being despicable it quite makes one’s head spin,” James Baldwin wrote. “But the way to be really despicable is to be contemptuous of other people’s pain.”

Time and again in the past three decades, false narratives and misinformation have been propagated about the issue of Kashmiri Pandits, be it their ethnic cleansing in 1990 or the proposed models for return to and rehabilitation in their homeland, Kashmir. In fact, the Kashmir conflict continues to be fanned through lies and distortions, including by India’s commentariat and intelligentsia. However, the barrage of lies invariably falls flat when confronted by bare truth. For as Gautam Buddha said, “Three things cannot be long hidden – the Sun, the Moon, and the Truth.”

This time, Shivam Vij’s article in The Print tries to whitewash the displacement of Kashmiri Pandits, and subsequent exile, by insinuating that the community might not want to return to their homeland. Vij begins with a lie about the Amarnath Yatra (about its curtailment this year by the central government as if it hadn’t happened in the past), allegedly manufactures a quote and attributes it to Professor Arvind Gigoo (well-known to this writer), uses India Today journalist Pooja Shali’s reportage to further his narrative, and ends up at the charade of Kashmiriyat – citing the pilgrimage again in the context of its discovery by a Kashmiri Muslim while forgetting that Amarnath finds mention in ancient Kashmir texts such as Nilmata Purana and Rajatarangini.

After Gigoo’s son, the writer Siddhartha Gigoo, tweeted that his father “never gave” the quote attributed to him, Vij said he had only written what Gigoo senior told him over “two visits to his house in Jammu around 2010-12”, although the original article didn’t mention this. The Print subsequently added a disclaimer to Vij’s piece: “This article has been updated to reflect that the quote from Arvind Gigoo was taken by the author from 2011-2012.”

Worse still, Vij’s article peddles falsehoods about the issue of Kashmiri Pandits. It is, therefore, imperative to debunk false notions around the issue.   

First, the ethnic cleansing of the Pandits was an aspect of the armed insurgency against India in which many Kashmiri Muslims, backed by Pakistan, actively took part. The local populace tacitly supported the so-called freedom struggle, which is nothing but an Islamist movement. In several cases, their Muslim friends and neighbours turned against the Pandits. That’s the sad truth. There were also well-meaning Muslims who advised their Pandit friends to leave the Valley because the overall climate had turned antagonistic.

Second, it’s often claimed that Jagmohan, then the governor of Jammu and Kashmir, asked the Pandit community to leave and facilitated their travel from the Valley to the Indian plains. This claim can be easily disproved.

• Jagmohan became the governor on January 19, 1990. He took office in the winter capital of Jammu and thus wasn’t even in Kashmir. In the night on January 19, mosque loudspeakers at several places across the Valley started issuing threats to the Pandits, asking them to leave, convert to Islam, or perish.
• Killings of the Pandits had started in 1989 and hitlists of Pandits were being prepared simultaneously. This was before Jagmohan arrived as the governor. 
• The Pandits did not leave en masse one particular day but in a chaotic manner because hope and uncertainty were at play. For instance, this writer left with his mother and maternal grandmother in December 1989 while his paternal grandparents left in April 1990.
• To even say one man, Jagmohan, could direct an entire community to leave their homes is ridiculous. 

Most recently, the Jagmohan myth was reiterated on August 3 by former Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad of the Congress, at a press conference on the government’s advisory on curtailing of the annual Amarnath Yatra and the deployment of additional security forces in Kashmir. 

Third, the Pandits who stayed back in Kashmir amid the turmoil must have had their reasons, say adverse climatic conditions of the Indian plains or difficulties in finding new livelihoods. That doesn’t negate the fact that around half a million people were displaced from their homes. This again debunks the claim that the Pandits left their homeland collectively at the behest of Jagmohan. 

Fourth, the Pandits scattered after the exodus: most found refuge in Jammu and then Delhi and elsewhere in India. Many Pandit families lived in tents, some lived in barns and sheds, others in rented accommodations. Slowly, some Pandits started building homes in Jammu or bought apartments elsewhere – often after unwillingly selling their properties in Kashmir, usually cheaply – because they had to live and survive. Jammu turned into a giant refugee camp. Although there was friction initially, Jammu largely opened up to the Pandit community. The Pandits lost the idea of home the day they were displaced from Kashmir. Today, the Pandits might live in posh apartments or palaces, but those are not their homes, they are their places of residence. 

Fifth, the question of justice has not been addressed when it comes to the Pandits. Nobody (except in the murder case of HN Wanchoo) has been prosecuted for the crimes committed against Pandit men and women. Nobody has been legally held responsible for the ethnic cleansing; justice hasn’t been served after even three decades. Notably, the trial has started against the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front chief Yasin Malik, who is accused of murdering four Indian Air Force personnel in Srinagar on January 25, 1990. Malik and his then terrorist group have been accused of killing a number of Pandits in Kashmir. 

Sixth, the question of reconciliation must be rooted in truth. When the majority of Kashmiri Muslims are in denial about the exodus of the Pandits, reconciliation seems a faraway idea. To what should the Pandits reconcile to if the process is not based on truth and acknowledgement?

Seventh, the return of the Pandits to their homes in Kashmir is tied to the sense of security. If there is a movement going on in the Valley that advocates for the formation of an Islamic state, how will a minority community that has faced persecution at the hands of terrorists and separatists feel safe? This concern should be debated and addressed not only by the government but also by the people who keep claiming that the Pandits are welcome to return to Kashmir.  

Eight, whenever there is talk about how the Pandits could safely return to Kashmir, it is almost invariably met with opposition not just from separatist elements but also by the self-anointed experts on Kashmir. Whether they want to stay in exclusive or hybrid townships or enclaves in Kashmir is for the Pandits to decide. Those among the Pandits who advocate for a separate homeland in Kashmir ground their reasons in their persecution in the past. Many Pandits don’t agree this is the right model. But it’s a matter for the Pandits themselves to debate and settle, and then the government. Nobody else can dictate the terms and put riders on how the Pandits should return.  

Ninth, visiting certain temples and offering prayers on certain occasions in Kashmir doesn’t imply that the freedom of faith and the right to worship have been restored for the Pandits. Real freedom to worship and follow one’s faith lies in the restoration of the places of worship and freeing them from encroachments and desecrations. Around 900 temples are estimated to have existed in the Valley before 1990. Can all those temples and shrines be re-established so that there is confidence in the Pandit community vis-à-vis their religious rights?   

Tenth, the Pandits have a right of home in Kashmir, having lived there until 1990. It’s professed that the Pandits are comfortably settled outside the Valley and many work in big cities, so how can they return now? This is an absurd argument given that many people from small cities or towns work in the metros and yet still have their homes to return to whenever they want. Do the Pandits have their homes in their homeland to go to? Clearly, that is not the case. Also, why should anyone’s city of work be linked to their right to home? The Pandits can work in New Delhi or New York but their claim to home in Kashmir is indisputable. Right to home includes the assurance that one can return to their native home anytime without impediments or insecurities.

The abrogation of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution which provided a modicum of autonomy to the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir doesn’t automatically pave the way for the homecoming of the Pandits. However, it has certainly raised hope in the Pandit community. Whether the Narendra Modi government is able to come up with a concrete formula for the Pandits’ return or not, only time will tell. In any case, the rehabilitation of the Pandits in Kashmir must encompass their integration socially, politically and economically, without pre-conditions or restrictions.