Return of the native

K.N. Pandita
Apparently central government seems to be seized of the question of return and rehabilitation of displaced Hindu minority community in Kashmir valley. This issue is included in BJP’s election manifesto.
The President mentioned it in his address to the maiden session of the new parliament. .
Some sections of print media highlighted the story though others completely neglected it.
Many organizations of displaced community reacted to the tell-tale stories of print media. They reiterated their respective patent stands.
Reportedly delegates from some organizations called on the Home Ministry and exchanged ideas. Contents of their interaction are not known, nor their representative profile.
Hindsight shows that during its two successive tenures, Congress government never took the question of return and rehabilitation seriously although it was partner in ruling coalition in the state. It remained non-committal on temple bill. Actually Congress has written off the community to the pleasure of its valley constituency.
The Prime Minister’s Package of 2008 brazenly hoodwinked the displaced community by subtly circumventing the most essential dimension viz. political, and confined only to truncated material/financial aspect.
Taking cue from Congress government’s nonchalance, the State government further watered down the package to the extent of making it a mockery.  Adept in playing divisive politics, the State coalition government handpicked a small group of spineless persons in the name of representatives of the community, and making them scapegoats, tried to obtain legitimacy to its casual and laid-back treatment of the displaced community.
The team interlocutors that enjoyed two crore-worth two year long sojourn in the Vale of Kashmir, produced a report that was not acceptable to any of the stakeholders at the end of the day. Even the then Home Minister, who was euphoric at one stage, just consigned the report to its burial place after realizing his gross ignorance of the intricacies and complexities of Kashmir issue.
In regard to return and rehabilitation of the displaced community, the team was as vague and unclear as in the case of most of the vital aspects of Kashmir issue.
I do not dismiss the possibility of BJP leadership having studied in depth the complexity of Kashmir issue as well as the return and rehabilitating of the displaced religious minority. Consequently, I am disposed to believe that it  has clear understanding of the harsh truth that return an rehabilitation of the religious minority back in the valley is inextricably linked to the solution of Kashmir issue, which the Kashmir mainstream leadership has been demanding without relent.
As such, any attempt of solving the issue of exiled community before solving the political issue of Kashmir “dispute” is putting the cart before the horse. Does return of the displaced persons in any way solve the “dispute” or stop Pakistani armed infiltrators from receiving guest mujahid treatment from local hosts or minimize anti-India rage? None of these.
Kashmir Valley has moved away from its more than six and half century old socio-cultural construct. India and Pakistan, both are only peripheral to its current social dynamics; today predominant impact is from Saudi Arabia. Kashmir is the cultural colony of Saudi Arabia.
In the larger political landscape of the region, the rise of Sunni Wahhabi caliphate in the Middle East and the fierce struggle between vested interests reflected through state power and traditional conservatism in Af-Pak region, Kashmir Valley has a tenuous position. It has no vitality to stand as buffer between the contesting ideologies.
Modi government should understand that Islamic caliphate has patently established policy for religious minorities in an Islamic state. Whatever the status of Indian democracy and secularism, J&K with valley predominance will look at and react to it from purely Islamic prism. I believe that Modi government should want the displaced minority, when back in the valley, becomes part of the engine of development and not hostage to moribund secularism.
We would advise the Union government to address the issue of return of the native in historical and realistic background. It needs to familiarize itself with pragmatic interpretation of “secularism” in the only Sunni Muslim dominated state in India. That will necessitate reading and understanding the history of the Caliphate.
The State government is reported to have added the rehabilitation formula to the notorious Prime Minister’s Package 2008. Again, it has cleverly circumvented the political dimension of the issue.
And now if the Modi government insists on focusing on the political dimension of the issue, that dimension cannot be genuine and valid if its formulation ignores geo-strategic realities in the Middle East, Af-Pak, Iran and Western China (Xingjian).
Af-Pak, almost contiguous to Kashmir, is the Waterloo where vested interest is waging a war against the last bastion of conservatism. Iraq political scenario portends to light the flames of fourteen centuries old sectarian strife with new and devastating dimensions. May be there will be what Saddam Husain called the “mother of all wars”. Iran, like Kashmir, is a sordid case of conflicting identities.
Will this restive part of Asian continent, suck into the vortex of civilizational conflict, sound the clarion of humanity inching towards the great fall from the deadly cliff?
In final analysis the gimmicks of the State government in throwing hints of return module for the displaced Pandits is a subtle challenge to the Modi government.   The return and rehabilitation module prepared by the State Government eloquently speaks of government’s gratuitous response to prodding from New Delhi. In simpler phraseology it is called politicizing a human issue.
In diplomatic language it conveys to New Delhi that returning natives will not have more than just a fringe admissible to them. Their existence as negligible political counterweight in pinhole space in the valley will never be compromised nor will they ever enjoy any special status in the Constitutional frame of the J&K State, something that would mean balancing Article 370 of the Indian Constitution.
This is the time that prompts the displaced community to seek justice from all sources including international community. The fundamentals of return and restitution of a displaced community are explicitly set forth by the UN Human Rights Council. If the Union and the State government are democratic enough to accept these fundamentals as convergence point, the displaced community will consider it a step in right direction. In that case the first thing to do is to consign the Prime Minister’s Package 2008 to flames. That should be the fate of all such charlatanic documents.

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