For How Long?

For how long do we have to keep writing about hatred, killings, violence, pain, misery and despair? About innocent lives made to end abruptly

- Siddhartha Gigoo

IF you were a Pandit (Hindu) in Kashmir in 1989 and 1990 and didn't know the six Kalimas by heart, you were at the mercy of Muslim mercenaries whose job was to get rid of you at even the faintest sight. We didn't have to make any effort to memorise the Kalimas. Because we were constantly exposed to the Kalimas right from our infancy, we knew them by heart. They were common household parlance for precautionary purposes.

Kashmiri Pandit women were compelled to give up wearing the bindi, the dejhor (a traditional ornament worn by married Pandit women), and saris especially when outside. Pandit men were forced to grow beards to look like Muslims. Other obvious religious markers in attire, appearance and language that would give away our real identity were concealed to avert the unthinkable.

The mercenaries were crafty. They resorted to tactics such as ordering us to strip publicly at gunpoint. In front of other people, including women. To check for circumcision to ascertain religious identity. After all, we were faced with eviction orders because Kashmir was to be cleansed of kafirs. ‘Embrace Islam or else face the bullet’ was the diktat. We had decided. It is better to leave than be inflicted with more and more humiliation day after day. Our only prayer: God save people from such dehumanisation.