India has been weaponizing the pain of Kashmiri Pandits

This month, the Indian government unilaterally abrogated Kashmir’s special status, in a move that disregarded multipleUnited Nations Security Council resolutionsthat call for a peaceful and democratic solution to the Kashmir dispute. With this sleight of hand, the government has resuscitated an old strategy of instrumentalizing the pain and loss of Kashmiri Pandits to legitimize its violenceagainst Kashmiri Muslims. As a Kashmiri Pandit and first and foremost a Kashmiri, I unequivocally oppose this position.

Kashmiri Pandits are a minority Hindu community who fled Kashmir, a Muslim-majority region controlled by India, in the wake of the 1989 armed insurgency against the Indian state. Official accounts of the number of displaced Kashmiri Pandits vary greatly, from 150,000 to 300,000 individuals, but arguments over these calculations of suffering obfuscate the deeper truth: The events of 1989 and those that followed have radically altered Kashmiri Pandits’s self-understanding and their relationship to Kashmiri Muslims. They have created a trauma that refuses to be buried and a rage that it is time to address.

Current Hindutva strategies of divide and rule in Kashmir echo techniques of imperial conquest that far precede the rise of the religious right wing in India. Such strategies were present during the pre-colonial periodas well as following Indian independence, as the Congress party — now part of India’s opposition — did its part to systematically erode Kashmir’s constitutional autonomy, rigelections and splinter the political field. But the BJP has managed to push us to a precipice: It is using the Kashmiri Pandit exodus, in addition to arguments about “development,” to justify an undemocratic, illegal annexation of Indian-controlled Jammu and Kashmir and to instate one of India’s most severe sieges.

Given this historical backdrop, it is no surprise that the circumstances of the Pandit exodus have never been properly investigated. Nor is it surprising that Pandits feel so much rage and lack of acknowledgment, even as consecutive governments parade their cause. To break out of one’s pain and suffering is difficult when that trauma remains bodily and psychically unprocessed, as has been the case for many Kashmiri Pandit families. It becomes nearly impossible when that trauma is made to do the dirty work of governments intent on maintaining territorial sovereignty at the cost of human lives, political freedom and reconciliation. But the way to address intergenerational Kashmiri Pandit pain is not through the oppression of Kashmiri Muslims.

Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/08/22/i-am-kashmiri-pandit-india-must-stop-weaponizing-pain-our-past/