“Chaliv, ya galiv, and raliv” (be one among us, flee, or be decimated)!!
Renowned journalist Rahul Pandita published a moving narrative on the genocide and horrible circumstances that Kashmiri Pandits faced in 1990—circumstances that still gives them chills to this date. The year changed the whole demography of Kashmir—the ghost of which still haunts many Kashmiri Pandits today.
Kashmir, once known to be the cradle of knowledge, was soon hijacked by terrorism and violence—thus giving it the tag of being “not safe enough to live”.
The hardships endured by the Author’s —Rahul Pandita’s family and the other Kashmiri Pandit community, are the central theme of the book. The book offers bitter recollections of life after the 1990 plight of the Kashmiri Pandits.
The book is divided into ‘five sections’ to make its reading lucid and in a way the Readers could easily connect to it.
Part One of the book reflects upon the time that existed before the plight of the Kashmiri Hindu population. In the first half of the first segment, the Author recounts his life in Srinagar. He also recalls the struggles his parents had to go through to survive and fend off themselves. Engulfed in the quagmire of ‘abrasive and acrid’ memories of Kashmir Pandit’s Genocide, every cognate moment brings back aghast memories of Kashmir. This pain is reflected when the Author writes- “But, this word AZADI, it frightens me”.
Pandita have meticulously penned the history of Kashmir— from the ancient to the present ages. He provides the theory surrounding the arrival of Kashmiri Pandits in the valley, before giving a brief overview of Kashmir’s celebrated literary past. The readers get a peek at the unrest in Kashmir before the plight of Kashmiri. The author recalls the murders that foreshadowed the tragedy that was about to befall Kashmiri Pandits with sad recollections.
In the Second Part, the Author recounts few incidents related to the persecution of Kashmiri Pandits since 1989. He also alleged Pakistan for ‘radicalizing’ Kashmiri Muslims that bolstered Kashmiri militants to kill the Hindu minorities in Kashmir. In the subsequent part, Pandita narrates the incidents that happened in the aftermath of 19 January 1990 —he exquisitely presented the ordeal that his family had to go through in after 19 January 1990.
In the Third Part of the book, the Author provided accounts of Kashmiri Pandits who refused to leave their home ground. One among them was Sarvanand Kaul ‘Premi’, who happened to be a poet and a freedom fighter. Despite his relative’s insistence, he refused to leave Kashmir seeking communal harmony. He and his twenty-seven-year-old son were brutally killed by Kashmiri militants on the dreadful night of 01 May 1990. The miserable conditions of displaced Kashmiri Pandits, in Jammu refugee camps, right after the exodus, has also been mentioned meticulously in the Book. The aggrieved Kashmiri Pandit families had to ‘somehow manage’ in little comfort as they had no other choice but to accept fait accompli. In subsequent pages, Pandita narrated an incident of the unfortunate killing of his cousin brother along with his two colleagues while he was on his way to Gul.
The Fourth Part is quite personal to the Author as he recounts the ordeal that his family had to go through while overcoming the death of his cousin in 1998. In subsequent part, his uncle also narrated anecdotes of the tribal invasion of Kashmir in 1947. As recounted by his uncle, tribal raid in 1947 was brutal as many Kashmiri Pandits were displaced from their homes and were left homeless—”The captive Pandits spent seventy days like this, watching women being raped and killed in front of their eyes”. The Assistant Commissioner of Muzzafarabad— Kacho Ali Mohammed, had set an example of communal harmony when he saved the lives of many Kashmiri Pandits and women. Some of the Kashmiri Pandits, who were abducted and taken to Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK), somehow managed to cross the border and return to India.
In the Final Part (Part Five) of the book, the author narrates his conversation with displaced Kashmiri Pandits and about his visits to Kashmir on several occasions. He lambasts the successive governments for failing to provide relief to Kashmiri Pandits— who are living in camps and face hardships due to poor camp facilities. According to the refugees, a big chunk of relief fund, allotted for the development of Kashmir Pandits, is ‘gutted’ by the government machinery. In a nutshell, the Author has dedicated part of the book to the Kashmiri Pandit community— as a small tribute to them.
The book is a must read for all the young students. It takes one back to 1990 with each line representing ‘pain’ and ‘disappointment’ of the Kashmiri Pandits— ‘pain’ of leaving, sin a haste, what they once called ‘home’ and ‘disappointment’ of being helpless and unable to save their family members/friends, etc. The book does full justice to its title “Our Moon Has Blood Clots: A Memoir of a Lost Home in Kashmir”.
