AIKS President As Community Speaker On Chetna Divas

Alka Lahori 

AIKS added yet another feather to its cap when its President Dr Ramesh Raina was nominated as Community Speaker for Chetna Divas by Prem Nath Bhat Memorial Trust (PBMT) held on 27th December every year to commemorate the martyrdom of Pt Prem Nath Bhat, who fell to the terrorist's bullets on this day in 1989. Pt Prem Nath Bhat was an Advocate by profession but a social activist and a journalist by passion. He was a man of many parts—an RSS activist and a Vedic scholar, a generous donor for community asset building like school and temples, an inspiring leader who initiated a full youth brigade in Anantnag into the discipline of Yoga and social service. But more than that Pt Prem Nath Bhat was a thought leader-- a keen observer of the changing socio-political profile of the state and ever shrinking socio-economic space of his community brethren in the valley. He was an avid reader and prolific writer to national dailies highlighting these facts which was bringing economic squeeze on his hapless community. Obviously his name was on top of the very first hit list of Pak trained terrorists, and was gunned down in broad day light on 27th December, 1989 when his former colleague in Anantnag Bar, Mufti Mohd Sayed was the Union Home Minister.

The Prem Nath Bhat Memorial Trust observed his martyrdom day as Chetna Divas and the much awaited annual event attracts a huge gathering of intellectual class each year. Besides it, the Trust has also instituted an award in journalism and is given annually to a community journalist. But its focused area of activity includes pursuing the passage of the Temples and Shrines Bill in J&K Assembly. The Trust has done a splendid job by compiling the data of total land assets of Hindu temples and shrines across the valley.

For 27 December 2023 Chetna Divas the PBMT had nominated AIKS President Dr R a m e s h R a i n a a s Community Speaker. The event was held at Jammu's iconic Abhinav Theatre and Chief Guest was BJP's senior leader, an ace orator and MP Dr Sudhanshu Trivedi. Former DGP and distinguished community member Shri Kuldeep Khoda presided over the function.

So Dr Ramesh Raina set the ball rolling by first travelling down the memory lane and letting the audience recollect the ill effects of the exiled life that resulted in the wide spread dispersal of the beleaguered KP community impacting the structure of the community as a whole and apart from physical trauma, it inflicted an extreme psychological injury on them. Resultantly KPs entered into a permanent state of uncertainty, he added that consequent to all this there is a total socio-political marginalisation of the community in their homes and hearths. He cautioned that such a state of affairs did not augur well neither for the country nor for the state. An out of box solution to end the running exile spanning for about 34 years was needed to bring the state back on the secular, multi-cultural and multireligious path.

Paying fulsome tributes to the present NDA government for having shown guts to abrogate the controversial Article 370 and 35A which he said was used by state's political class to create a wide chasm between Union and the federation. He said as nationalists the community was wholly supportive of the central government's measures to bring the state back to working order and on the trajectory development that was not much visible in pre-370 era which was dominated by keeping Kashmir away from the constitutional mainstream of India. However, he bemoaned the fact that the hapless community was kept outside the loop of this developmental process. What an irony, he wondered, that the aborigines who have kept the flag of India flying high even in the worst political turmoil, were left high and dry and relegated to the background. He said that as pro-India and patriotic forces, Kashmiri Pandits have a factorial importance in the socio-cultural construct of Kashmir and as such constitute the first line of natural defence and a grass root advocacy group there in the Valley.

Hailing government's recent announcement of two nominated seats in state legislature, Dr Raina strongly pleaded for the creation of a legitimate Minority space in the valley through myriad measures including through granting them a 'minority status' and passage of Temples and Shrines Bill which he said were the living symbols of not only our presence but that of the Sanatan Dharma in the valley. He further added that there remains a need to address the unemployment issue amongst the displaced KP youth by the creation of 5000 posts under PM package, soft term loans for overage unemployed youth and enhancement in the monthly cash assistance. He strongly pitched for creating a grievance redressal mechanism for the redressal of grievances in a time bound manner. He added that Kashmir remains the core constituency of Kashmiri Pandits and there always will remain a strong connect with it be that physical or through temples and shrines route but it will always register both psychological and emotional presence to prevent its socio-psychological eraser from the valley of Kashmir and that is what Naya Kashmir slogan should talk about.

He also thanked and complimented the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India for upholding the decision of abrogation of Article 370 and in this regard AIKS too had filled in IA (Intervention Application) supportive of the abrogation. Our Lawyer Shri Giri, a senior Supreme Court Lawyer was given a respectable time and heard which also found a mention in the Supreme Court judgement delivered on December 11,2023. He also expressed gratitude to Justice Sanjay Koul for his recommendation for the constitution of a truth and reconciliation commission which is part of the larger Supreme Court Judgement wherein he makes a strong mention of injustice to Kashmiri Pandits.

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Courtesy: Alka Lahori and January 2024, Naad