REFUGEES IN THEIR OWN LAND

It was the year 2000-01. The bank in its own wisdom decided to send me for a training on higher HR concepts and christening it Executive Development Program.  There were about 30 people drawn from different states, regions, geographies and speaking different languages and assembled together for the training.  There was a training coordinator for the program who was also an officer of the bank.  One of the sessions started off with talking about one's worst moments in life and how the individual overcame that so that others can draw lessons from that. As the number of attendees were 30+, the session was made into a whole day program.  Each was given a fifteen minute time bracket to talk about the worst trials and tribulations in his/her personal life and how the person overcame that. There was an officer from Delhi itself, but was originally from Srinagar who recounted his worst moments as the head of a branch in the valley and how the entire scenario spread out.  There was not a single dry eye in the class that day.  There were a few female participants who were openly weeping when he finished his narration of the scenario of January 1990.  

A large poster was posted outside the branch asking the branch manager to leave immediately, despite the presence of armed security in sand filled bunkers in the front of the branch. He was, vide the poster, informed of the dire consequences that he would meet in case of rebellion and stayed put and asked to leave within 24 hours.  He reportedly called the district magistrate and informed him of his decision to close the branch and hand over the keys of the currency chest to him in a sealed cover. By evening of the day, he was on his way to Srinagar to find out whether his family of three was safe.  His house a three storied one in the highly secure area of Srinagar, had a poster pasted on the front door asking the occupants to vacate immediately failing which the entire family would be killed.

He packed and put whatever things he could gather into his Maruti 800 car and gathered his wife and two young daughters and drove non stop in a convoy of military vehicles to Jammu.  From Jammu, he drove to Chandigarh and reported at the bank's local head office. He narrated the entire episode leading to his leaving the branch to the senior officials and handed over the keys of the branch to the head office.  He was later posted to Delhi where he had to start his live all over again. Even utensils for cooking had to be purchased afresh. When he went back to Srinagar after a decade, he found his house was occupied by three different Muslim families and he had to continue to pay the loan installments.

That was the first time, most of us heard terms like nikah halala, raliv, galiv ya chaliv etc. used in driving the Hindus out of their home land.  Some of those who chose to stay back met with horrific ends in the dead of the night and the women folk kidnapped.  There were stories of women folk being raped before the eyes of the husband, father brother etc.  and the menfolk later killed. Those who were ready to convert were to allow the women to undergo the Nikah halala with the oldest clergy in the town and later murdered in front of women after that. These atrocities never came out since it happened.  It was nothing short of the holocaust of German Jews by the Nazis.  The ruling coalition in the center where a Muslim was the home minister and the party in power in the state, the national conference, never condemned these atrocities.  The media was sold out and kept a studied silence.  The judiciary never came to the rescue of these people who were made refugees in their own land though it was ready to open its door at midnight to hear a petition to stop the hanging of a terrorist.  It is a huge shame that the Indian democracy failed its own citizens and made them scape goats in the altar of political expediency.

Even after so long a time, when I read in the media or the social media about these, the recounting of the suffering by that officer haunts me to no end.  Now when people are talking of three decades of the Kashmiri Hindus' suffering, it is time that we the Indians, keep the memory of these sufferings alive so that the future generations of the Indians will understand the sufferings and sacrifices made by the people.  When the memory of the atrocities committed by the Nazis in Germany against the Jews are retained even after many decades, it is our bounden duty to keep these memories alive and erect a proper monument for those who were raped, murdered and dispossessed of their own houses and lands.  It would even be befitting to erect a museum to keep photos, records, audio and video recordings of the sufferings of these people when the governments turned a blind eye to their plight.   

This blog is a small attempt at recounting of a very small slice of the suffering of my colleague from State Bank Mr. Tikkoo and as a salute to his indomitable spirit.  His two daughters graduated with honors from the JNU. When you find many middle aged persons who claim to be students in JNU and demand azadi to the state of Kashmir, it is the spirit of people like these which keep our hopes alive in our democracy.