NEW DELHI // The new government in India’s Jammu and Kashmir state has stirred up controversy by announcing plans to build townships for Kashmiri Pandits, to encourage the return of the Hindu community that fled two-and-a-half decades ago.
More than two-thirds of the Pandit population – about 24,000 families – left the Muslim-majority state in the early 1990s as a separatist movement became increasingly militant. They have remained in exile ever since, unable to return as battles between Indian security forces and insurgents destabilised Kashmir.
On Tuesday, the state chief minister, Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, notified the federal home minister that his government “would acquire and provide land at the earliest for composite townships in the [Kashmir] Valley”, Mr Sayeed’s office said.
Mr Sayeed leads a coalition government made up of his People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which swept to power in national elections last year and has long supported the return and rehabilitation of Pandit families in Kashmir.
Prime minister Narendra Modi promised Pandits a safe return to the Valley during his election campaign, and after taking office had asked Mr Sayeed’s predecessor, Omar Abdullah, to earmark land for their housing. However, Mr Abdullah’s government was voted out of power in December, leading to the present PDP-BJP partnership.
The idea of delineating zones for returning Pandits has proven contentious, and been compared to the creation of a “state within a state”.
Syed Ali Shah Geelani, a leader of the Hurriyat Conference, an umbrella organisation of separatist parties and religious organisations, said Pandits should return “to their own villages, towns and neighbourhoods and live where they want to, like Sikhs and Muslims do”.
"Once the government is pushing for separate homelands and townships for them, it is a devious plan to create Israel-type settlements in Kashmir," Mr Geelani told The Hindu newspaper on Tuesday.
That same day, Naeem Akhtar, a PDP spokesman, clarified that the townships would not be exclusively for Pandits, and that anybody could purchase homes here.
Sanjay Tickoo, head of a Kashmiri Pandit activist organisation, is also opposed to the creation of special townships.
“They have to integrate more naturally with life in the valley, if they return,” Mr Tickoo said. “They have to work together on the ground. Staying in special townships will only widen the gap between Hindus and Muslims.”
The Pandits are the only Hindu community native to Kashmir. Comprising members of the Brahmin caste, they have historically enjoyed an exalted social status for their learning and have produced several notable figures including Jawarharlal Nehru, Indian first prime minister.
Mr Tickoo is among the few Pandits who stayed on in Kashmir. He recalls how, in the summer of 1990, he saw a poster in Urdu on a wall outside his Srinagar home, warning Pandits to leave Kashmir or die.
His family’s neighbours – all Muslims – urged them not to leave, offering a measure of security. But in the face of intimidation by militants, the population of Pandits in the Valley shrank from roughly 140,000 in the late 1980s to 19,865 in 1998. Mr Tickoo estimates that roughly 650 Pandits have been targeted and killed since 1989.
Pandits continued to leave Kashmir even after the worst of the intimidation ended in the late 1990s. Mr Tickoo’s Kashmiri Pandits Sangharsh Samiti conducted a survey in the area in 2008-09 and found about 2,760 Pandits living there.
Mr Tickoo admitted it would be difficult for Pandits to return to their old homes and neighbourhoods. Many of those homes have been demolished or taken over by neighbours, or their title deeds have been lost.
Rahul Pandita, the author of Our Moon Has Blood Clots, a memoir of his family's exodus from Kashmir, said that his father sold his ancestral house in Srinagar "for a pittance" in the mid-1990s.
“We were in severe economic distress,” Mr Pandita said.
The concept of Pandit townships is not ideal, but it is a beginning, he said.
“If Pandits can’t go back to their original homes, they can really only go to townships like these,” he said. “And they can’t remain within these settlements, after all – they’ll have to come out, to interact with others. Slowly, people will start assimilating again.”
The real question, Mr Pandita said, was whether the townships would ever materialise. Several politicians have made promises to rehabilitate the community, he pointed out.
Also, the trauma of the 1990s is still fresh, and no real action has been taken to reassure returning Pandits about their security, he said.
“Frankly, people like my father have to feel that if they return, they will be safe. Right now they don’t feel that sense of security.”
ssubramanian@thenational.ae
The specs
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Transmission: eight-speed auto
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On sale: now
Dr Afridi's warning signs of digital addiction
Spending an excessive amount of time on the phone.
Neglecting personal, social, or academic responsibilities.
Losing interest in other activities or hobbies that were once enjoyed.
Having withdrawal symptoms like feeling anxious, restless, or upset when the technology is not available.
Experiencing sleep disturbances or changes in sleep patterns.
What are the guidelines?
Under 18 months: Avoid screen time altogether, except for video chatting with family.
Aged 18-24 months: If screens are introduced, it should be high-quality content watched with a caregiver to help the child understand what they are seeing.
Aged 2-5 years: Limit to one-hour per day of high-quality programming, with co-viewing whenever possible.
