Some dates fade with time.
'19th January 1990' bleeds.
It was the night Kashmir died for
us.
The night our roots were ripped
out.
The night neighbours turned into
facilitators.
The night silence became a weapon.
Long before that night, danger was
screaming for attention; and was deliberately ignored.
Warnings were sent. Pleas were
made. Jagmohan (State Governor then) begged the central leadership, warning
that Kashmir was “fast deteriorating… near a point of no return”.
But power slept. Politics
calculated. And we were marked.
By 1989, the system had collapsed.
Police were broken. Intelligence
vanished. Courts refused to act. Terrorists walked free.
The daughter of the Home Minister
was ‘kidnapped’; and hardened terrorists were released in exchange.
Schools/colleges shut. Elections
died. Law disappeared.
And then came the beginning of
the ethnic cleansing.
Pandit Tika Lal Taploo, Justice
Neelkanth Ganjoo, Pandit Lassa Kaul, Pandit Sarwanand Koul Premi, Smt. Girija
Tikoo, and thousands more.
So many names. So many unfinished
lives.
Each brutal killing a message:
Leave. Convert. Or Die.
Then came the night of terror.
On 19th January 1990, as
darkness fell, the mosques erupted; not with prayer, but with threats.
Slogans echoed through the Valley
like a death sentence:
“Raliv, Galiv, Tchaliv”
(meaning ‘Convert, Die, or Leave’).
“Asyi gachchi Pakistan… Bataovv
roas te Bateneyvv saan” (meaning ‘we want Pakistan; without Hindu men, but
with their women’).
Tin roofs were beaten in unison;
thousands of hands amplifying fear.
It was organised. It was
synchronized. It was public.
Inside their homes, Kashmiri Hindu
families sat frozen in darkness.
Women and children were hidden on
upper floors.
Mothers whispered the unthinkable;
‘If they break in, jump’.
Death felt safer than dishonour.
This was not a few
extremists/fundamentalists.
This was the majoritarian roar
of a society that chose hate.
Neighbours who once shared
greetings now shouted for our blood.
And so, this forced many lakhs
of Kashmiri Pandits leave their roots.
Not migrated.
But Forced.
Those who stayed back for few more
months for some critical reasons, were butchered.
Men tortured and killed.
Women raped, mutilated, cut into
pieces under the saw machines.
For some dead bodies were never
returned but only ashes.
Pandit B K Ganju, Smt. Sarla Bhat,
Pandit Shiban Krishen Raina, Pandit Ashok Tikoo, Smt. Girija Tikoo, Pandit
Chaman Lal Kaul (my Father), Pandit Somnath Raina (my Uncle), and thousands
more.
We were stripped of our homes, our
land, our identity, our dignity.
Many children grew up in refugee
camps.
Under plastic sheets. Under tents.
Studying beside grief. Sleeping
beside trauma.
Families carried wounds across
generations; and still do.
And what did the world do?
Nothing.
No tribunal.
No media
No justice.
No global outrage.
No human-rights marches.
No recognition.
Only denial.
Only erasure.
Only silence - as brutal as
the violence itself.
Our temples were desecrated.
Our manuscripts lost.
Our homes looted and occupied.
A civilization thousands of years
old uprooted overnight as a part strategic plan.
Genocide is not only about killing
bodies.
It is about killing memory.
And yet; we survived.
Not with guns.
Not with revenge.
But with education. But with
blessings/support of our elders. But with resilience. But with dignity.
That is the greatest tragedy;
The victims upheld humanity,
while the world abandoned them.
The genocide of Kashmiri Hindus is
not just an Indian tragedy.
It is a 'human failure'.
Sadly & surprisingly, even the
highest honourable court of our own country failed us.
Remember 19th January 1990.
Because forgetting is not
innocence.
‘Forgetting is complicity'.
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