My driver in now trying to negotiate a traffic bottle neck created by the ongoing construction of a fly over near Film City, NOIDA and my attention gets drawn towards the radio jockey who is announcing the schedule of Indian matches in Cricket Champions Trophy. I ask the driver to change the station and sometime later when this Radio Jockey also turns his announcement to Cricket, I ask my driver to play a music CD. We are now passing by the NOIDA malls and an under construction entertainment city. The landmarks such as these are fast becoming the symbols of modern India’s economic resurgence and are associated with national pride as these bourgeoning vista of prosperity are often cited as the examples of our arrival in the club of international class cities. My chain of thoughts is broken by the ringing of my cell phone. It is a friend reminding me about coming Sunday’s programme of going round the dwellings of Kashmiri Pandits for collecting money. After years of committed efforts by a band of dedicated Kashmiri Pandit activists a small piece of land was allotted to the community for building a socio- cultural center and five years later we are still struggling to put up two million Indian rupees as the cost of plot. Many years back or is it decades, we would go round our neighbourhood in Srinagar to collect money for the local temple and take immense pride in shouting “Bharat Mata ki Jai” while taking out purely a religious procession on Janam Ashtami. Though our houses would be stoned on 15th of August or whenever India achieved something of significance, we never took it seriously. We would always convince ourselves India is a great country and its might will quickly come to the protection of symbols of Indian nationhood in Kashmir if anything untoward happens with them. The attacks on Pandits, their temples and properties in 1986 was quickly forgotten as an aberration and rise in militancy, thereafter, was dismissed as something which a mighty Indian state would tackle duly. The regular killings of prominent Pandits in 1989-90 was considered as a matter of grave concern but never seen as precursor of our permanent displacement. India had scored significant victories in all post 1962 wars and was fully capable of protecting a miniscule minority of some three hundred thousand odd Pandits. We had built theoretical castles around us and according to our friends from other faith, were seized by Indian megalomania. Our imaginary castles were shattered on the night of 19th January 1990, when a mass frenzy forced a vast section of Pandits to abandon their ancestral homeland and seek refuge in the plains of India. The might of Indian army in Kashmir will not allow any harm to Pandits. We usually consoled ourselves and our friends from the majority community always ridiculed us for thinking so. My passion would rise whenever, and it was frequent, somebody would remark that India was a paper tiger incapable of protecting its citizens. I was always proud of belonging to the community, whose members had shaped the destiny of our country. I would always feel the warm blood rising in my cheeks whenever people would refer to Pandits as one of the very intelligent communities in India.

Sitting besides the driver of a truck while fleeing from my home I feel embarrassed and angry. I am upset not because of having to run away from my home in the middle of a chilling winter night but by the realization of our inability to comprehend the realities of our homeland and more by the knowledge of prophesies of our friends in the majority community coming true. Don’t trust India, only we can protect you. I always laughed at the suggestion. We shall be back very soon, my mother had declared just before fleeing while stocking the kitchen and changing the bedroom linen. She even placed soaps, toothpaste and towels in the bathroom. These will come in handy on our return. Latter my grandmother died and never reconciled to the fact that she would not meet her creator in the house where she came as a thirteen year bride and to spend more than sixty five years of her life before seeing her world being shattered.

My thoughts get broken as I realize we have reached my house. I enter my house leaving behind all thoughts, which crossed my mind during seventy five minutes of my journey, to vanish into the darkness of night. My wife brings me a glass of water and quickly returns to her favourite TV show. I do not want Afzal to occupy my mind and decide to surprise my family by not insisting on playing the news channel. Next day morning I deliberately avoid looking at Afzal related news. I will not feel happy if he is hanged. I will also not feel bad if he gets clemency. Seventeen years of exile, which seems to have attained irreversible permanency, and apathy along with total neglect has made me totally insensitive towards even the concerning issues. I do not know if I should be grateful to Farooq Abdullah. He is the inspiration behind this piece. He wants Afzal to be released and puts forward the reasons, which many societies would consider unpatriotic. Honestly, I don’t care. But, the fact is a similar mindset, seventeen years back, was responsible for my exile.

I am still not concerned but my friends want to engage me in a discussion on the issue. I do not take the bait but can’t avoid following the debate. I am still not sure about my response to the issue, though I increasingly find myself agreeing with an argument put forward by a close friend. We have no concern about what happens to Afzal. The dozens of self confessing Pandit killers are roaming free or in the process of being proven not guilty is a more regretful issue for us. For me the unaddressed issue of displacement of more than three hundred and fifty thousand Kashmiri Pandits is more serious than the attack on a democratic institution that has continuously failed them for last seventeen years.

The writer is the Secretary, Panun Kashmir - an organization fighting for the rights of Kashmiri Hindus.

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