Every January, the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits returns to public conversation. It is remembered through commemorations, debates, and competing narratives. Yet remembrance, when stripped of care, can slip into distortion. The tragedy of 1990 does not require amplification through exaggeration or denial. It requires accuracy, dignity, and moral clarity.
Remembering without instrumentalising is not about diluting responsibility. It is about ensuring that memory remains faithful to lived experience rather than political convenience.
Memory as Responsibility
The displacement of Kashmiri Pandits was not an abstract event. It involved families leaving ancestral homes under threat, abandoning livelihoods, and carrying uncertainty into exile. Remembering this truth is a responsibility shared by all who speak of Kashmir.
Memory becomes distorted when the causes of the exodus are softened into vague unrest or when the trauma is reduced to a slogan. Such approaches do not heal wounds; they reopen them. The violence that forced Pandits to leave was real, targeted, and terrifying. Naming it accurately is the first step toward honest remembrance.
The Cost of Denial and Minimisation
One form of instrumentalisation is denial. Downplaying or questioning the circumstances of the exodus does not protect Kashmir’s image; it weakens trust. Communities that feel their suffering is erased or minimised retreat further from reconciliation.
Another form is selective remembrance—acknowledging loss while avoiding uncomfortable truths about who inflicted it and why. This too distorts history. Accountability does not emerge from silence.
For Kashmir to move forward, memory must confront the past without defensiveness.
Grief Is Not a Political Tool
The pain of displacement should not be used as a weapon in broader political battles. Grief is personal. Trauma is not transferable currency. When suffering is invoked to score points, the people who lived through it are reduced to symbols rather than recognised as citizens with agency and dignity.
For Kashmiri Pandits, remembrance is about loss of home, continuity, and belonging—not about being spoken for by others.
India’s Responsibility in Remembrance
India’s role in remembrance must be steady and sincere. Acknowledging the exodus as a grave injustice, supporting displaced families, and working toward safe, dignified return are expressions of constitutional responsibility, not political favour.
At the same time, remembrance must avoid triumphalism or simplification. The absence of one of Kashmir’s oldest communities is not a statistic to be cited; it is a wound to be addressed.
Why This Matters in Jammu and Kashmir
For Jammu and Kashmir, honest remembrance matters because reconciliation cannot be built on denial or selective memory. The Valley’s plural history was damaged when fear drove out a community. Restoring trust requires acknowledging that loss without defensiveness.
This does not negate the suffering of others in Kashmir. It recognises that multiple truths can coexist—and that erasing one does not validate another.
Toward Dignified Remembrance
Dignified remembrance centres on facts, not embellishment. It respects survivors’ voices rather than appropriating them. It insists on accountability without inflaming hatred. Above all, it treats memory as a moral obligation rather than a political instrument.
The exodus of Kashmiri Pandits deserves nothing less.
Closing the Chapter Without Closing the Truth
Thirty-five years on, the tragedy of 1990 remains unresolved—not because it is remembered too much, but because it is remembered unevenly. Until memory is aligned with truth, justice will remain incomplete and return uncertain.
Remembering without instrumentalising is not an act of neutrality. It is an act of integrity. For Kashmir, it is also a prerequisite for any future that seeks to be shared rather than divided.
(Hailing from Kashmir and based in New Delhi, Mehak Farooq is a journalist specialising in defence and strategic affairs. Her work spans security, geopolitics, veterans’ welfare, foreign policy, and the evolving challenges of national and regional stability.
