Proposed Panun Kashmir territory in Red

Panun Kashmir (English: Our Kashmir) is a proposed union territory of India in the Kashmir Valley, which is intended to be a homeland for Kashmiri Hindus. The demand arose after the Exodus of Kashmiri Hindus in 1990.[1][2][3][4][5] The vision of the homeland was elucidated in the Margdarshan Resolution of 1991.

  • Panun Kashmir is also the name of an eponymously named organization.

Origin and etymology

Panun Kashmir is derived from Kashmiri panun kaśīr, which means "our own Kashmir". The Panun Kashmir organization was founded by Kashmiris in 1990 after the exodus of Kashmiri Hindus from Kashmir, under threat from militants. Panun Kashmir was founded by Dr. Agnishekhar. Approximately 90,000–100,000 Pandits of an estimated population of 120,000–140,000 left the Valley between January and March 1990, according to several scholarly estimates.[6][7][8][9][10] However, Panun Kashmir estimates nearly 700,000 refugees.[11]

Proposed union territory of Panun Kashmir

The organization passed a resolution, known as the Margdarshan Resolution,[12] in Jammu in December 1991 demanding:[13][14]

(a) the establishment of a Homeland for the Kashmiri Hindus in the Valley of Kashmir comprising the regions of the Valley to the East and North of Jhelum River.

(b) that the Constitution of India is made applicable in letter and spirit in this Homeland to ensure the right to life, liberty, freedom of expression and faith, equality, and the rule of law.

(c) that the Homeland be placed under the Central administration with a Union Territory status; and

(d) that all the seven hundred thousand Kashmiri Hindus, including those who have been driven out of Kashmir in the past and yearn to return to their homeland and those who were forced to leave on account of terrorist violence in Kashmir, be settled in the homeland on an equitable basis with dignity and honor.

Some advocates for Panun Kashmir wish that the majority of the valley of Kashmir and cities such as Srinagar, Anantnag, Sopore, Baramulla, and Awantipora be included in the proposed union territory.[citation needed] However, the organization claims that it does not seek a Hindu homeland. Instead, it seeks a homeland for Kashmiri Hindus who are ready to live peacefully with their Muslim neighbors assuming the conditions are met for resettlement.[citation needed]

Support

The Panun Kashmir organization has consistently pushed for a separate UT. The organization also strongly supported the abrogation of Article 370 and Article 35a.[15]

Ikkjutt Jammu, a former political party in Jammu and Kashmir, supported the creation of a separate Panun Kashmir, as well as the separation of Jammu Division from Kashmir.[16][17][18]

