Rebuttal to “DNA” and its so called Emminent Kashmiri Pandits on their Article on Anupam Kher
It was in the year 1994, we had completed 4th year in Exile and we were in Jammu at the Grih Pravesh of my uncles newly built house, as it happens in most of the KP families the discussion mostly is politics and among other things discussed, the first world conference held at Delhi too was discussed, my only memory of the discussion was how someone in the middle of the discussion suddenly quipped about Anupam Kher s liking of Kashmiri Dumallo, when asked how did he knew about the same , he said he overheard him asking for one more dumallo, the first Kashmiri Pandit world conference was held at Siri Fort Auditorium in the year 1993 and Anupam Kher was awarded “Sharda Samman” for his exceptional services to Film industry in general and to our “Exiled community in particular”. It was in Delhi in 2015, we were commemorating 25th year of Exile, it was a cold wintery morning and I was informed that Anupam kher is joining us, I was shocked and surprised because we neither had invited nor informed him, and a person of his stature would generally not come if not invited. Later he revealed that he saw a tweet about the commomeration and he couldn’t resist but to be with us, “his community” to commemorate the 25 years of exile.
Kashmiri Hindu community has been in exile for 26 long years and this struggle has thrown in many heroes, some known and others mostly unsung. Being an activist of an organisation which has been a frontline organisation and only political resistence movement of Kashmiri Hindus, I am privy to many stories of how people have contributed to the movement , how people sold the jewellery for the marriage of a daughter of another exile etc etc. Our community is fortunate that we have had many visionaries, ideologues who have time and again course corrected the Political Movement of Kashmiri Hindus and also helped in building a narrative, which apprised the people of India about our exodus and reasons which led to the same.
The only thing we ever lacked was Mainstream electronic Media showcasing and highlighting our plight and questioning the farce of “Kashmiriyat”. I remember a mainstream Media Channel editing portions of the interview and balancing the whole narrative, nobody bothered to showcase the truth, because, to speak for Kashmiri Hindus was considered to be crime! How could a mainstream media channel talk about genocide of “Elitist Brahmins”, for them “Azaadi” remained very hot topic, for their TRPs, to appease their investors and to cater to particular vote bank.
But, all of this changed, because our pain found a voice and a face, a face which was recognized world over, for his exceptional acting talent, a person of whom every Kashmiri hindu boasts of to be one of their own and that face was of Sh. Anupam Kher. Sh. Kher may not be a direct victim of exodus of 1990 but he has always stood for the cause of Kashmiri Hindus. He might not have moved big boulders but he has surely threw small pebbles at the right places to create a whirlpool. His most poignant small TV presentation on Jan 19 this year, has been arguably the best to come out in all of our struggle for 26 year.We all could see the change in outlook of many of our countrymen, they now wanted to know more about our Exile, the reason and possible return formula, only yesterday a person called me from Jaipur offering cash assistance for our people of camps, when asked what made him to come up with his support, he said he was moved by the video of Sh. Anupam kher and another short documentary by Sh. Ashoke Pandit “And the world remained silent”. Isnt this the contribution enough that finally people of India know about our plight and have started voicing out.
I was quite surprised to read a piece in DNA about how “Kashmiri Pandits oppose Anupam kher s nomination to Rajya Sabha”, I thought these might be some of the of most emminent Kashmiri Pandits with impeccable record of Public Service to our beleaguered community, I read the names and I thought I should ignore the article, because out the 3 names mentioned , I had heard only about 2 in my now 9 years of Activism. But I couldn’t resist introducing the world to these people.
A person Mr A belongs to the Congress, who has ruled and ruined our Great Nation for more than 55 years, out of the last 26 years, the congress has been in rule for 15 years directly and 2 years in coalitions and unfortunately to the credit to this person, he has not been able to even to convince any senior leader of his party to utter a single word in support of Kashmiri Hindus, instead we had likes of Mr Manish Tewari and Mr Manishankar Aiyarr and other senior party functionary mocking our exile and putting its blame on then Governor Jagmohan.
It is said that if you have to eradicate the history of any ethnic community, you start changing of the nomenclature of the cult heroes, places of worship and saints, that’s the reason Hari Parbat is now called Koh i Maraan, Shankarachrya is being called Takht e Sulieman. The person B in the said “DNA Report” who is an imminent theatre personality, in of the speeches in a Delhi Auditorium very convincingly called the one of the greatest Shavaite and Mystic of all times, Mata Lalleshwari as Lalla Arifa, the distortion promoted by the same people who were instrumental for our exodus and it was left to few of our community stalwarts to rebutt him on the same. That this so called very imminent social activist of Kashmiri Hindus has not even once spoken for his beleaguered community or even enacted a single play is another story for some other time.
What do we except of Man who is living in a pond surrounded by Crocodiles, he cannot afford to take them on, therefore he tries to appease them. The Person “C” who chose to live in Kashmir is living their surrounded by Crocodiles and anything which is in opposition to narrative of the Seperatists of the valley puts him and others like him at bigger risk and therefore he has no option but to ridicule anybody who speaks for Kashmiri Hindus and against the separatists and their anti national activities..
I may not consider Anupam Kher my leader, for I think we have many other people who can lead us but that doesn’t take away his right to speak for his community. He may not have given as many hours as the most of the activists, but unlike others he is atleast vocing out his opinion, and its not the first time he has done so, he has done it right from 1993 to 2016 and I am sure he would continue to do it and believe me with over 5 lakh in total population scattered, he certainly doesn’t expect us to either make his movies or plays superhit or elect him even to a municipality, he is and I am sure doing it out of sheer love for the community he belongs to.
As far his Rajya Sabha nomination is considered, if Jaya Bacchan ji, Javed Akhtar ji, Rekha ji can be nominated to Rajya Sabha for the exemplary work for Indian Film Industry, Mr Anupam Kher deserves it equally, for his versatility, who doesn’t remember his role of an Old Man in Saraansh, Dr Dang in Karma and his comic timing in movies like Ram Lakhan, Chalbaaz,DDLJ and Hum Aapke hai Kaun.
I wont Thank you Mr Kher, for my thanks would belittle your efforts and dedication. I wish you long and successful life, for I want you to be my voice more often and lead me to my Homeland – Panun Kashmir.