Displaced Kashmiri Pandits to begin 'back to home' yatra from Delhi on June 18

Srinagar: A large group of Kashmiri Pandits is planning a trip to the scenic Himalayan valley next week in the hope it may see the beginning of the return of the displaced families of the minority Brahmin Hindu community to their homes.

A vast majority of Kashmiri Pandits fled their homes and hearth after the separatist campaign burst into a major violence in 1989-90. Majority of the displaced families took shelter in makeshift or rented accommodations in the State’s winter capital Jammu, Delhi and other parts of the country.

Kashmir Education, Culture and Science Society (KECSS), a Delhi-based organization of Kashmiri Pandits said on Tuesday that the yatra of the displaced members of the community will start in the Union capital on June 18 and culminate into a prayer meeting at Khir Bhawani, a historic temple which sits next to a sacred stream at Tulla Mulla village about 27 kilometres from Srinagar, the main town of the Valley and summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir state on June 20.

Khir Bhawani is the most revered place of worship of Kashmiri Brahmins. They turn up in thousands at the place of worship during the annual mela (fair) in June to seek blessings from the goddess Ragnya Devi coinciding with the festival of Zeystha Ashtami.

The spring is on an island and in the centre of it (spring) is a small marble temple. The occasion is the eighth day of the full moon (Ashtami Shuklapak) when, legend has it, the goddess changes the colour of the waters of the spring-to turn rosy, various shades of green, diluted milky and light blue. The devotees wash their clothes and abstain from eating meat. They offer milk, candy sugar raisins, clarified butter and candles amidst chanting vedic and tantaraic hymns.

“This yatra (pilgrimage) to Srinagar could well see the beginning of the return of the displaced Kashmiri Pandits to their homes in Kashmir. This yatra may help change the course in the recent dark history of the State”, said Satish Mahaldar, Coordinator Yatra.

 He said that it would after 28 years of separation from the roots that the Kashmiri Pandits “will finally take a step to return to the Valley”. He asserted that during this period of displacement they Pandits were often given assurances by the successive governments that their return to their homes in Kashmir was possible. “For various reasons it could not happen. But with the help of the J&K government our struggle for the return to our homes will now become a reality,” Mr. Mahaldar said.

 He said that the planned trip on the auspicious occasion of Zyestha Asthami this year is a step in this direction. “The place where the beginning is to be made is the sacred temple of Mata Khir Bhawani at Tulla Mulla which will on June 20 witness a congregation of thousands of displaced Kashmiri Pandits who will worship, have the darshan and perform puja,” he said.

 The KECSS said that it is for the first time in the recent history that the J&K government has made special arrangements for the displaced Kashmiri Pandits to visit the temple by providing free of cost transportation facilities to ferry pilgrims from Delhi and Jammu to Tulla Mulla and back.

 “This step of the state government is being considered as an important step to facilitate the return of Kashmiri Pandits who were forcibly uprooted in the first wave of terrorism that hit the Valley in 1990 and the place has seen much bloodshed and loss of life since,” Mr. Mahaldar said.

 He said the pilgrimage will once again give the pilgrims an opportunity “to be with our lost Muslim brothers who are equally in pain and have been suffering for the past 28 years”. He added, “The evil forces of terror did us apart but our Kashmiri soul binds us together. Our culture and language are the same which makes us inseparable”.

 Mr. Mahaldar believed that Zysetha Asthami is an occasion for the two communities to bond together again. “With the blessings of Mata Khir Bhawani, the return of the displaced Kashmiri Pandits to their homes shall, hereafter, begin”.