Srinagar:  In February 2019, when a suicide bombing in Pulwama shook India and heightened communal tensions, Muslims in a village close to the attack were helping Hindus—Kashmiri Pandits—renovate an 80-year-old temple.

Before the violent insurgency that would consume Kashmir started in the late eighties and forced most Kashmiri Pandits to flee their homes in 1990, about 60 Pandit families lived in Achan village with more than 200 Kashmiri Muslim families. The village had just three Hindu families of three brothers, two of whom were Hindu priests, in 2019. The third brother Sanjay Sharma told NDTV that they lived with their Muslim neighbours “like brothers”, closer than relatives who had migrated from Achan. 

Four years later, on 26 February 2023, separatist militants shot Sharma dead when he was walking to a pharmacy near his home. He was the latest victim of the violence that began after August 2019 and has been intensifying since January 2021, two months after New Delhi allowed non-natives to own land and take up permanent residence in the region—triggering fears of a demographic change. 

Since 2019, at least seven Kashmiri Pandits, including two political workers, six other Hindus, and 26 non-native labourers, including Muslims, hailing from various Indian states, have been killed by militants.

The Sharma family’s teary-eyed Muslim neighbours gathered in solidarity as Sanjay's corpse lay in the courtyard. 

With that, Achan’s story of communal bonhomie made one last headline. 

“Today, Sanjay has been killed. I will be next. This [killings] will go on,” Sanjay’s elder brother Bhushanlal Sharma told the reporters gathered at their residence hours after the killing. “The government only makes statements.”

Even as the police have deployed armed guards at the residences of Kashmiri Pandits in vulnerable neighbourhoods across Kashmir since May 2022, it has failed to instil a sense of security. 

Their house in Achan, Bushanlal said, was guarded by a police picket which was of no use outside if they ventured out of their homes. “There is no solution to this,” he said. “We will be killed one by one.”

3 Decades Of Displacement 

About 150,000 Kashmiri Pandits, the overwhelming majority of the community, fled the Valley after an anti-India insurgency arose. They arrived in Jammu city, where they lived in crowded relief camps for years.

When the state failed to provide basic amenities and safety, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a Hindu nationalist organisation linked to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), helped them in the aftermath of the mass exodus. 

An estimated 43,618 families still live in the Jammu division of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), where large camps for the internally displaced became permanent settlements. 

An estimated 808 families of Kashmiri Pandits who stayed back in the Valley throughout the 1990s, besides about 5,928 government employees, who migrated from Kashmir and were eligible for jobs under the 2008 rehabilitation scheme, reside in Kashmir.

Others settled in Delhi, with the rest scattered across the country. 

The abrogation of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution, which granted J&K a separate constitution and flag, and the rehabilitation of the Kashmiri Pandits have intermittently been listed as separate promises in the election manifestos of the BJP, which came to power at the centre in 1998 and then in 2014 and 2019. 

On 5 August 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government rescinded J&K’s semi-autonomous status. It demoted India’s only Muslim-majority state to a union territory, bringing it under the control of the centre. 

Despite the Modi government’s narrative of “normalcy” and resettling Kashmiri Pandits, minorities living in the Valley, however, say the situation for them has become worse than the 1990s phase of militancy, considered the most tumultuous and what has since become a reference point to gauge the situation. 

Members of the Kashmiri Pandits were among the first to petition the Supreme Court to remove Article 370 from J&K. 

At the time of the abrogation in August 2019, a vocal section of Kashmiri Pandits rejoiced, linking it to their long-awaited return. Those in Kashmir, however, responded with measured silence.

One month after the abrogation, separatist militants in Kashmir began targeting non-natives, killing about 11 non-local truck drivers and a fruit trader, of whom eight were Muslims and three Hindus, by the end of 2019. Militants also killed 15 Kashmiri Muslims and one Hindu from the Jammu region in the same period.

