The Social Status of Kashmiri Pandit Community in Exile: Refugee or Internally Displaced: Lalit k kaul

The Social Status of Kashmiri Pandit Community in Exile: Refugee or Internally Displaced

Lalit K Kaul

When it comes to defining our social status-while in exile- enormous flexibility has been employed in defining it by usage of the terms like “migrant”, “refugee” and “internally displaced”. The transition between these three nodes has been seamless. What hurts our cause most is to assign ourselves a status of “migrant” for it at once denies the genocide committed on, and forced exile of, our community. What adds insult to the injury is usage of “migrant” in our context by our spokesperson who engage themselves in a chat with the media and because we have many organizations taking up the community’s cause, therefore, there are as many spokesperson.

However the question that needs to be settled is: are we “refugee” or “Internally displaced persons”? An attempt is made here to find answers for it.

“Internally Displaced Person (IDP)”:

Forced movement of a genus within the same country occurs due to various factors, including armed conflict and violence with a political intent of creating a geographical separation between it and the dominant socio-cultural and socio-religious group. IDPs are not the victims of Genocide yet the state machinery may employ genocidal acts to achieve the political object.

IDPs are not voluntary migrants; they are compelled to leave their homes due to circumstances beyond their control. It’s liable to lead to their human rights violations in addition to having socio-economic impacts like loss of livelihoods, poverty, food insecurity, and limited access to essential services like health care and education.

Since the exiled Kashmiri Pandit community is a victim of Genocide and would have been completely destroyed had it not been able to flee the Valley carrying with them only their body weight, the tag of “Internally Displaced People” doesn’t fit well on their shoulders. Why? Because firstly the intent of Muslim Clergy and Political leadership was not to displace the community within the Valley but to completely annihilate it if the community didn’t accept Islam as its new religion, and secondly the definition of “country” in itself leaves a wide scope for debate on the topic- IDP vs Refugee.

Definition of Country:

There is no single definition of “country”. It’s not definable without context. If it’s to be defined within a social context then its definition is:

The immediate physical and social setting in a given geographical area in which people live and live by their culture, language, religious beliefs and practices, and heritage. This country may or may not be sovereign; if not sovereign then it could be a constituent of a sovereign composite Nation. A composite Nation takes into its fold diverse cultures, languages and religions.

“Country” is also defined as an area of land-a geographical entity- that forms an independent political unity with its own government and is also called a sovereign Nation State. And a Nation is a group of people who share a common culture, history, language and often have a sense of shared identity and belonging.

It implies from the above definitions that the Kashmiri Pandit community is a Nation who belongs to a country called Kashmir which chose to be a constituent of the country called India- a composite Nation. There is no dispute over the notion that India is a composite Nation and which is sovereign. Therefore all the Indian states which were organized on linguistic basis and have their distinct culture are countries which chose to be an integral part of the composite Indian Nation.

Therefore, when exile from Kashmir (a country) was thrust upon the Kashmiri Pandit community its members fled to various parts (countries) within India and thus are identifiable as refugees. Why? Because a refugee is an uprooted entity whose culture and language recede into the oblivion in an alien land that supports its own language and culture. When one loses the connect with one’s language the first victim is identity because language isn’t just a medium for communication within a social group, it’s the basis of one’s civilization.

Not so for the IDPs. Because they are not ousted from their geographical area (country) and hence don’t lose connect with their language, culture and socio-religious beliefs.

Therefore, while the reader may not agree with the definition of “refugee” as expounded in the aforesaid lines yet one can’t disagree with the suggestion that Kashmiri Pandit community's social status doesn’t fall in the category of IDPs for the simple reason that IDPs don’t become rootless whereas the Kashmiri Pandit community has since 1988.

Refugees Vs IDP:

These are two disjoint sets. For the “Internally Displaced Persons” can’t claim to having lost their Homeland- their land of birth and heritage- because post physical displacement they continue to live in their country. It’s like if the intent of the Muslim Clergy and Political Leadership in Kashmir had been to displace the Kashmiri Pandit community to the East and North of River Jhelum then the question of granting Homeland to the community wouldn’t have arisen.

Because the community has been ousted from its country it is seeking Homeland for itself in the same country because its language, social values, culture and religious practices shall become part of the history otherwise.

Therefore, in my understanding, between the two, the tag that suits better on Kashmiri Pandit shoulder is “refugee”; as this social status is starting point for our fight to get our Homeland.

In any case the political movements that have the potential to reorganize regions (countries) cannot be dictated by dictionary meaning of such words as are crucial to the very movement. The movement should have the potential to throw up new meanings for age old words and not be tied to their traditional meanings.