Sir,
The article ‘Migration on Jan 19, 1990?” (DE 19.1.2018) by Rajesh Bhat, sent me once again, after a long lapse of time, down the memorylane, bringing back to my mind many nerve shattering scences of agony, psychological debacle, and trauma, as also scenes of blood curdling murders of a large number of Kashmiri Pandits, caused by the terrorist violence that erupted in 1990. The trend of harassing the Pandits which had started in the eighties reached to climax in 1990 when hell was let loose by the Pak -trained Muslim youth of Kashmir. What happened then has become a part of the dark history of Kashmir. Running for life, I along with my family like other Pandit families, hounded out, at gun point, found a safe place in the City of Temples.
The atrocities inflicted on my community had made me restless and I wanted to give vent, catharitically, to my pent, up agony and fury. But how to do it was the question. Time ticked off. My restlessness increased. It was just after a few months that it occured to me that I would write an article and siphon off my grief. Accordingly I prepared a writeup for a news paper. But how to get it published was now the real rub. It was my good luck that one fine morning a friend of mine from Baramulla came to my place along with a gentleman. It was a joy for me to come face to face with this gentleman after a long time. He happened to be my ex student at the Degree College Baramulla. It was Rajesh Bhat, the writer of the article mentioned above. Being on the staff of Daily Excelsior, he assured me that the article, handed over to him, would be published in the newspaper. It was just on the next day (7.01.1991) that my article of pain namely ‘In Defence of Mass Migration’ appeared on the top of Page 2 (used later for obituaries) with its title in big font. Those where the days of fear psychosis is for us. Fearing retaliation in the shape of physical harm by the terrrorists, I changed my name and used instead L Razdan.
This was probably the first article of its type, being very hard hitting, being cathartic in nature, it was taken very well by my community members. Having been encouraged by this sympathetic print media conduit, I wrote many articles from time to time, bringing to the fore not only the miseries of various types of the Pandits in exile, but also the callous indifference of both the central and the State Govt to the cries of the migrants for succour.
It can be said justly that the Daily Excelsior was the only newspaper that highlighted the cause of the Kashmiri Pandits who had become migrants in their own country. Rajesh Bhat has verily stirred the impressions of the gory scenes of the past that lay embedded in my subconscious mind.
Yours etc….
M L Raina
Jammu
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