Why is my right, always wrong ?

All I want to share are the raw thoughts and questions which came up in my mind after watching Kashmir Files.

Every time I wrote anything about Kashmiri Pandits, I would get replies and questions if I was also a relocated pandit. Why, I always wondered. Although I do have roots from Kashmir and am a pandit , why is it that only my community is expected to be writing about themselves , also for some second community’s suffering , some third community’s suffering? Why is there so little or no literary work on Kashmiri Pandits from people other than from my own community? Have you ever wondered on these notes ? I have absolutely no control on what others or celebrities think and speak but it really kills and pains me to not hear a word from them voluntarily . I see disbelief, hypocrisy and fear to raise a voice.It seems like nothing worth speaking about ever happened. Why?

There is one particular dialogue which says that the people who have suffered so greatly find it tough to express it to the generations ahead but we don’t even have anyone else to voice us, do we ? Hence, yes I am a pandit and I usually write my story myself, yes I gather sympathy for my elders who love their home, who suffered from years of PTSD, years of diseases because they had to live at places their body couldn’t adapt to, who died with a longing for their home. Most importantly, because it happened in the most real way possible. 

Then I hear people asking for justice nowadays, and I grew up thinking what a great virtue this is, how important this word is that my professors of political sciences never complete the class without mentioning this word at least once. The newspaper columns are filled with stories of people asking for justice, in the process of getting it and the ones who have been fortunate enough to have experienced it. 32 years and we haven’t moved past the first step, that too with our own voice.That’s where the problem lies. This movie’s focus is not just sensationalising issues ,making you cry or for you to get back home emotional for a day but it looks for voices in fellow Indians to stand up. They are still looking for closure. Quoting Sidhi Raina, who’s bua Girija Tickoo was brutally raped for days and then cut by a mechanical saw alive because of her faith “Till date I’ve never heard anyone from my family speak about this incident.My father tells me every brother lived in such shame and anger that nothing had been done to receive justice for my Babli bua.” How to move on from such traumas ? Then I hear people saying, “ Don’t be too political, it’s passed now, fight for others.” Why can’t I fight for what’s right for others with my own fight too? Does that make my fight for justice wrong ?

So do we want revenge ? People around me in debates also say that because Kashmiri pandits maybe went through something, they want others also to suffer in Kashmir, it’s just out of revenge. Asking for justice through due procedures has been brought down to a single word revenge and the perpetrators left unblamed in the media trials. Calling out the ones responsible is called selective blaming. We say we live in the most free time with social media and free journalism to witness but I feel trapped in a room with huge walls and the gatekeeper just won’t listen or recognise my pain because it doesn’t match the agenda checklist.

For what it’s worth, my family shifted to Shimla way before this exodus and my generation doesn’t even know the language but still there is a connect because I share the identity which became the reason for the killings.The knowledge that our elders had, all got lost in the struggle to live and thrive, the books collected and stored from generations burnt down to ashes.Something so crystal clear and evident in history neglected from years.Isn’t that suffocating ?

In this fight for recognition and justice from the systems this movie took a step and these thoughts surfaced for me and they’re only reasonable to be considered and known. It’s a call for justice not revenge and will always be that way.This, in no way fuels hatred, the gore and brutality shown was the real hatred of the 90s. The movie only shouts for recognition,justice and inclusiveness in civilisation’s history.To promote humanity one must know humanity through time.