The following year, as New Delhi continued with unilateral impositions on Kashmir and granted—for the first time since independence—non-natives the right to buy land and take up permanent residence, militants upped the ante. Simultaneously, a string of policies seen as anti-people and jubilation by members of the Kashmiri Pandit community in the news and social media has shaped the public sentiment against them. Just ahead of the Supreme Court beginning to hear the petition challenging the abrogation, the Kashmiri Pandit group filed a counter-petition in support, further reinforcing the idea.

Article 370, which came into existence in 1951, one of the two counter-petitions, argued, “By design, it was anti-minorities and pro-majority of the State Population. This led to the major exodus of the Kashmiri Pandit community since 1947.”

As Kashmiri Muslim militants started killing Kashmiri Pandits and other Hindus as the dust settled around the abrogation and the Covid-19 pandemic passed, the Modi government appeared helpless to stop the bloodshed, with the J&K Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha promising that the attackers would be killed.

The deteriorating security situation in Kashmir threatened to collapse the rehabilitation scheme for Kashmiri migrants, set up in 2008 when the Congress Party was in power, as the employees refused to go to work. Several migrated back to Jammu, fearing for their lives in the Valley. 

The Modi government ignored the nearly year-long protest by Kashmiri Pandit employees under the scheme and withheld their salaries for refusing to resume their duties unless the state could protect them. 

Ahead of the abrogation’s fourth anniversary, the Modi government indicated it will reserve two assembly seats for displaced Kashmiri Pandits, who the Lieutenant Governor will nominate.

Sanjay Tickoo, the most prominent face of the Kashmiri Pandits who did not leave Kashmir, told Article 14 at his downtown Srinagar residence, fortified for the first time since the 1990s, the move had further driven a wedge between his community and the majority Kashmiri Muslims.

 “Nothing is happening on behalf of Kashmiri Pandits, but a narrative has been put in the minds of people,” he said, referring to the abrogation and subsequent impositions  adding that they were assumed to be “Jan-Sanghis”, members of the BJP’s precursor and how Kashmiris even today refer to Hindu nationalists.

Kashmiri Pandits, Tickoo said, were no longer safe anywhere in Kashmir, and the Modi government was least bothered about them, said Tickoo, who heads the Kashmiri Pandit Sangharsh Samiti (KPSS), a pressure group for the welfare of Kashmiri Pandits formed in 1995.

 “On one hand, the police are telling us to stay home after 5 pm. On the other hand, [in public] they say the situation is fine,” he said, adding that non-migrant Pandits were being targeted for the first time since 2003 when 24 members of the community were killed by separatist militants in south Kashmir’s Nadimarg. 

“When the system comes in denial, to show their masters and the world that everything is ok, it is more dangerous,” he said, referring to the J&K administration that reports to New Delhi. 

Another community leader based in Kashmir, who also requested anonymity, said Kashmiri Pandits feel more isolated than ever owing to the lack of a local government. 

“We are being punished for staying back, to be very frank. We should be an example for nationalists for staying in our own homes against all odds,” he said. “We stood our ground. We didn’t leave the battlefield. We died every day but remained steadfast.”

“I neither want to die as a martyr nor someone who fled—I want to die my natural death.” 

“Whatever the previous state governments—good or bad, pro-India or pro-Pakistan—they were at least with us, listened to us, and consoled us if they could not offer a solution,” he said. “Sometimes that is enough.”

 A Dangerous Place To Live 

As New Delhi’s actions were being likened to authoritarian Israeli repression in Palestine, terms like “settler colonialism” and “Hindutva fascists” entered the resistance lexicon in Kashmir, and increasingly view all Hindus—including civilians and Kashmir Pandits in particular—as “settlers” and therefore combatants.

The J&K administration’s policy of retrieval of land holdings from ordinary Kashmiris, deeming them “encroachments”, frequent use of arbitrary detentions and jailing Kashmiris outside the Valley, and demolishing the houses of militants’ families echo Israeli tactics.

The first civilian accused of furthering a “settler colonial” agenda was a Punjabi jeweller Satpal Nischal, who sought to benefit from the abrogation. Nischal had lived in Kashmir for decades and reportedly acquired a domicile certificate. 

