In Kashmir, a silver lining of goodwill
STORY OF BROTHERHOOD BETWEEN DIFFERENT COMMUNITIES IN VALLEY IS OFTEN LOST IN NARRATIVE OF VIOLENCE
Rajnath, 72, a retired school headmaster, continues to live in his ancestral home in north Kashmir’s Manigam village. ] The turmoil of the 1990s saw most members of his minority Kashmiri Pandit community leave the village, but Rajnath stayed back in the village he was born in, with his wife and daughter.
A Hindu, Rajnath has tremendous faith in the goodwill of his Muslim neighbours, most of whose present generation in the village have been his students.
Local Muslims helped Rajnath’s daughter get a teacher’s job in a private school.
Like one of their own
They have been the biggest support not only for Rajnath, but also for over 3,000 Kashmiri Pandits who continue to live among their Muslim neighbours in the Valley — much against the established narrative that all Pandits had fled because of persecution in the Muslim-dominated region.
Only two months ago, local ■ Muslims not only carried the body of an elderly local Pandit to the cremation ground in Srinagar city, but also ensured that all Hindu rites for the departed were performed in accordance with the customs of the family.
Women in the neighbourhood mourned the death like one of their own.
Muslim neighbours arranged food and other requirements for the bereaved family since no Pandit household cooks food during the mourning period.
Rajnath is sad for those fellow local Pandits who left their homes and lands behind while migrating out of the Valley during the turbulent 1990s. He also harbours a strong grouse against the government.
‘Completely ignored’
While his daughter teaches at a private school, the wages are too meagre to support her family.
“While ordering relief packages and employment offers to the migrant Pandits for their return to the Valley, the government has completely ignored those members of our community who chose to stay back,” he said.
The story of traditional amity and brotherhood between different communities in the Valley is often lost in the negative narratives of violence and hatred that Kashmir has faced in the last three decades.
An ancient temple site in Sumbal area of Bandipora district was last year cleaned and spruced up for Pandit devotees by local Muslims. The revered Hindu shrine of Mata Kheer Bhawani in north Kashmir’s Ganderbal district continues to receive thousands of Pandit devotees each year.