By Raqib Hameed Naik, TwoCircles.net,
Srinagar: With an aim to promote harmony and brotherhood among Kashmiri Pandits and Muslims, scores of youth belonging to Muslim community on Sunday , August 23, participated in cleanliness drive programme held in a temple in Ganaei Mohallah, in the Budgam district of Jammu and Kashmir.
The clean-up drive had been organized by a non-governmental organization Ehsaas along with the local residents of Budgam. The Srinagar-based NGO conducted the sanitation drive in the temple to mark a new beginning in the relations between Pandits and majority Muslims.
Dozens of Muslim youths volunteered in the cleanup campaign and sanitized the temple premises. The motive of the drive, according to organizers of the event, was to develop and inculcate the feelings of communal brotherhood in the local youth.
“We took the initiative to portray a larger image of communal brotherhood between Pandits and Muslims. Media has always presented a picture of divide between the communities when the people living inside the valley have experienced a quite different companionship,” Ezabir Ali, secretary of Ehsaas told TCN.
“Pandits and Muslims have lived together peacefully from many years now in Budgam. This cleanliness campaign is merely a reflection how close the communities are,” Shabir Ahmad, a volunteer said.
Another Volunteer Inam Hussian, said how he used to hang out with his Pandit friends during his childhood days. He has volunteered to give out message that Kashmiri Pandits are the part and parcel of their syncretic culture, ‘Kashmiriyat’.
“When I was a child I used to hang out with my Pandit friends and we used to participate in each other’s festival but after their migration from kashmir in 1990s everything changed then,” said Hussian, adding, “I volunteered for this cleanliness programme to give message to the government which is trying to make ghetto like townships for them that Kashmiri Pandits are the part and parcel of our culture, Kashmiriyat,” said Hussian.
A number of Pandit families have been living in Budgam town since years unaffected by the conflict and communal differences that drove thousands of families belonging to the minority community to Jammu and other parts of the country.
“I have been living here in Kashmir since my birth. During 1990s many of our fellow Pandits migrated from Kashmir but we stayed back. We are living here in an environment of peace and security along with our Muslim neighbours who are very helpful. Even you can see how they have organized cleanliness programme for our temple,” said Jager Nath who lives next to the temple.
While requesting their other brethrens to return back to their homes in Kashmir, Bashir Budgami, an elderly person of the area said, “We want Kashmiri Pandits to live along side us like once they used to live. We request all our Kashmiri Pandit brethren to come and settle here in kashmir. Let the grudges die and let we live a life once we both the communities used to live.”
Pertinently, the development has come amid the controversy over the proposal of establishment of Separate Township for migrant Pandits. The government proposal to settle migrant Pandits in separate colonies had faced strong opposition from both separatist and mainstream camps.