A poignant tale of persecution, exile, and a longing to live in peace again in their homeland, this memoir by a Kashmiri Pandit will churn your emotions

For most of us, the 1990s are a celebration of the liberalisation of the Indian economy. However, the same cannot be said for the beautiful state of Kashmir and its indigenous inhabitants-the Kashmiri Pandits. It was the most bone-chilling chapter of their lives. The Kashmiri Pandits were the original inhabitants of Kashmir with roots going to Rishi Kashyap and a 5,000-year-old culture that survived earlier onslaughts.

Autumn 1989-Spring 1990

A neighbour brings us a copy of Al Safa. ‘Read this,’ says he, pointing to a press release.

‘Pandits must leave Kashmir in thirty-six hours.’
Issued by Hizb-ul-Mujahideen

Soon posters are pasted all over Srinagar in the day. At night, another song is sung. ‘Green is the colour of Pakistan. Kashmir will become Pakistan; without Pandit men but with Pandit women.’

Siddhartha Gigoo’s memoir is a heart wrenching account of the exodus that most of us heard or read about, but perhaps never knew the inside story. He takes us to the refugee camps in Jammu and Udhampur where the exiled Kashmiri Pandits lived for decades with their shattered dreams. The miserable conditions, the filth, the loss of dignity, the lack of solution and the neglect of the authorities, this real-life account makes us question the purpose of being human—to be humane or just another creature in the wild, living solely on an illusionary ego, forgetting his mortality.

As the terror killings increased and once beloved Muslim neighbours became distant, Gigoo’s parents sent him, his sister, Henna, and grandparents with the neighbours to a camp in Jammu, all in the darkness, away from known eyes. They lived in a buffalo barn for a few days. His father was the last pandit in their lane to leave his beloved Kashmir.

The family eventually landed in a camp in Udhampur. Gigoo’s narrative is choppy, moving between then and now and somewhere in between. It comprises his journal entries, letters, memories, thoughts and emotional upheaval. The book traces the sociological, economical, and psychological impact of being uprooted.

Gigoo gives vivid details of the small tents, the health problems, the terrain, the cruelty and deep impoverishment of minds and hearts. With little empathy for their situation, they were exploited time and again, even by the people on whose land they thought they had found refuge. Gigoo takes us inside the camp schools run for displaced children by displaced teachers and the lack of infrastructure. A community used to the sweet air and simple pastural life in Kashmir, now lived in squalor and ghettos.

Government aid did not suffice their needs, the children loitered and there were no marriages for years. A miracle man helped with the funerals, as people died of broken hearts, even his grandfather, in the camp Gigoo grew up in.

The militancy in Kashmir raged, with fanatics cheering Pakistan as their mother country, turning their watches to Pakistan time, listening to Pakistan radio, watching Pakistan TV and slaughtering and plundering the savings of their Pandit brethren. Education, earnings and lives plunged in Kashmir and the refugee camps.

By and large, Kashmiri Pandits are an intellectual and scholarly community, who love music, arts, writing and teaching. Gigoo’s skillful narrative gives insights into their folktales, festivities, Sharda script, language, sacred spaces, and their way of life, now scattered in different parts of India. Gigoo paints a clear picture of displacement, loss of creativity, intellect, arts and the impact of being termed ‘migrants’.

Gigoo cites the holocaust, when Jews were forced into Nazi concentration camps, opens our minds to the impact of extremism and how indigenous communities strive for survival in the midst of all this. The book will leave you feeling sadder for the plight of humans, who seem to lose their reason for no reason.

It made me wonder why humans are on top of the food chain. Their ability to destroy is far stronger than anything Nature can ever do or has done. Their progress has led to loss of wildlife, and their regression has turned them into power-hungry monsters. The sad part: their fights and egos clash over something that isn’t even belong to them, their stay on earth is for a few decades but the burden of their greed falls on the generations to come.

Book details
Publisher: Viking (India) (Penguin Random House India)
Language: ‎English
Hardcover: ‎480 pages
Price: INR 699 (Kindle Edition available)