Soon after his killing on 1 January 2021, social media in Kashmir was flooded with statements attributed to a group called The Resistance Front (TRF), taking responsibility for the killing and further warning that Nischal “was part of a settler project and anyone who obtains domicile will be treated as occupiers”.

Similar statements were circulated after Sanjay Sharma’s killing in February 2023. 

“After the removal of Article 370, these people are nothing but pawns of occupation to further their settler colonialism (sic) agenda,” a statement circulated after Sanjay Sharma’s killing by an outfit calling itself “Kashmir Freedom Fighters”. It further asked Kashmiris to stop “giving refuge to any outsider” and warned of more attacks in the future.

However, in May, when the banner claimed the murder of a Hindu man, Deepu Kumar, hailing from J&K’s Udhampur district, it led to a war of words with statements attributed to another shadowy outfit that calls itself “People’s Anti-Fascist Front (PAFF)” questioning the killing. 

“If any citizen of J&K, irrespective of faith, colour or caste, indulges in subversive activities, then solid proof must be collected before any action is taken,” a poster circulated on social media read. “And if there is no solid proof of Deepu’s involvement, compensation must be paid to his family.”

A similar show of solidarity hasn’t yet been extended to the Kashmiri Pandits, natives of Kashmir, who have been killed. Militant outfits also have shied away from providing proof behind the accusations.

Simultaneously, militants have also killed many Kashmiri Muslims, including those serving in the police force. 

“The country should stop seeing this issue based on religion,” J&K lieutenant governor Manoj Sinha said at the Indian Express’ Idea Exchange. “A lot of other people have been killed too.”

Blame It On The Pandits 

The Muslim majority of Kashmir is led to believe that all political changes and unilateral impositions following August 2019 were being done at the behest of Kashmiri Pandits, said Sanjay Tickoo.

The J&K administration’s policies are further polarising society.  

In October 2021, it launched an online “grievance redressal system” to help Kashmiri Pandits recover their properties sold in distress. 

Not all the properties were sold in distress, and the action taken on bogus complaints against Muslims instilled resentment, said Tickoo.

However, the brief controversy over the portal cemented fears of dispossession among Kashmiri Muslims.

Hours after Sanjay Sharma’s killing, Tickoo called for a shutdown against his killers, hoping “everyone will co-operate and observe the hartal in peaceful ways”. 

But there was no response.

The next day, in a statement, Tickoo, who has long played a careful diplomatic role as the community’s representative on the ground, in anger demanded a “brutal operation against the militants and their aides”.

His statements increasingly reflect the community’s frustration and helplessness as the killings go unabated.

Tickoo said the abrogation of Article 370 had “exposed” the hostility Kashmiri Muslims felt for Kashmiri Pandits.

The fall of the separatist leadership, commonly referred to as the Hurriyat, and the current political vacuum in J&K had left the minorities vulnerable without a strong societal pushback against militants targeting them, said Tickoo. 

Tickoo said that “two out of ten” Kashmiris were part of “terror organisations responsible for killing Kashmiri Pandits and other religious minorities”. 

“After executing the task, these people join the wailing crowd in stealth mode by giving statements about ‘Kashmiriyat’ and join ‘Candle Light Marches,’” he said. 

Fending For Themselves 

Since 2019, The Resistance Front, better known as TRF, has claimed most assassinations. 

The police insist the group is linked to the Lashkar-e-Taiba as militants operating under its banner were mostly found to be from the latter’s known cadres.

So far, no outfit, including the Pakistan-occupied Kashmir-based United Jehad Council, the umbrella organisation of militant groups fighting in Kashmir headed by Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin, have distanced themselves from these killings, neither confirming nor denying their involvement. 

While Kashmir’s unionist politicians, also seen as inimical by the militants, have been unequivocal in their condemnation, an incapacitated Hurriyat, too, has condemned the killings, albeit without addressing the perpetrators. 

