KPs must return, but not with a tag!
The return of Kashmiri pundits to their motherland is long overdue. Kashmiri Pandits are an important component of Kashmiri culture and ethos. Kashmir without the pundit community is incomplete and bereft of any ethnic legitimacy and value. They were and will remain the major part of Kashmiri brotherhood, and communal harmony.
Anyone, who contradicts the valued brotherhood embedded deep into the mindset of all Kashmiris, has not understood the real meaning and the character of Kashmiriyat. Kashmiri Pandits can be small in number but their valuable contribution in Kashmir culture, language, art and other fields depicting the real face of Kashmir cannot be denied or brushed aside.
No saner people can deny that migration of majority of Kashmiri Pandits was a disaster; more a cultural tragedy than a painful displacement. In this catastrophe, middle class and the poor Kashmiri Pandits suffered immensely and even after more than two decades they are yet to overcome this sweeping misfortune. They got uprooted, severed from their social and cultural milieu and got separate from their mother-tongue. Such a state of anguish cannot be stated in words and can be expressed rightly only by the sufferer himself. Migration of Kashmiri Pandits was a mystery that only historians will be able to demystify at an appropriate time. Last more than two decades misery made not only the Pandits suffer, but their fellow Kashmiris back home have faced more death, destruction and enormous agony. But, yes, someone losing his nest (homeland) is more agonizing, that too when his own habitat is unique and more soothing in many ways. In a situation of turmoil suspicion and hostilities overcome hope and unity. Communities which once lived in peace; and people who once vouched for each other’s sincerity turned enemies. All Kashmiris, over the period of time have suffered from syndrome of mistrust and most of the times politics played catalyst in such situations of hostility.
