[Reader-list] Plight of the Pandits; Silence of the Pundits

[Rajendra Bhat Uppinangadi]

Adithya,
the basic issue is the plight of citizens of india in the hands of leaders
who are hellbent on vote bank and garnering and cornering votes on emotive
issues, with emotions played to galleries, the sane approach and good
governance going for the toss. pandits constitute a small votebank of just
about 3 percent votes of the polled percentage of 55 percent at the peak
level as against enmasse vote percentage of 17 percent votes of "muslim'
votebank, 7 percent of catholic votes and the story of hindu votes is still
worse with caste, upper, lower, other backward castes dividing the votes in
to less than 3 percent and fuedal lords having a say in bulk voting on one
hand, cadres rigging the votes on the other hand, none are bothered about
the genuine sufferings of the citizens or the good governance of ALL
citizens. bhopal tragedy is indicative of tokenism, naxal violence is
another token of bad governance so is the scemes for the poor and down
trodden where funds are systematically siphoned off to the deep pockets by
the system leaders of all walks of life as Honest prime minister devotes his
time to stone wall the questions in media, classified informations
considered secret and even RTi can not touch the corrupt in all walk of life
including judiciary as the judges close ranks to save their own corrupt.
Shame less judges like the chief justice of karnataka who is clinging on to
the chair with land grabbing cases against him with fig leaf of technical
grounds is another token of what is wrong in the system just as another set
of judges of supreme court adorning the high offices of benefits in TRUSTS
and commissions of various nomenclatures  of human rights, inquiries etc are
the token of whitewsh that is going on in the free India.With flow of funds
from "charities of catholic and islam faiths  the numerical strenght of the
followers is rapidly rising to make india a state of conflict nation with
faiths and its followers having to fight with each other on one hand and on
the other there is left, ultra left and moderate left to contend with, with
no leaders with ethical and moral values in public life, their pubic life is
controlled by lobbysts of the type niras, and sunandas for oil coupon
distribution or spectrum sale.
unless each of us, citizens are aware of nationhood and our duties to that
nation rights will be tokens of display.
regards,
rajen.

On Sat, Jun 19, 2010 at 10:50 PM, Aditya Raj Kaul
<kauladityaraj at gmail.com>wrote:

> AMERICAN IDYLL
>
> Plight of the Pandits; Silence of the Pundits
>
> CHIDANAND RAJGHATTA
>
> Musings on life, politics and economics from TOI’s Washington correspondent
>
> *Link *-
>
> http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=VENSTS8yMDEwLzA2LzE5I0FyMDE5MDE=&Mode=HTML&Locale=english-skin-custom
>
> The World Refugees Day is coming up again on June 20 and Lalit Koul is
> making the rounds of Washington DC wonks and writers, lawmakers and
> legislative aides, just as he did before World Human Rights Day on December
> 10 and the Kashmiri Pandits’ Exodus Day on January 19. In a city where
> every
> cause has a proponent, every émigré and exile has an advocate, “we are
> nobody’s children,” he complains. He can’t even rustle up a decent
> demonstration on the Hill or in front of the White House. The best he can
> do
> is drum up an occasional letter of support from a Congressman or schedule
> the screening of a documentary to highlight his community’s plight. It has
> an eloquent title: “...And the world remained silent.”
>
>    Some two decades after nearly half a million Kashmiri Pandits were
> expelled from what were their homes for millennia, Koul and a small band of
> his activist colleagues are fighting to keep world attention alive to their
> cause. It’s hard; seemingly hopeless. In a city where Palestinians, Kurds,
> Tibetans, Armenians, Burmese and dozens of other ethnic nationalities and
> sub-nationalities are fighting for attention, the Pandit cause is just
> another blip on the human rights radar. “We don’t have the backing of
> Pakistan nor the funding of petrodollars,” says Koul, an info-tech
> professional who heads the Indian-American Kashmir Forum, referring
> obliquely to the support Kashmiri Muslims get from Islamabad and elsewhere,
> “We are just falling through the cracks.”
>
>    Indeed, for the 1,500-strong Pandit community scattered across the
> United States, it’s not so galling that they have no traction in America as
> much as the neglect they say they suffer in India. When India itself is not
> moved by half a million Pandits expelled from their homes and turns its
> back
> on 50,000 lodged in refugee camps in the capital, why blame America — or
> expats here, they say. It’s like Bhopal: when the people of
>
> India, and their political and judicial representatives, sold them cheap,
> why blame others? They rage against Indian civil society, which they say is
> all a-bleeding about Kashmiri Muslims, but is unmoved by the plight of the
> Pandits. And they note with more than a hint of bitterness that the
> government of the day is pressing for rehabilitation of Tamil refugees in
> Sri Lanka while concern for Pandits fades.
>
>    Their one hope is that like Palestine and Bhopal, the issue will
> re-ignite somehow, catch world attention, and activists will pick up their
> cause with renewed energy. The genocide of Kashmiri Pandits happened before
> the internet age or instant 24/7 television. There were no TV cameras when
> the judges and academics were murdered by Islamic militants with the stark
> message — get out of Kashmir. There was no Facebook and Twitter and no
> viral
> messaging.
>
>    Now technologies and techniques are available, but they lack benefactors
> and big name support. The 1,500 Pandits in the US came mostly as students
> and professionals, not as political refugees, and so lacked the voice and
> the drama that asylum seekers bring. Most of them are too busy making a
> career and home to spare time and bandwidth for their homeland.
>
>    In fact, some years back there was a poignant situation when a certain
> Vikram Pandit became the top honcho of Citibank. Initial joy that finally
> one of their own had risen to top of the corporate ladder and might be the
> benefactor (in terms of face and voice if not with finance) they were
> looking for was followed by dismay when they discovered that he was not
> from
> Kashmir, but from Nagpur; “a Pandit by name, not by blood.”
>
>    Indeed, there is a sense of irony that even as the Pandit issue is
> fading from the world’s conscience, the term Pandit is more in use than
> ever
> before in the US — where it is spelt “Pundit”. If Koul and his fellow
> activists could collect a dollar for every time the term was bandied about,
> they would be lolling in lolly. TV talking heads and op-ed columnists are
> now routinely referred to as Pundits, and there is a whole new media
> subculture of Punditocracy, a term used to describe a group of powerful and
> influential political commentators. From a book titled Sound and Fury: The
> Making of Punditocracy to the website punditicracywatch.com, it is a much
> overused term. Not a day passes without the tribe pontificating on issues
> ranging from Obama and the BP oil spill to the Gores’ divorce to World Cup
> soccer. Everything, except the plight of the people who gave them the word.
> •
> chidanand.rajghatta at timesgroup.com
>
> --
> Aditya Raj Kaul
>
> India Editor
> The Indian, Australia
>
> Cell -  +91-9873297834
> Web: http://activistsdiary.blogspot.com/
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-- 
Rajen.