Kashmiri Pandit Community: A Profile

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History has turned Kashmiri Pandits, the original inhabitants of Kashmir, into a miniscule minority community. The political developments and the militancy have forced them out of their hearths and homes. They are scattered all over the country and abroad. Obviously, therefore, their existence as a community with a distinct identity is in danger. The present book is intended to illustrate the unique features of this community, draw a portrait of their characteristics and give an insight into their intrinsic qualities. It gives a detailed account of their way of life, their rituals and festivals and all that goes into making of this enlightened community. It also shows the changes it has undergone in various ways and the manner it has adapted to the changed circumstances, while remaining firm with their roots and moorings. The book is intended to serve the twin purpose of giving a picture of the community to outsiders and rekindling a sense of pride among the Kashmiri Pandits about the richness of their culture, tradition, philosophy and their socio-religious character.

T.N. DHAR (b. 1934), is a well-known poet and writer who writes under the pen name 'Kundan'. Born and brought up in Kashmir, he is an Honours graduate in Sanskrit and Hindi from Kashmir University and an ICWA from London. Extensively travelled that he is, he has made a place in the literary circles by his writings in Kashmiri, Hindi, Urdu and English. He has authored a dozen books on a variety of subjects including Education, Philosophy, Religion and Literature. He was the editor of a prestigious trilingual monthly journal of more than fifty years' standing for about six years. His articles appear in various journals regularly and his poems have been included in the anthologies published by the Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi and the Academy of Art, Culture and Languages of Jammu and Kashmir. Presently he is the consulting editor of a prominent journal published from Bangalore. He was the recipient of Pandit Prem Nath Bhatt Memorial Amateur Journalists award for the year 2000.

Kashmir and its people has been a favourite subject for writers, poets, thinkers and historians. There is hardly any aspect of this beautiful valley and its inhabitants that has not been written about over the centuries gone by. The rich natural beauty of this paradise on earth, its flora and fauna, art and craft, tourist resorts, culture and literature, games and sport, every aspect has been covered in prose and poetry in major languages. Kalidasa has sung of its immortal beauty in Sanskrit. Chinese, Tibbetan and visitors from the Middle-east have described the life, the people and the thought of this Edan of the East in different languages. Grierson, Stein and others have written volumes in English about the language and works of this land. Poets including Siyaram Sharan Gupta, Hafeez Jaladhari, Ali Sardar Jaffry, Kamal Ahmad Siddiqy and many others have composed beautiful poems in Hindi and Urdu in praise of this picturesque place. Local poets like Mehjoor, Azad, Masterji and Nadim have written poems in Kashmiri, giving expression to their love for their motherland. Anand Kaul Bamzai, Tyndel Biscoe, Jia Lal Kilam, Prof. Som Nath Dhar and many other scholars have written about different facets of this wonderful place and the people living here. In spite of all this rich material it occurred to me that I should also write about the Kashmiri Pandit community, the original inhabitants of this place, in my own way and picturise its profile as I see it. Earlier I have written a book, 'A Window on Kashmir', which gives historical, political and cultural account of Kashmiris. This volume is different in as much as it is an effort to study this unique community in all its aspects, religion, culture, living pattern, habits, attitudes, profession, troubles and tribulations suffered, and the like. It is an attempt to present a holistic portrait of this small community along with its distinct features.

As is well known, for historical reasons this community has been rendered into a minority and that too a miniscule one. Naturally, therefore, whenever there is a seminar, an exhibition, a cultural show or any other display of the multi-lingual and multi-ethnic character of our vast country and different states and different areas are represented, Kashmir is represented by the majority Muslim community, and rightly so. The art and culture of Jammu and Ladakh also is displayed but more often than not the Kashmiri Pandit community goes unrepresented although it has made no mean contribution to different facets of life in Kashmir in particular and the country in general. I felt that it was of paramount necessity to describe the salient features of the characteristics of this ethnic group, which has a tradition of more than five thousand years.

I had the privilege of attending a global meet hosted by the Kashmiri Hindu Samiti, Karnataka organized under the aegis of the All India Kashmiri Samaj, which was inaugurated by the Chief Minister of Karnataka and attended by a galaxy of distinguished guests and delegates from the different corners of the country. One of the guests, a former Chief Secretary of the state, recited a Malyalam poem, which if loosely translated runs thus: 'In whatever country you are, in whatever dress you are and in whatever favourable or unfavourable environment you are, do not lose the sweetness of your mother's milk'. As a Kashmiri, displaced from my homeland by adverse circumstances and gun trotting marauders, these lines touched my heart. I was reminded of the sweetness of my mother's milk. I asked myself a few pertinent questions. Am I. who practises Sanatana Dharma, to lose my cool, harbour hatred and get unnerved in this situation? Should I not carry with me the sweetness of my mother's milk wherever I am and in whatever situation I may be? At once I realized that as a Kashmiri Pandit I have inherited the sweetness of my two mothers, the biological mother and the land of my birth.