BJP government is eager to resettle displaced Kashmiri Pundits in the valley, their ancestral homeland they were driven out of so brutally. But Kashmir valley is now ethnically cleansed with 100% hostile Muslim population. While Central Government would like to create cluster settlements in line with Jewish settlement in illegally occupied West Bank, J & K Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad would like to settle and integrate Kashmiri Pundits in the main stream which would be akin to death sentence.
There is already widespread protest in Srinagar against return of Pundits who fled from the valley after 700 were brutally murdered in 1989. The exodus continued until no Hindus, Sikhs or Christians were left, Valley ethnically cleansed.
Pundits are intellectual, intelligent, proud but docile people, not Jewish settlers who carry guns and fight tooth and nail for survival. Even cluster settlements may be coherent solution but would be difficult to protect and if plutocratic Congress come to power, these Pundits would suffer fate worse than death. It may not sound romantic, cloying sentimentality but best way forward is to settle them in Jammu, away from Pakistani border, preferably somewhere near Ramnagar area, surrounded by mainly Hindus, near Himachal Pradesh border.
The best prognosis, plausible solution is to put sentiments on one side and give them permanent, congenial homes built with security in mind, peace, progress and sense of belonging, not pseudo, unrealistic hope and sentimental pseudo-intellectual claptrap for political reasons.
Bhupendra M. Gandhi
Via Email
