For Kashmiri Pandits, migration has remained a mixed bag. They managed a survival, got best of the education, sympathy, relief and a new world full of opportunities. At the same time, however, they lost the culture they were proud of throughout their history. As a small community got scattered over a vast geography, they found their young men and women not getting proper matches. In hundreds of cases, they ended up starting families with ‘strangers’.
And those who could manage ‘proper’ matches found themselves lacked in a situation in which privacy remained a primary concern. For a few years, this situation led to a low growth rate especially in the families which were putting up in one-room tenements of some of the camps in Jammu.
The issue has remained part of the KP discourse for a long time. It would always be discussed, studied and commented upon. But never ever was there any concrete step taken as happened in an All India Kashmiri Pandit Women’s Conference at Jammu.
The conference was organized by Kashmir Vahini, reportedly the female wing of the Panun Kashmir, a group that seeks Kashmir’s balkanization that could fetch Pandits a homeland between Islamabad and Kangan. It was the first baby step in this regard as the participants resolved to adopt the norm of at least bearing three children per family besides encouraging matrimonial alliances within community to “multiply population and preserve the purest genetic pool”.
“The conference unanimously resolves to appeal to displaced Kashmiri Pandits worldwide to seriously consider implications of the current reproductive trends in the community and aggressively pursue multiplication of the community’s progeny by reverting to the not-so-old norm of having at least three children per family,” a resolution adopted by the meeting said. “Our social structure has been badly hit by migration.
Young men and women, in particular, have lost privacy since most families live in one-room houses. Our birth rate has fallen and death rate gone up. As a result, our numbers are dwindling,” explained spokesperson Khema Kaul, who also heads the Vahini. She said the purest gene can be preserved by encouraging matrimonies within the community.
Later addressing a news conference Ms Kaul was quoted saying: “We need foot soldiers in large number to wage a decisive battle to realise our dream of homeland. There is no need to indulge in this act of self destruction by producing fewer children. If we do so our enemy will automatically win the battle.” She added
Over to baby-boomers.
