[Reader-list] Who is Sanjay Tickoo? (Re: Under renewed threats, pandits may flee the Valley)

[Kshmendra Kaul]

This significance of this report comes from recognising that Sanjay Tickoo, and his organisation KPSS seem to have been driven to the edge.
 
It is important to understand "Who is Sanjay Tickoo?" 
 
Sanjay Tickoo, who lives in Kashmir, has often been castigated and reviled by other Kashmiri Pandits for his advocacy that Kashmiri Pandits should return to Kashmir to live in peace and brotherhood with the Kashmiri Muslims. 
 
Sanjay's organisation (quoting) "The KPSS is also critical of hard-line Pandit organisations like Panun Kashmir and Roots in Kashmir, because of their demand for a separate homeland in Kashmir, northeast of the Jhelum"
 
Sanjay Tickoo (and KPSS) have often made overtures to the Islamic Separatists in Kashmir, even asking for their protection and requesting that the KPs who continue to live in Kashmir should not been seen as supporting any particular side in the politics of Kashmir. 
 
The August 2008 TEHELKA article reproduced below might give a better understanding of Sanjay Tickoo and the significance of :
 
"""""" The KPSS requested the state and Central administration to re-think their proposal to bring back the Kashmiri Pandits to the Valley. They should instead the prepare to register the fresh lot of migrants who will leave the Valley in the coming days if the situation is not taken care of in due course of time, the Samiti leader said."""""""
 
Kshmendra

 
 
Divided House, Delayed Return
 
Deep fissures in the Kashmiri Pandit community stand in the way of government efforts to rehabilitate them, reports PEERZADA ARSHAD HAMID

 
SANJAY TIKOO, a Kashmiri Pandit living in Barbar Shah, Srinagar, braved all odds and remained in the valley when thousands of Pandits left their motherland. It was 1990 and the armed insurgency in Kashmir had begun, followed by press releases in newspapers ordering Hindus to leave.
 
The Tikoo family were defiant and resolute. They would not migrate. They weathered the pressure and fear and lived on in their ancestral home. Eighteen years later, those days remain vivid for Sanjay. He clearly remembers the prolonged strike calls, the curfews and, above all, the migration of fellow Pandits from the valley.
 
Sanjay credits his mother for the decision. “I thank the women of my house and, particularly, my mother, who gave her steadfast support to our decision. If either she or my sister had shown even the slightest weakness, we too would have fled, forced to uproot ourselves,” muses Sanjay.
 
The Tikoos were soon singled out. A threatening letter was nailed to the entrance of their house. Sanjay clearly remembers that fateful day.
 
“It was July 16, 1990. I had gone to the top floor of my house to smoke a cigarette. While pacing up and down, I saw a group of people reading something on our gate. I rushed down and brought the message in,” recalls Sanjay.
 
At about the same time, posters purportedly written by militants became ubiquitous. Along with threats such as the one Sanjay’s family received, they contained strike calls and reports of militant activities. Disturbed, Sanjay discussed the letter with his family and then approached a local Urdu newspaper, which published the letter along with his family’s decision: they would not leave the valley and were willing to face the consequences. Thereafter, a group of militants belonging to the Al-Umar Commandos approached the family and denied having issued the letter. This increased the confidence of the family and encouraged them to stay back.
 
The relief department of the state government estimates that 56,148 families, including a few Muslim families — approximately 2.5 lakh people — migrated from their homes following the armed insurgency during the period 1989- 92. Of this, 34,690 families went to Jammu and 19,338 to New Delhi. While police records say 209 Pandits were killed in Kashmir in the past 18 years, Pandit organisations put the figure at about 1,100. An estimated 20,000 Pandit families, however, preferred to stay.
 
These people occupied scattered pockets in urban and rural areas, detached from each other. This forsaken community faced difficulties in their social life that were felt acutely during marriages, religious functions and, most of all, when performing the last rites for their dead.
 
“During the initial years, finding brides for our sons was difficult as few migrants were ready to send their daughters back to the valley. There were no priests to perform prayers. However, the situation is now improving and people don’t consider marriages to families in the valley that dangerous,” Tikoo says.
 
Sanjay initiated efforts to unite Pandit families and strengthen their interaction. He and his friends founded the Kashmiri Pandit Sangharsh Samiti (KPSS), which is undertaking a census of Pandits in the valley. They advocate the safe return of Pandits and oppose government plans to give Pandits high-security residential flats.
 
“The government has constructed separate buildings and has given CRPF security to them. However, this is an effort to create a Palestine- Israel type divide in Kashmir,” asserts Tikoo.
 
The KPSS is also critical of hard-line Pandit organisations like Panun Kashmir and Roots in Kashmir, because of their demand for a separate homeland in Kashmir, northeast of the Jhelum. The KPSS considers Kashmir a political problem and a dispute between India and Pakistan.
 
Panun Kashmir believes that the insurgency was a communal riot engineered by Islamic fundamentalists to drive the minority Hindus from the valley. They accuse Muslims of ethnic cleansing. Panun Kashmir has demanded land along the Jhelum in south Kashmir to be secured to build colonies for Pandits. The group also wants this zone to be made a Union Territory.
 
“Our community has suffered badly. We have been uprooted from our homeland and unless adequate arrangements are made, we won’t go back and will continue our fight for our rights. Residential flats are not the solution — that’s just moving us from one camp to another. Our return to our motherland should be final and secure, so that we will not be forced to leave again,” asserts Ajay Chrangoo, Chairman, Panun Kashmir. Chrangoo has been living in Jammu since his migration and strongly advocates a separate homeland.
 
