Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Sept 18: The Kashmiri Pandit community which has given leadership to independent India for decades together is virtually leaderless at present.
This was stated by Dr Jitendra Singh, Minister in PMO, with independent charge of Science and Technology and Earth Sciences while releasing Deepak Raj’s book In Wanderland at a simple but impressive function here, today.
The function was attended by a galaxy of intellectuals and scholars of the Kashmiri Pandit community.
Dr Jitendra Singh said during the Simla pact signed by the then Prime Minister, Mrs Indira Gandhi with Pakistan a battery of Kashmiri Pandit leaders was present on the occasion who besides Mrs Gandhi included veteran diplomats P N Haksar, T N Kaul and D P Dhar. Their joint photograph still exists in Raj Bhawan of Simla, he added.
While highly acclaiming the Deepak Raj’s book In Wanderland, Dr Singh suggested him to open a small research centre to ascertain the reasons which made the community leaderless at present.
He said, the research can also be done on the subject why word migration was attached to displacement of Kashmiri Pandits from Valley as attaching this word was not appropriate to a community which is internally displaced.
He also said that the displacement should also be time bound. If it is not time bound it becomes directionless and if displacement continues for a longer period it becomes rootlessness, he added.
He expressed the hope that Mr Deepak will give a thought to it and start research on the same.
Reading his paper on the book, Shiban Khabiri a freelance journalist said that Deepak has departed from conventional style of writing. He has resorted to use of satire and humour to highlight some of the problems faced by the community.
While, speaking Deepak said, that pangs of migration forced him to pen down the book. “ The book has been written to hold with the best of intensions to mirror to derailment of Kashmiri Pandit community caused by mass exodus and absence of genuine efforts by leaders to put it back on rails”.
The stage was managed by P K Raina.
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