NY times article on Kashmiri Pandits published in 1991

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https://www.nytimes.com/1991/09/15/world/hindus-who-fled-kashmir-bitter-over-fate.html

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The Indian capital is home to about 50,000 Kashmiri migrants, spokesmen for the refugees say. Every day, a handful of men and women gather at the Boat Club grounds, near Parliament House, where they sit under a tent demanding better treatment from the Government.

They want semi-permanent settlement status in Delhi and compensation for their lost and damaged properties. They also want to lease their orchards to the Government.

"This is a real dilemma," said one senior Indian official. "They don't want to settle here permanently and we can't send them back."

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Jawaharlal Koul, once a prosperous merchant in Kashmir state and now a refugee, looked bitterly at the row of tiny temporary stores here where he and other Hindu migrants are struggling to rebuild their lives.

"We are being treated like dirt," said Mr. Koul, whose family owned apple orchards and carpet-manufacturing looms in the Kashmir valley. "We have lost our homes, our farms, our businesses. We have been uprooted and alienated and nobody is bothered about whether we live or die."

These days, he and his brother sell spiced snacks and curried chick peas near a busy bus stop in Connaught Circus, a major business center. On an average day, said Mr. Koul, they earn the equivalent of $15. There is no power or drinking water to ease the heat of a blistering sun.

Last year, thousands of Kashmiri Hindu families including Mr. Koul's fled Srinagar, the summer capital of Kashmir, and other towns as the power of pro-independence Muslim militants grew and hostility sharpened toward native Hindus, especially the high caste Brahmins.

 

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The upper caste Hindus, who are known as Pandits, have traditionally controlled business and administration in Kashmir, India's only Muslim-majority state, and were regarded as pro-India. A number of Hindus have been killed in the continuing unrest, although the militants also have attacked fellow Muslims.

The Hindus fled Kashmir in trucks, buses and private cars, virtually empty-handed except for the clothes and goods they could hurriedly pack and the cash they had in the house or money that could be quickly withdrawn from banks.

 

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Most of the exodus took place between January and March 1990, as panic swept the community and the authority of the militants grew. The Government is continuing a crackdown against the militants.

Many traveled to Jammu, the winter capital in the plains of the state, where Hindus and Sikhs dominate. Others ventured to the Indian capital and elsewhere in northern India, hoping for support from local communities and the Government.

"We have not gone back and I don't know if we can ever go back," said Vijay Safaya, who said that his two-story home in Srinagar was set ablaze last year. "If we go back in these troubled times, we will receive bullets."

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Visitors to Srinagar notice many shuttered stores and homes. Some have been damaged in the continuing violence; others are decaying.

The migrants say that they are dissatisfied with the pace of rehabilitation, that their lives lack dignity. They long to return to the cool, crisp weather of their home state, but that hope is dying rapidly.

"The worst thing is not that we've lost our houses or our businesses," said C. L. Kao, a publisher from Srinagar. "The saddest thing is we have lost our sense of belonging. We do not belong anywhere. We are nomads."

Many families live in crowded, unhygienic conditions in refugee camps here and elsewhere where privacy does not exist. "Can there be greater shame?" said Mr. Kao. "Our women do not even have the privacy to change their clothes. In many of the refugee camps, there are no rooms, only cloth partitions."

Mr. Kao and others accused international and Indian human rights groups of ignoring their plight and focusing only on charges of military torture and assaults on Kashmiris and militant reactions. "We too have human rights," one Kashmiri said.

The Indian capital is home to about 50,000 Kashmiri migrants, spokesmen for the refugees say. Every day, a handful of men and women gather at the Boat Club grounds, near Parliament House, where they sit under a tent demanding better treatment from the Government.

They want semi-permanent settlement status in Delhi and compensation for their lost and damaged properties. They also want to lease their orchards to the Government.

"This is a real dilemma," said one senior Indian official. "They don't want to settle here permanently and we can't send them back."

[Telugodura456]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Gujarat_riots#:~:text=It is estimated that up,protect Muslims from the violence.

up to 150,000 people were displaced due to the riots. Inka cheppaali ante punkhaalu punkhaalu ga untai horrible stories.