Caught in the Trap
In such a scenario, the depth of viciousness of the situation for internally displaced Kashmiri Hindus needs to be understood and felt. There is an increase in government attempts to delegitimize internal displacement. Enforced power cuts and scanty water supply in the camps, because the State Government is fast losing sensitivity to the internal displacement, made summer hell for dwellers in the Jagati camp. On one side government tom-tommed the upgraded facility in Jagati; at the same time the inmates are being communicated one way or other that government will soon close down the camp facilities and force them to return to the valley.

The newspapers and the community leadership have brought to public view the corruption and bungling in the construction of Jagati Camp as well as the entire relief organization. From the use of steel in the construction work to the wood used in windows and doors, sanitary and electric fittings, steel almirahs, as also the entire range of construction material used for Jagati camp, the lack of proper quality is manifest to the naked eye. After repeated demands from the public for government assurances for the safety of the structures in Jagati, the government has chosen to remain silent. If the allegations about the bungling in construction work at Jagati, as appeared in local newspapers, turn out to be even partially true, we have a scam worth more than a few hundred crores at hand.

But more important than this is the very safety of camp dwellers living at Jagati. The entire encampment of more than 4000 quarters does not have sewerage disposal. The soakage pits and septic tanks dug for sanitation are shallow and substandard. Anybody who visits the camp even now when the weather is turning cooler will inhale the foul smell all around.

Most appalling and pathetic is the atmosphere of intimidation and fear that exists in the camp. The inmates are frightened to speak against the government and the relief organization. The technique of intimidation is usually to issue a re-verification threat or order to the family living in the camp, which means stoppage of relief cash as well as rations. The Apex Committee in the camps acts primarily as an instrument of corruption and coercion on behalf of the government.

Out of the frying pan into the fire
If the fear to speak is perceptible in the camps in Jammu, what must be the state of affairs in the transition camps made in Kashmir Valley to provide lodging to returnee Hindu employees? When Radha Kumar advised these Kashmiri Hindu employees to ignore unpleasant happenings with them in Kashmir, she was not suggesting some sort of pragmatism. She was advising them to accept devaluation as a fiat accompli. She was advising acceptance of permanent inferior-isation.

To understand the nature of the unpleasantness which returnee Kashmiri Hindus have to persevere with, a few real life anecdotes will suffice. A Kashmiri Hindu young man, who recently arrived in Kashmir valley through the PM’s package, told this author that social realities in Kashmir have changed unimaginably. He revealed his personal experience while travelling in a local bus to his work place. Two Kashmiri Hindu ladies, who had also joined recently, were travelling in the same bus to their work place. Two local young men in the same bus suddenly got up mid-way and forcibly tried to embrace the two Hindu ladies while the bus was moving. As this act of molestation was on, all other passengers chose to ignore it and look the other way. Most other passengers couldn’t muster courage to object because they were not sure of the antecedents of the two young Muslim enacting the ordeal. They could be terrorists or over-ground workers of some terrorist outfits.

Another real life experience is more revealing and elucidates the character of ‘unpleasantnesses’ which Radha Kumar advised the Hindu lady employees living in the transition camp to ignore. A Hindu girl who had recently come to the valley was experiencing harassment almost daily at her work place. She would try to share it with her father in words and references which her shyness and sense of shame would permit. His father, in his naivety or selfishness, would take these complaints lightly and advise her to ignore them. One day, while the young lady was returning to her rented accommodation from her work place, a senior employee with a flowing beard pursued her in his car and offered her a lift. The lady somehow managed to refuse the lift, despite the patronizing insistence of the person. The elderly zealot with a flirting expression told her he had been having sleepless nights since he had seen her.

Devastated with the daily harassment, she told her father to marry her to a local Muslim boy in case he was so needy of her income. Her father, taken aback, asked the reason for such an extreme suggestion. Angry and exasperated, she minced no words and told her father that marrying her just once to a Muslim may save her from marrying several times daily. The father and girl have since returned to Jammu, forsaking the new job.

