The scenes that were witnessed for the last few days, followed by the migration of the Kashmiri pandits once again, seem familiar, known to the people of Kashmir who have had quite a tryst with such scenes way back in the early 90s when the minority community was subjected to unprecedented violence, making them leave Kashmir and also got them the tag of ‘migrants’ forever. That’s what seems to have returned once again to haunt people and scare the hell out of them.
But what went wrong? Is there any answer to this question, apart from the rhetoric? What happened so suddenly that those who were working securely in various departments across Kashmir were seen running for their lives. On top of that, the Government does not seem to be ready to accept that these people are actually fleeing? Doesn’t that point to an utter failure of the Government in bringing things under control? So far, we have not seen any concrete measures from the Government to ensure the safety and security of not only Kashmiri Pandits but all the citizens of Kashmir, rather, there have only been meetings held in Delhi and Srinagar.
The thing is that the Government has made it a point to put forth the huge influx of tourists to Kashmir as its major achievement, a sign of normalcy, but underneath, so much was happening, which was either invisible to the state apparatus, or it chose not to look at that till the time it snowballed and brought about the chaos which has taken Kashmir back to a situation similar to 90s.
The truth is that the current dispensation is not in a position to hold anyone else responsible for whatever has been happening around for a while. It was the Government—after the August 5, 2019 move—which announced the “return of normalcy to Kashmir,” after a series of “masterstrokes,” however, the ground realities depict that the situation has rather worsened: in total contrast to the claims.
Hence, we ask again: whose failure is this?
