[Reader-list] Kashmiri Pandits demand ‘internally displaced persons’ status

[Aman Sethi]

Perhaps you should insist that India carry out the UN mandated
plebiscite as well.
a.

On Sat, Nov 1, 2008 at 6:10 AM, Aditya Raj Kaul <kauladityaraj at gmail.com> wrote:
> Kashmiri Pandits demand 'internally displaced persons' status By Indo-Asian
> News Service <http://www.freshnews.in/author/indo-asian-news-service/> on
> Friday, October 31, 2008
>
>  Kashmiri Pandits held a silent sit in protest outside the United Nations
> High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) office here Friday, demanding that
> the community, which fled the Kashmir
> Valley<http://www.freshnews.in/tag/kashmir-valley>during the peak of
> militancy 20 years ago, be declared as internally
> displaced persons (IDPs).
>
> The community represented by Kashmiri youth organisations in the capital
> like Roots in Kashmir, Internally Displaced Youth Front, All India Kashmir
> Samaj, Panun Kashmir and others, along with elderly members of the community
> in Delhi, presented a five-page memorandum of their demands to Nayona Bose
> of the UNHCR to be forwarded to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who is on
> a two-day visit to India.
>
> "We welcome the UN secretary on his visit to India. As a community we,
> therefore, appeal to him to help us - declare the Kashmiri Hindu community
> as IDPs," Lalit Ambardar, 35, a qualified engineer who was one of the
> 100-odd protestors, told IANS.
>
> "The Human Rights Working Group on Minorities in Geneva had recognised
> Kashmiri Hindus formally as a 'reverse minority'. So the use of the
> insulting term of 'migrants' for us - a forcibly exiled community - should
> be removed from all records and communications relating to us henceforth,"
> Ambardar chorused the protestor's demand.
>
> Many others protestors were angry about the state to which Kashmiri Hindus
> have been reduced since insurgency in the Kashmir Valley in 1989-90, when
> more that 400,000 Kashmiri Pandits fled their homes to escape persecution.
>
> "Historically, Kashmiri Pandits were known to be intellectuals, but now we
> are rotting away - we are a national waste - we have no political
> representation, have no geographic ethnicity that we can claim as our own!"
> fumed Raj Raina, 37.
>
> Raina was unable to get a government job owing to his 'migrant' status. He
> is now self-employed and runs a small printing press.
>
> "When I was forced to leave my home in the Valley,
> militants<http://www.freshnews.in/tag/militants>threatened us time and
> again - merge with us (with political and religious
> views), perish or vanish," Raina recapitulated memories of the insurgency.
>
> Amongst those present from the community were varsity
> students<http://www.freshnews.in/tag/students>,
> who also held that the current situation was sordid.
>
> "Calling us migrants implies that we had a choice in the matter, when we
> were actually forced to flee," said Aditya Raj Kaul, a 22-year-old student
> activist from Delhi University.
>
> "We have demanded in the memorandum that the UN direct the Indian government
> to ensure adequate protection to the residual Kashmiri Hindu population
> living in the Valley. Also that Kashmiri Hindus be restored political and
> economic rights, giving them equal status rather than second-class
> citizenship in their native land," Kaul informed.
>
> Link -
> http://www.freshnews.in/kashmiri-pandits-demand-internally-displaced-persons-status-93431
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