Opposition

After the murder of Rakesh Pandit by unidentified militants in June 2021, several members of the Panun Kashmir group proposed a military campaign to establish a separate Hindu region, where Kashmiri Pandits would be armed against local militants. That meeting and their proposed Union Territory have been opposed by Muslim activists, who compared the proposal to Israeli actions against the Palestinians.[19][20][21]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Excelsior, Daily (9 January 2017). "Involve 'Panun Kashmir' in talks on return of KPs: Ambardar". Retrieved 14 March 2019.
  2. ↑ Wirsing, Robert (2003). Kashmir in the Shadow of War: Regional Rivalries in a Nuclear Age. M.E. Sharpe. p. 149. ISBN 9780765610898.
  3. ↑ PTI, (Press Trust of India) (28 July 2019). "Carve out separate state within India for Kashmiri Pandits along Jhelum river: Panun Kashmir". India Today. Retrieved 25 October 2019.
  4. ↑ "700 eminent Kashmiri Pandits support Centre's decision on Article 370: Panun Kashmir". Business Standard India. Press Trust of India. 22 August 2019. Retrieved 25 October 2019.
  5. ↑ "Post 370, Kashmiri Hindus wait to return to their homes". The Sunday Guardian Live. 19 October 2019. Archived from the original on 25 October 2019. Retrieved 25 October 2019.
  6. ↑ Bose, Sumantra (2021), Kashmir at the Crossroads: Inside a 21st-century conflict, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, p. 373, ISBN 978-0-300-25687-1, Some Pandits constituted a privileged class under the princely state (1846–1947). When insurrection engulfed the Valley in early 1990, approximately 120,000 Pandits lived in the Valley, making up about 3 per cent of the Valley's population. In February–March 1990, the bulk of the Pandits (about 90,000–100,000 people) left the Valley for safety amid incidents of intimidation and sporadic killings of prominent members of the community by Kashmiri Muslim militants; most moved to the southern, Hindu-majority Indian J&K city of Jammu or to Delhi.
  7. ↑ Kapur, S. Paul (2007), Dangerous Deterrent: Nuclear Proliferation and Conflict in South Asia, Stanford University Press, pp. 102–103, ISBN 978-0-8047-5549-8, When the Kashmir insurgency began, roughly 130,000 to 140,000 Kashmiri Pandits, who are Hindus, lived in Kashmir Valley. By early 1990, in the face of some targeted anti-Pandit attacks and rising overall violence in the region, approximately 100,000 Pandits had fled the valley, many of them ending up in refugee camps in southern Kashmir.
  8. ↑ Rai, Mridu (2021), "Narratives from exile: Kashmiri Pandits and their construction of the past", in Bose, Sugata; Jalal, Ayesha (eds.), Kashmir and the Future of South Asia, Routledge Contemporary South Asia Series, Routledge, pp. 91–115, 106, ISBN 9781000318845, Beginning in January 1990, such large numbers of Kashmiri Pandits – the community of Hindus native to the valley of Kashmir – left their homeland and so precipitously that some have termed their departure an exodus. Indeed, within a few months, nearly 100,000 of the 140,000-strong community had left for neighbouring Jammu, Delhi, and other parts of India and the world. One immediate impetus for this departure in such dramatically large numbers was the inauguration in 1989 of a popularly backed armed Kashmiri insurgency against Indian rule. This insurrection drew support mostly from the Valley's Muslim population. By 2011, the numbers of Pandits remaining in the Valley had dwindled to between 2,700 and 3,400, according to different estimates. An insignificant number have returned.
  9. ↑ Metcalf, Barbara D.; Metcalf, Thomas R. (2012), A Concise History of Modern India, Cambridge Concise Histories (3 ed.), Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 308–309, ISBN 978-1-107-02649-0, The imposition of leaders chosen by the centre, with the manipulation of local elections, and the denial of what Kashmiris felt was a promised autonomy boiled over at last in the militancy of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, a movement devoted to political, not religious, objectives. The Hindu Pandits, a small but influential elite community who had secured a favorable position, first under the maharajas and then under the successive Congress governments, and who propagated a distinctive Kashmiri culture that linked them to India, felt under siege as the uprising gathered force. Upwards of 100,000 of them left the state during the early 1990s; their cause was quickly taken up by the Hindu right. As the government sought to locate 'suspects' and weed out Pakistani 'infiltrators', the entire population was subjected to a fierce repression. By the end of the 1990s, the Indian military presence had escalated to approximately one soldier or paramilitary policeman for every five Kashmiris, and some 30,000 people had died in the conflict.
  10. ↑ Cite error: The named reference braithewaite-dcosta was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  11. ↑ "A Homeland for the Kashmiri Pandits". Panun Kashmir. Archived from the original on 29 October 2013.
  12. ↑ PTI (12 February 2017). "Modi govt has no objection to the homeland for Kashmiri Pandits, says Jitendra Singh". mint. Retrieved 21 December 2021.
  13. ↑ Noorani, A. G. (9 July 2016). "Kashmir's Pandits". Dawn. Archived from the original on 12 July 2021. Retrieved 21 December 2021.
  14. ↑ "Why Homeland? Introduction". Panun Kashmir. Archived from the original on 29 October 2013.
  15. ↑ "Panun Kashmir faction wants abrogation of Article 370". 3 February 2007.
  16. ↑ "We Should be Trained with Arms, Necessary to Form Israel in Kashmir: Pandit Activist". 9 June 2021.
  17. ↑ "Forget Delimitation; Divide Kashmir; Grant Statehood to Jammu: IkkJutt Jammu - the Northern Herald". Retrieved 13 June 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)
  18. ↑ "Chorus grows louder for statehood to Jammu". 10 June 2021.
  19. ↑ ""Important to make an Israel": Kashmiri Pandit leaders want military approach". 7 June 2021. Archived from the original on 7 June 2021.
  20. ↑ "'If the Israeli people can do it. We can also do it: Normalisation of Israel's colonial desires". The Kashmir Walla. 24 June 2021. Archived from the original on 24 June 2021.
  21. ↑ "'Sacrifice and surrender': RSS's mantra for Kashmiri Pandit rehabilitation". 14 June 2021. Archived from the original on 14 June 2021.

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panun_Kashmir