However, the Kashmiri civil society and public have responded mainly with silence as they didn’t believe that militants were killing Kashmiri Pandits, said Tickoo. 

“They still think [Indian] intelligence agencies are behind it,” he said.

On the other hand, the J&K administration is not only failing in protecting minorities but was misrepresenting the situation before New Delhi, said Tickoo. 

“A bureaucratic setup is only about PR for the next promotion, but local politicians can understand my position. They will always try to make citizens more comfortable and at least verbally console us,” he said. 

Tickoo rued the labelling of assassins of minorities as “unidentified gunmen” in the media and criticised the Kashmiri society for calling out the perpetrators only when Indian government forces were behind excesses. 

“A non-Muslim is always a mukhbir [an informer for security forces]. Why else would they be killed? The narrative was, why did they not kill so and so and not you? This was until October 5, [2021],” he said. 

‘We Are In A Virtual Jail’

The assassination of prominent Kashmiri Pandit businessman Makhan Lal Bindroo, 68,  on 5 October 2021 inside a high-security area in Srinagar close to  the office of the district police chief. 

It was the first killing of a Kashmiri Pandit civilian since 2003—when separatist militants killed 24 Kashmiri Pandits in what came to be known as the Nadimarg massacre—and was a watershed moment for the Pandits, who until then were essentially conscious observers while non-Kashmiris were being killed.

“Until Mr Bindroo was killed. I had only heard of and read about what had happened in the 1990s,” said a 29-year-old Kashmiri Pandit whose family never migrated out of Kashmir, under the condition of anonymity.

Like many other Kashmiri Pandits, the young man rushed to the Bindroos residence in Shivpora. 

 “When I saw his bullet-riddled body being washed with water and the blood still oozing out. Everything collapsed. My mind collapsed,” he recalled. “It was like one of those moments when you see something in disbelief and pinch yourself to be sure this is happening.”

After that, he and other Kashmiri Pandits have become cautious. 

 “There is a difference between hearing about the 1990s and witnessing it ourselves. Now we are feeling it, the stories we heard in our childhood,” he said. “It matches our elders' stories, and we are very depressed. Even those who told us these stories never imagined they would themselves be seeing it all over again.”

Sitting near the riverfront in Srinagar’s Lal Chowk, the anxiety was palpable on his face, intensifying as the sun began to set. Each passerby unsettled him, and he constantly looked over his shoulders to check if a stranger was within earshot while he spoke. After sundown, he itched to get back home.

Today, he said many families who never left Kashmir were also regretful for not migrating from Kashmir in 1990. Most of them avoid venturing out of the home

 “They are less tense when we are in front of their eyes,” he said. “When we are not there, a hundred different thoughts cross their minds. There is no security anywhere.”

“There is a difference between living to the fullest and a suffocated life. Every community member is worried. Elders are telling youngsters to come home early. We are in a virtual jail,” he said. “Everyone is regretting having stayed back.”

“If anyone has supported me through this, it's my Kashmiri Muslim friends. They are empathetic, but their support doesn’t make us feel safe,” he said. “Safety is a feeling, and the thought process in our minds doesn’t let us feel safe.”

‘We Belong To No One’

Another Kashmiri Pandit, who grew up in Kashmir through the 1990s, said the police in his locality warned that there was a possibility he was a target of the militants. 

For the 30-year-old, there is a difference in the mood of the majority community as compared to the aftermath of the 1990s, when there was still an expression of support and acts of solidarity by them. 

“We lived through the 1990s, not with the government's backing, but with the majority community. We feel bad that the majority community is silent about [the killings],” he said. “Whenever a militant was killed [in the past], there was a call for hartal. So many Kashmiri Pandits have been killed, but no one from the majority community called for a strike.”

In the wake of the abrogation, the silence and jubilation by some in the Kashmiri Pandit community is “now haunting us,” he said.  “We are being tagged as RSS agents. Aren’t Muslims in Kashmir part of the RSS and the BJP, why are they not being killed or threatened? They should be straightforward in saying they don’t want minorities here.”

