A Story of a Kashmir pundit in disrupted demography

 The scent of pine needles and fear hung heavy in the air, a stark contrast to the postcard-perfect vista of Pahalgam. Aakash stared at the news feed on his phone, each pixelated image a fresh wound. Seven Hindu pilgrims, gunned down. The silence of the mountains felt accusatory, a shroud draped over the vibrant tapestry he remembered from childhood.

His fingers tightened around the worn copy of  KALHANA'S RAJATARANGINI,' a gift from his grandfather. The old man, like so many Kashmiri Pandits, had clung to the hope of return long after it had withered into a painful ache. Aakash had inherited that ache, a dull throb beneath the superficial healing of a life rebuilt in Delhi.

Since the attack, my Twitter feed has been filled with images of laser-eyed politicians and clips of TV panelists promising retaliation. In his book "Amusing Ourselves to Death", Neil Postman reminds us of Aldous Huxley's warning from Brave New World. 

Postman writes, "When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby talk, when, in short, a people become an audience and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk. Culture death is a clear possibility."

It reminds me of the denial of the genocide of Kashmiri Pandits—not by the perpetrators, but by those who should have stood with us. Today, KPs are routinely mocked for not taking up arms, for being cowards who fled, and for their lack of unity. This same dynamic is now being applied, albeit with different language and context, to the victims of the Pahalgam attack.

It would be dishonest to deny that Kashmiri Hindus themselves have played a role, albeit a passive one, in allowing this situation to develop. For the past 35 years, the community has been fixated on the Indian state—appealing to ministers, filing petitions, issuing press releases, demanding justice, staging protests, and more—all in the hope that the Indian state would listen. But this has not happened, nor is it likely to.

However, in recent years, a perception that many Hindus now believe the Kashmir issue was effectively resolved with the revocation of Article 370 and that the reluctance of Kashmiri Pandits to return is due to their own lack of will or courage.

Simply stating that "Islam is to blame" will achieve little if we cannot effectively counter its influence. We are no longer in an era where secularism was sacrosanct and all religions were considered equal. Today, even the President of the United States openly acknowledges the link between global terrorism and Islam

He scrolled past the outrage, the armchair warriors baying for blood, the predictable blame game. It was all noise, a cacophony that deafened the soul. He thought of his friend Rohan, a devout Hindu, posting pictures from his recent trip to Kashmir, captioned with platitudes about peace and brotherhood. Aakash felt a pang of resentment, quickly stifled. Rohan was entitled to his hope, however naive.

But the naivete bothered him. It was the same blind faith his community had placed in the Indian state for three decades, a faith that had yielded little but press releases and unfulfilled promises. He remembered his grandfather's words, echoing through the years: "We are the custodians of our own fate, beta. Not supplicants."

The article he was writing felt like a betrayal of sorts. He was questioning the very impulse that drove many Hindus to flock to Kashmir: the desire to reclaim a lost heritage, to assert their presence on a land they considered sacred. He wasn’t advocating against tourism, not exactly. But he was asking a harder question: What did these pilgrimages and vacations actually achieve? Did they truly reclaim anything, or did they merely enrich the very pockets that might fund the next act of terror?

He typed: "We speak of reclaiming the land of Rishi Kashyap. But how? By emptying our wallets into the hands of those who yearn for our Blood? Are we buying back the soil, brick by brick? Or are we simply funding the cycle of violence?"

He knew the backlash would be fierce. He could already imagine the accusations: traitor, coward, Hinduphobic. But the faces of the dead pilgrims, their families shattered, burned in his mind. He couldn't sanitize reality with comforting illusions.

His call was not only for vengeance, but for introspection. It was a plea for his community, the scattered remnants of Kashmiri Pandit culture, to look inward, to find strength not in government decrees, but in their own resilience, their own resourcefulness. He urged them to invest in their own institutions, to preserve their language, their traditions, their history, independent of the shifting sands of political expediency.

The sun dipped behind the Pir Panjal range, casting long shadows across the valley. Aakash felt a surge of something akin to hope. He wasn't sure if his words would reach anyone, if they would pierce the din of misinformation and self-deception. But he had to try.

He finished the article, his fingers trembling slightly. He knew he was walking a tightrope, risking ostracization for speaking a truth many didn’t want to hear. But the memory of his grandfather's unwavering gaze, the weight of 'Rajatarangini' in his hand, gave him courage.

This wasn't just about Kashmir. It was about the soul of a people, the fight to preserve identity in a world that seemed determined to erase it .  It was about understanding that true patriotism wasn't blind faith, but a critical love, a willingness to question, to challenge, and to act, not just react. It was about recognizing that the fight for their homeland wasn't just a battle for territory, but a battle for their very existence, a battle they had to wage, first and foremost, within themselves. And in that battle, silence was not an option.

Epilogue :

Beginning with the cataclysm of January 19, 1990, the resonance emanated through Kashmiri Pandit homes: Convert to Islam, leave or perish!” Mosques broadcasted this message, which said “Raliv, Galiv, ya Chaliv,” which was a tormenting order for the Pandit community.

The 90s exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits is one of the darkest shadows on an already stained land by decades long conflict and political confusion! That mass migration was not an isolated event, it was the final act of a series of atrocities committed against Hindus in India’s only Muslim-majority state Kashmir where they were subjected to violence and hostility.

 Kashmiri Pandits, the Brahmin community with centuries-old cultural heritage forming part of an ancient J&K represented yet another sub-group within the valley's social fabric. In the late 1980s, however, there was a dramatic increase in insurgency against Indian rule by separatist Muslim activists (often trained or equipped in Pakistan) and some of the political groups resigned their democratic mandates to join an armed struggle.

The exodus of Kashmiri Pandits is a chilling reminder of what violence and playing politics can lead to. The horror of this event highlights the vital need to both protect minority communities and ensure justice is served on those responsible for acts of atrocity.

 Many Pandits still desire a return to their motherland, but circumstances around this kind of endeavor are messy, and restoration is hard work; it will require cooperation from all fronts.

 The misery of Kashmiri Pandits is more than a version in the history books but an imperative lesson from human rights and justice. It demands empathy, conversation, and dedication to make certain history does not repeat itself.