The New Kashmiriyat

Excerpts from Kashmir: Dawn of a New Era

by Brig Pramathesh Raina 

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The next ‘Badshah’ was born some years ago and he is out there somewhere lurking in the shadows. He is a Muslim, because only a Muslim can command the wholehearted support and unquestioned loyalty of the majority community. It is time for him to emerge and take his rightful place at the helm. The population is desperately seeking a selfless leader who places the progress and dignity of his people, irrespective of caste, creed or religion, above all else. It is time for him to emerge from the mists of obscurity into the limelight of public gaze.

Kashmiri society has always stood on two pillars—the Kashmiri Muslim and the Kashmiri Pandit. The latter can certainly not survive without the former, but once earlier in history some segments of the former mistakenly thought that the Kashmiri Pandits were irrelevant and could be dispensed with. History proved them wrong, and years later Sultan Zain-ul-Abedin was constrained to send a delegation to fetch the Kashmiri Pandits back to save the kingdom from descent into total anarchy. History repeated itself in 1989 and the majority of the Kashmiri Pandits are homeless once again. But is it all over for us now? I should certainly not think so. All we need is an enlightened and resolute leadership. The Kashmiri Pandit is once again looking for the ‘Badshah’!

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