With a lack of documentation in real time, absent chronicles, eyewitnesses aged or dead, the Kashmiri Pandit narrative had nearly gone missing. Now, slowly, the tide has changed. "It is the responsibility of progressive thinkers to expose religious extremism and stand with the victims," writes Pooja Shali

New Delhi: As Kashmiri Pandits mark 32 years of the exodus today, I look back on how they finally found their voice in public discourse.

From having been denied platforms ten years ago, today the community is a formidable force in politics. Despite deplorable attempts to silence them, young Kashmiri Pandits have found their voice and are gaining support worldwide.

This change occurred as they battled lies and insulting insinuations with a resolve to document their struggle.

The Kashmir conflict is a reminder of how intellectual and journalistic biases can cause irreparable damage to crucial eyewitness accounts. India's tragedy is that the dominant in English academia and news media whitewashed Jihadi extremism, which had devastated Kashmir and its people across religious lines. The repercussions of violence in the 1990s can be felt even today.

I have lived through Kashmir’s cancel culture.

In 2007, during my days as a student at a prestigious media college in Delhi, Kashmir was discussed often, but mainly in context of the claims against the armed forces. Equated with Palestine, the situation in Kashmir was showcased in films and discussions as one of Muslim oppression. Academia laid emphasis on the complexity of the term ‘terrorist’.

My interjections regarding religious persecution of Hindus was smirked at and brushed aside by a guest lecturer, despite the facts at my disposal.

In liberal discourse, as I experienced as a student, Islam and its critique were a no-go zone and any discussion about Kashmiri Pandits was hurriedly branded Hindu-right wing. It was deeply isolating.

Violations by the armed forces were repeatedly raised in colleges, seminars and on the global stage. However, Kashmiri Pandits were denied the platform to speak about their exodus, lest they typecast the Muslim community.

A strange responsibility to share a disclaimer was thrust on the survivors of ethnic cleansing.

As a politically aware college student, I participated in a protest in solidarity with Kashmiri Pandits in Delhi. Despite invitations, there was minimal participation and negligible media coverage. My batchmates were reluctant to join for fear of being branded Islamophobic.

A year later, an English television news crew visited my home for a show on young Kashmiris. I was delighted. Media persons had finally taken note. But when the show aired, it showed only Kashmiri Muslim speakers disappointed with the Indian establishment. All the Hindu students, including my account, had been edited out. No reason was ever provided.

One young boy who grew up in Jammu's Jagati refugee camp found himself in the audience of a show where Yasin Malik was the guest speaker. The weekend show was hosted by a celebrity female anchor and she did not permit the boy to even cross-question the former JKLF terrorist, who easily got away with his propaganda.

In 2010, I was a cub reporter sent to report on a seminar on secession in Kashmir. Renowned author Arundhati Roy was sharing the dais with hardline pro-Pakistan leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani. In the heart of Delhi, the auditorium reverberated with slogans of separation from India. In the country's capital, in the name of democracy, communal sloganeering was openly carried out.

On the other hand, the victims of Geelani’s ideology, whose lives were turned upside down, never received such a platform.

In 2017, while conducting research for an assignment on the remaining Hindus in Kashmir, I could find no solid ground report about their grievances. Most Valley-based reports suspiciously showed Pandits as either living contently (in a volatile conflict zone) or grateful to local Muslims for assistance with funeral rites.

My enquiries on ground showed that most Pandits were misquoted and not asked about the real issues of loneliness, discrimination and isolation of a reducing, miniscule minority.

This refusal to document Kashmiri Pandits was not a sporadic phenomenon but a collective annihilation from memory of the fact that the Hindu minority faced targeted attacks in 1989-90 by Pakistan-sponsored militia.

Twenty years of silence meant the damage was already done. With a lack of documentation in real time, absent chronicles, eyewitnesses aged or dead, the narrative had nearly gone missing.

The disappointment was real and it was felt by the whole community, both in Kashmir and outside.

Now, slowly, the tide has changed. Thirty-two years on, writers are finally managing to compile details of what happened. In 2022, children who grew up in exile are filmmakers and writers, demanding that their accounts be acknowledged.

From a footnote movie character in Mission Kashmir, cinema has evolved to incorporate films like Shikara and The Kashmir Files. People are keen to read, explore and ask questions about what happened to the Kashmiri Pandits.

Every television discussion on Jammu and Kashmir now includes a representative of the Kashmiri Pandit community. This generation of television news editors, to their credit, has dared to air reports. The October 2021 killings of individuals from Hindu and Sikh minority communities were widely covered with interviews and ground reports. The same was unthinkable a few years ago.

However, in rejecting a podium to Kashmiri Pandits for so many years, the liberal and humanist space has now been conceded to the Hindu right-wing. Repeated instances show that communal discord is caused not only by spreading hate, but by silencing terror victims and eulogising terrorists as revolutionaries.

Islamophobia should not become an excuse to downplay Muslim fundamentalism, the horrific crimes of which are an increasingly real and global concern. It is the responsibility of progressive thinkers to expose religious extremism and stand with the victims, not become apologists for fear or favour.