Kashmiri Pandits are known to be among the most progressive communities in world. A community that has been through a genocide, followed by an exodus. How gracefully were they able to stand up to their wishes and prosper in their respective fields. What phenomenon is that drives their resilience. It roots back to the Sanskars they were initiated into. Knowledge for Kashmiri Pandits were always held at the highest level of desire. Sanskars in simple terms can be defined as the systematic wisdom or the spiritual heritage that is carried down from one generation to another. There is no unequivocal term for Sanskar in English language. It is the set of virtues, culture and the actions of the self. It forms the foundation to the journey of self awareness and self belief that goes down to the death stage which ultimately leads to serving Dharma. It is the establishment of a yogic mind that is unwavering and tranquil.
Kashmir was termed as Sharada Desh (Abode of Goddess Sharda) by chroniclers. Goddess Sharda is symbolic of the knowledge, wisdom, learning, arts, purity etc giving impetus and excellence to Kashmiri learning. This embodiment of Shakti was celebrated by the KPs. While you go down, the shakta tradition evolves to more fierce forms of Shakti like Durga and Kali. This is where the difference lies. Sharda is a form of goddess Saraswati who elucidates vedas which means knowledge. While the other forms of shakti are more driven by sheer power. This shiv-shakti tradition was brought down from Kashmir to other parts of the country with a purpose specified to the people. With the implosion of western education. We have quite comfortably distanced ourselves from the great scientific methods that we have in place for the minds to sharpen our hold on the life. Kashmir Shavism influenced whole lot of spiritual guidances in the world. This structured a sturdy base for KPs.
Kashmiri Pandits are highly self aware that it rolls down to a point where the thinking of the community is so evolved that it is hard to traverse the levels of thinking for an individual burdened with the sheep vision. If you put a group of Kashmiri Pandits in one room and strike them with a problem. They will all arrive at different conclusions with different methods with pertinence. I have introduced a term for this disorder. It is the
KP syndrome. The community is so diverse in its thinking that it can't vote as a block in electoral elections. This can be one of the reasons why no political party was motivated to be secular enough to save the Hindus in the valley from a life long exodus apart from being a hindu minority in a Islam dominated state. There has been no significant amount of effort put in by political parties to rehabilitate KPs back into the valley. Not even after the BJP government put it in their political manifesto of 2013.
There's a price for free thought and Sanskars, that goes deep into the community. The collective consciousness of the KP fraternity is an impediment that lays the expanse of unifying perception to be uncharted. It does not exhaust at an identity but thrives on the knowledge. Repeatedly, I have been asked this question by a friend that why don't Kashmiri Pandit community come together and vote as a block to get their own political representative in the parliament. It would be easier for a leader to influence the mindset of the people had it been some other community that stood along the lines of polarization, caste or religion. Be it for politics or otherwise. This trick fails to work here. The unifying force of this faculty lies in the absence of dichotomy. The realisation of self awareness is at such a high state that it can't be tapped into through a psychological appeal. This state has been achieved by the umpteen number of ways that mind that yearns for the higher source shall never lay low to the levels of social conditioning and religious doctrines. We are still living in the times where we have religious and fundamentalist groups who need one person to think for every body. It forbids the use of free thought to the extent that our actions are driven through the actions of person thinking and making life choices for us. All the problems come to a halt in this conundrum. The Kashmiri Pandits find themselves caught between jihadi forces, separatist leaders and political powers ushering in the valley. When you pitch a group of brainwashed jihadis fighting for their share of heaven against a group of people who have never had limitations in their thinking abilities and reasoning. It is obvious that the ideas would clash.
Ironically the powers who are preaching Kashmiriyat today in the valley are the ones who butchered it. The sense of Kashmiriyat surfaced to the finiteness of the freedom, the day Pandits were exiled out of the valley. The sacred temples of the Kashmiri Hindus are either in ruins or desecrated. The term Kashmiriyat has devolved to a state where it cries of bloodshed of innocent lives.
The community is tripping on cultural shocks. The movement of Kashmiri Pandit have been expropriated by nationalist parties that claim to bring back Pandits to the valley however there seems to be no such effort on the part of the government other than raising the issue of Kashmiri Pandits in the prime time debates on TV to counter the question of rising intolerance or political instability hurled by the opposition parties. The community is looked back upon in a conscience stricken manner. The nation couldn't stop the ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri hindus. Everyone watched it as silent spectators. Everything is the same after 26 years of exile. If the government fails to act now in the interest of the KP community and that of the valley then it would invariably lead the community back to the darkness that it faced decades ago. BJP has poked the bear by reaching out to the hindu masses by taking forward the plea of kashmiri pandits. It could do something decisive and meaningful from here or go back to opposition. The current situtation of KPs reminds me of one the good quotes of Harry Browne:
Government is good at one thing. It knows how to break your legs, hand you a crutch and say "See, if it weren't for the government, you wouldn't be able to walk."
Be watchful of what lies ahead.
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