Chrangoo refers to flats constructed at Mattan in South Kashmir and at Sheikhpora on the outskirts of Srinagar that the state government has spent crores on, in order to coax Pandits to return. No Jammu Pandits were ready to return here, and most flats remain locked.
 
Another voice representing the migrant community is the All India Kashmiri Samaj. Headed by Ram Krishan Bhat, it works to keep the Kashmiri sentiment alive among Pandit youth. Though he praises the Pandits who remained in the valley and calls them “daring”, he says their continued presence in the valley is not enough to convince other Pandits to return.
 
Chrangoo disagrees. “There is nothing special in some Pandits staying back. While some members of the community stay behind in conflict zones where there is a mass exodus, this can’t obscure the bigger picture — the fact that most Pandits have fled. Moreover, those who remain, remain in fear,” he adds.

THE LARGE numbers of Pandit groups — representing migrants and non-migrants — claiming to fight for the rights of Pandits have confused people both in India and abroad. The clamour of voices has added to the complexity of the issue. While all groups claim to represent the aspirations of Kashmiri Pandits, all of them differ on when, where and how Pandits should return. “Pandits are as divided as the Muslims are,” quips Sanjay Tikoo.
 
Sanjay Saraf, a migrant politician, adds another dimension to the debate. Saraf plans to contest the coming assembly elections and is state president of the Lok Jan Shakti Party.
 
Recently, national and regional parties from outside the state have started making inroads here. The elections will see candidates from the SP and the BSP, who have held rallies in Srinagar.
 
Saraf, however, relies more on Muslim votes than on Pandit ones. Though he is a migrant, he has been visiting the valley regularly for the past seven years for party meetings and constituency visits. He is critical of Panun Kashmir and Roots in Kashmir that are headquartered outside Kashmir and describes them as stooges of fundamentalist forces. “They are dancing to the tune of the BJP and the VHP and are trying to create a communal wedge,” Saraf alleges.
 
The divide among Pandits deepened during the recent crisis over land for the Amarnath shrine board. While most Pandit organisations based in Jammu and New Delhi favoured the transfer of land to the board, the valley-based KPSS stood alone in its demand for the pilgrimage to be placed under resident Kashmiri Pandit organisations. Saraf supported this demand from the beginning. “Pandits cannot remain outside the valley and pay mere lip service to the cause. We have to be here to say we belong to the land. Raising a hue and cry while staying outside hardly matters,” avers Sanjay Saraf, while acknowledging KPSS’ efforts.
 
Ideological differences have increased the divide between migrant Pandits and those who stayed back. Eighteen years after Pandits fled the valley, various groups continue to pursue their own agendas and a consensus remains elusive.
 
WRITER’S E-MAIL peerzadaarshad at gmail.com
>From Tehelka Magazine, Vol 5, Issue 31, Dated Aug 09, 2008
 
http://tehelka.com/story_main40.asp?filename=Ne090808divided_house.asp
 


--- On Tue, 11/17/09, Aditya Raj Kaul <kauladityaraj at gmail.com> wrote:


From: Aditya Raj Kaul <kauladityaraj at gmail.com>
Subject: [Reader-list] Under renewed threats, pandits may flee the Valley
To: "sarai list" <reader-list at sarai.net>
Date: Tuesday, November 17, 2009, 2:47 PM


Under renewed threats, pandits may flee the Valley
Peerzada Ashiq , Hindustan Times

Link - http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-Feed/jandk/Under-
renewed-threats-pandits-may-flee-the-Valley/Article1-477268.aspx

Kashmiri Pandits, who braved on in the valley at the height of militant
violence in 1989, are now scared. After threats to their life came from
members of the majority community in the Kashmir valley.

Threatening to migrate now, Sanjay K. Tickoo, who heads the Pandit Sangarsh
Samiti (KPSS), said the Samiti members were attacked on Sunday by five to
six persons from the majority community when the pandits were clicking
pictures of a temple at Chattabal.

"It was 386th temple which we wanted to document through pictures for
restoring it. But five six members from the majority community came and
threatened us," Tickoo told the Hindustan Times. "The villagers who had
gathered at the spot did not intervene. This shows that the attitude towards
the minority community has not changed."

Tickoo said these men used the words like "Jis tarah humne tumhare mandiroon
ko Jalaya hai vaise hi tum logon ko jalayenge, aur kisi ko pata bi nahi
chalega (The way we have burnt your temples, in the same way we will burn
you and no one will know about you). Yehan sirf Islam Chalega (Only Islam
will prevail here). India ko lagta hai kit tum logon ko vapas layega, jo bi
aaye ga mara jayega, hum log phir se gun uthayenge (India thinks that they
can bring Kashmiri Pandits back to Valley, who so ever will come will die,
we will again raise arms against you)."

Tickoo said the men manhandled the members of the KPSS. "We had to leave the
place."

The Samiti has now sought Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's intervention in
the matter. It has also written to the both factions of the Hurriyat
Conference, which had promised them security.

"We will also send a memorandum to the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front
and the Hurriyat Conference led by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq tomorrow," said
Tickoo.

The KPSS requested the state and Central administration to re-think their
proposal to bring back the Kashmiri Pandits to the Valley. They should
instead the prepare to register the fresh lot of migrants who will leave the
Valley in the coming days if the situation is not taken care of in due
course of time, the Samiti leader said.

Check the Open Letter here - www.kashmiris-in-exile.blo
gspot.com/
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