KASHMIR and IDPs

By Dr Kashinath Pandit

It was the 19th of January 1990. Days were cold and nights bitter though there was no snow on the ground. Around 9 PM, loud and thunderous slogans of Allah-o- Akbar, Pakistan ka matlab kya/ La ila ha ilallah, Islam zindabad, Pakistan zindabad raised collectively by a multitude of humans and relayed through deafening loudspeakers pierced the eardrum. These slogans were not new to Pandits in Kashmir. However, the odd hour, the tumultuous bang and intriguing spontaneity besides shrieking loudspeakers, all spoke threateningly that a storm was brewing in Kashmir. Continue Reading…

By K.N. Pandita

About a year ago, a Kashmiri Pandit organization named Roots in Kashmir filed a petition with the Supreme Court supplicating for reopening of the subject of ethnic cleansing and violation of human rights of the displaced community. The Supreme Court turned down the petition asserting that it was a twenty-five-year-old issue and culling out the evidence would be an uphill task. However, only some weeks ago, the Supreme Court, while adjudicating the case of Sikh genocide of 1984, gave life imprisonment to one of the culprits. The Supreme Court is also hearing the five hundred year-old Ramjanam Bhumi-Babri Masjid dispute. Continue Reading…

By K.N. Pandita

Introductory

Prior to the partition of India on August 15, 1947, and the withdrawal of the British colonial rule, the North Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir, one of the 570 odd big or small princely states of the British Indian Empire had to decide about its future once the British paramountcy lapsed. The princely states enjoyed nominal autonomy within the parameters of British suzerainty. What would be their status after the British had left. Continue Reading…