Aged 6-12 years: Set consistent limits on screen time to ensure it does not interfere with sleep, physical activity, or social interactions.
Teenagers: Encourage a balanced approach – screens should not replace sleep, exercise, or face-to-face socialisation.
Source: American Paediatric Association
Learn more about Qasr Al Hosn
In 2013, The National's History Project went beyond the walls to see what life was like living in Abu Dhabi's fabled fort:
What is hepatitis?
Hepatitis is an inflammation of the liver, which can lead to fibrosis (scarring), cirrhosis or liver cancer.
There are 5 main hepatitis viruses, referred to as types A, B, C, D and E.
Hepatitis C is mostly transmitted through exposure to infective blood. This can occur through blood transfusions, contaminated injections during medical procedures, and through injecting drugs. Sexual transmission is also possible, but is much less common.
People infected with hepatitis C experience few or no symptoms, meaning they can live with the virus for years without being diagnosed. This delay in treatment can increase the risk of significant liver damage.
There are an estimated 170 million carriers of Hepatitis C around the world.
The virus causes approximately 399,000 fatalities each year worldwide, according to WHO.
At a glance
Global events: Much of the UK’s economic woes were blamed on “increased global uncertainty”, which can be interpreted as the economic impact of the Ukraine war and the uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Growth forecasts: Cut for 2025 from 2 per cent to 1 per cent. The OBR watchdog also estimated inflation will average 3.2 per cent this year
Welfare: Universal credit health element cut by 50 per cent and frozen for new claimants, building on cuts to the disability and incapacity bill set out earlier this month
Spending cuts: Overall day-to day-spending across government cut by £6.1bn in 2029-30
Tax evasion: Steps to crack down on tax evasion to raise “£6.5bn per year” for the public purse
Defence: New high-tech weaponry, upgrading HM Naval Base in Portsmouth
Housing: Housebuilding to reach its highest in 40 years, with planning reforms helping generate an extra £3.4bn for public finances
'Operation Mincemeat'
Director: John Madden
Cast: Colin Firth, Matthew Macfayden, Kelly Macdonald and Penelope Wilton
Rating: 4/5
The%20specs
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Ipaf in numbers
Established: 2008
Prize money: $50,000 (Dh183,650) for winners and $10,000 for those on the shortlist.
Winning novels: 13
Shortlisted novels: 66
Longlisted novels: 111
Total number of novels submitted: 1,780
Novels translated internationally: 66
The five pillars of Islam
Company%20profile
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SOUTH%20KOREA%20SQUAD
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THE DETAILS
Director: Milan Jhaveri
Producer: Emmay Entertainment and T-Series
Cast: John Abraham, Manoj Bajpayee
Rating: 2/5
Company%20Profile
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hall of shame
SUNDERLAND 2002-03
No one has ended a Premier League season quite like Sunderland. They lost each of their final 15 games, taking no points after January. They ended up with 19 in total, sacking managers Peter Reid and Howard Wilkinson and losing 3-1 to Charlton when they scored three own goals in eight minutes.
SUNDERLAND 2005-06
Until Derby came along, Sunderland’s total of 15 points was the Premier League’s record low. They made it until May and their final home game before winning at the Stadium of Light while they lost a joint record 29 of their 38 league games.
HUDDERSFIELD 2018-19
Joined Derby as the only team to be relegated in March. No striker scored until January, while only two players got more assists than goalkeeper Jonas Lossl. The mid-season appointment Jan Siewert was to end his time as Huddersfield manager with a 5.3 per cent win rate.
ASTON VILLA 2015-16
Perhaps the most inexplicably bad season, considering they signed Idrissa Gueye and Adama Traore and still only got 17 points. Villa won their first league game, but none of the next 19. They ended an abominable campaign by taking one point from the last 39 available.
FULHAM 2018-19
Terrible in different ways. Fulham’s total of 26 points is not among the lowest ever but they contrived to get relegated after spending over £100 million (Dh457m) in the transfer market. Much of it went on defenders but they only kept two clean sheets in their first 33 games.
LA LIGA: Sporting Gijon, 13 points in 1997-98.
BUNDESLIGA: Tasmania Berlin, 10 points in 1965-66
How to wear a kandura
Dos
- Wear the right fabric for the right season and occasion
- Always ask for the dress code if you don’t know
- Wear a white kandura, white ghutra / shemagh (headwear) and black shoes for work
- Wear 100 per cent cotton under the kandura as most fabrics are polyester
Don’ts
- Wear hamdania for work, always wear a ghutra and agal
- Buy a kandura only based on how it feels; ask questions about the fabric and understand what you are buying
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
Company Profile
Name: Thndr
Started: 2019
Co-founders: Ahmad Hammouda and Seif Amr
Sector: FinTech
Headquarters: Egypt
UAE base: Hub71, Abu Dhabi
Current number of staff: More than 150
Funds raised: $22 million
The%20specs
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All or Nothing
Amazon Prime
Four stars