If the majority community of Kashmir condemned the killings, he said, “It will give me a sense of security, but they are not doing anything. After Bindroo’s killing, our trust in the majority is very low.”

By continuing to live in Kashmir, community members made compromises. They adjusted to the everyday realities of the conflict, including the loss of family—a gap bridged by his Muslim friends. But, “Today, we are feeling the absence of our families,” he said.

The Kashmiri Pandits who stayed back in the Valley, he said, were abandoned by all sides, including the Hindu nationalists. “We belong to no one,” he said. “The majority says we got Article 370 removed. Our community [migrants] taunt us by calling us Muslim converts, separatists for staying here. I have wasted thirty years of my life.”

Like others, he also said his family was considering migrating out of Kashmir, the homeland he is emotionally attached to, but what good is it if they have no life? 

“Death is inevitable, but worse is the uncertainty of not knowing whether or not you will be killed,” he said. “We feel insecure and lonely.”

‘How Can Someone Tell Us To Jump In A Fire?’

Kashmiri Pandits who returned to Kashmir under a 2008 rehabilitation scheme are now unnerved and in despair, away from their families settled outside the Valley. 

As reported in May 2022 by Article 14, they feel betrayed and yearn to return to Jammu until the security situation improves.

Suman Kachroo was among the first to go to Kashmir under the scheme in 2010. 

“When we joined, we were afraid and lonely initially, but with time, we gelled in with the people,” she said. “They were happy that we had returned home. The last ten, twelve years passed in the blink of an eye.”

Kachroo, a clerk in the public works department, was on duty in north Kashmir’s Baramulla district when news broke of two teachers belonging to minority communities being shot dead inside a government-run school in Srinagar’s Eidgah area on 7 October 2021, two days after Bindroo’s killing.

Kachroo recalled shaking with fear as she sat in her office, comforted by her colleagues who encouraged her to return to the transit camp. 

Claiming the killings again, this time the TRF accused Supinder Kour, a Sikh resident of Srinagar and principal of the school, and Deepak Chand, who hailed from the Jammu region, of harassing parents into sending their children to attend the independence day function on August 15 that year. 

A few days later, Kachroo returned to work after reassurances from the administration to the minorities.

However, after the killing of Rahul Bhat on 12 May 2022, a few months later, she stopped going to work, constantly reminded that Bhat was killed in his office and that she worked late hours too at times.

Soon, other Kashmiri Pandit employees of the government refused to resume their duties. They protested inside the office premises of the Relief Commissioner, tasked with overseeing migrants’ day-to-day affairs, in Jammu, seeking their transfer out of Kashmir. 

The J&K lieutenant governor Manoj Sinha responded by withholding their salaries.

The administration was tiring out the protesting employees who only demanded to “be allowed posting here [in Jammu region] till Kashmir is a terrorism-free zone,” said Kachroo during a protest in Jammu in January. 

Kachroo said they had been being pulled down by the inability to meet daily expenses once the administration had stopped their salaries. “We understand there is fire there[in Kashmir]. How can someone tell us to jump in a fire?” 

The rehabilitation scheme, she said, gradually separated the employees from the families they left behind and particularly impacted children, who live in constant fear for their parent’s safety in Kashmir. 

A job was better than sustaining her family on the government relief stipend and rations, said Kachroo. “I took the job and sacrificed everything to sustain my family. 

They faced a dilemma: to return to Kashmir where their lives were at risk or continue protesting in Jammu, hoping an indifferent administration eventually paid heed to their plight. 

“I am at that age where I won't get a private sector job either. What should I do, kill myself and my children?” she said. “We are not demanding a separate state. We are not harming anyone. We are hopeful they will understand our dilemma: our job is as important as our lives.” 

Eventually, the administration broke the protesters' will by compelling them to “surrender” in March this year after more than 300 days of protest.

(Rayan Naqash is a journalist based in Srinagar. He tweets at @rayan_naqash.)

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