Social disorganization and debasement is an expression of tearing apart of the fabric of mores and values of a society. It is not per se a communal phenomenon. This tearing apart has happened because of the militarization of the social milieu. Sometime back, when a retired justice in Kashmir valley claimed there were more than 25,000 prostitutes operating only in Srinagar city, he was talking about a wider social disorganization.

Displaced Kashmiri Hindus, despite their exiled condition, had not allowed social disorganization to penetrate their social milieu. The Prime Minister’s return plan has pushed them into an environment of vicious social disorganization. And this phenomenon of social disorganization in the Kashmir Valley is now on the brink of turning the bend towards a vicious communal process of “Love Jihad”.

The recruitment process employed by the state government to implement the Prime Minister’s package on return and rehabilitation of internally displaced Kashmiri Hindus has some bizarre features. The selected candidate has to give a written undertaking to stay put at the place of his/her employment, come what may, under all circumstances; majority of the selected employees are females; most of these females are graduates or post graduates; the majority of male candidates are lesser qualified than the selected female candidates and most of the postings are district-wise postings, where the employees cannot seek transfer beyond the district.  

If the beheading of army personnel can be hidden from public view for almost a month, incidents of harassment, assault, intimidation, victimization of a small forsaken population of Kashmiri Hindus living in the valley can be easily suppressed. Any politically uncomfortable incident which comes to light occasionally is brushed aside by making Kashmiri Hindus living there deny them. They are not in any position to say no to any prodding from the government or the separatist establishment.

When a ‘yagya’, performed in a temple in Srinagar, was desecrated by communal zealots in the dead of the night, a known Kashmiri Hindu member of the Apex Committee was made to deny it publicly. Local newspapers in Jammu mistakenly reported a case of attempted vandalism of a Hindu religious place in Kashmir valley as an incident of fire. The newspapers were immediately banned. The act of vandalism was lost in the controversy.

Mysterious disappearances of Kashmiri Hindu youth in the valley some time back, a mysterious fire which partially burnt the most sacred Hindu shrine in Srinagar very recently, and many  incidents of harassment and intimidation are either hushed up or never allowed to be spoken about publicly. Separatist leaders in the valley, who visit the transition camps apparently to show off their welcome for the returnees, invariably leave while suggesting to them directly or indirectly that their safety would be more assured if they criticize India and Panun Kashmir at regular intervals.

Soul Murder
For the present, there is one glaring convergence between the policies pursued by the Jihadi establishment in Jammu and Kashmir and the Government of India. And that is to seek to use the symbolic presence of Kashmiri Hindus in the Valley and the trickle of their return from Jammu for politics.

For the Government of India, its incremental compromises with the separatists might get a secular legitimacy. For Jihad, it will act as a game changer because of its potential to create a political space for the retreat of the Government of India from the present status quo. For Kashmiri Hindus the attrition will only increase. They will be forced to persevere with the unpleasantness of the situation and hope that a new massacre may not happen.

Those amongst them who are living in valley have an existential compulsion to stay attached to their tormentors and increase their psychological capabilities to deny or dissociate from their traumatic experiences. In order to preserve their image of safety, they will have to conform to the extent possible and keep silent about the unpleasantness. As a character in George Orwell’s 1984 says to another, “You will be hollow. We will squeeze you empty and then we shall fill you with ourselves”. The message from both the Government of India as well as the Jihadi establishment to Kashmiri Hindus is no less vicious. We are witnessing the “soul murder” of a community as also the nation to which it thinks it belongs.

The author is chairman, Panun Kashmir

Editor: Willful suppression of news concerning atrocities on Hindus or rape of Hindu women is not limited to Kashmir Valley alone. An example. Aug 5 2011 a NCP activist raped a 19 year old Hindu girl in Mowad a small town 100 kms from Nagpur. When villagers protested police opened fire and Sanjay Ghorse died in police firing. When villagers continued to protest the Maharashtra government appointed a retired judge to investigate into the alleged rape case. No news thereafter.