The mass exodus of Kashmir's Hindu Pandit community was one of the most significant movements of people to take place in Southasia during the 1990s, though one that has received surprisingly little rounded analysis. The documents that have been painstakingly gathered and presented in this new work, by the former head of the Department of Sociology at the University of Kashmir, now throw new light onto this exodus, as well as onto the major political developments that took place during that decade. Bashir Ahmad Dabla does not hesitate to address sensitive and politically volatile issues, and analyses the complex political situation against a background of rich historical material. In the process, crucial contextualisation is offered on the fleeing of roughly 165,000 Kashmiri Pandits.
The Pandit out-migration is widely understood to have begun during the early 1990s, following the dramatic increase in militant violence in Kashmir. In fact, however, this process was far from monolithic, and Dabla shows interesting differences between those fleeing from urban versus rural communities. In the early stages of the insurgency in Kashmir, it was the urban-based Pandits who migrated to Jammu, as well as Udhampur, Kathua, Chandigarh, Shimla, New Delhi and elsewhere in India. It was only later that rural Pandits migrated, after having lost their homes and possessions. The author has much to say about the economically downtrodden in these communities, though his discussion on the Pandit elite is curiously limited.
Dabla focuses his energies on the plight of Pandits in the migrant camps in Jammu, presenting a wealth of empirical data. He finds these migrants, especially those from lower-middle-class families, in the throes of depression, living in camps that are no different from inner-city slums. Various health-related problems are documented, including the astounding finding that some 70 to 80 percent of the Pandits studied have developed psychological disorders over the past decade and a half.
While highlighting the demographic implications of migration, Dabla also touches on sensitive issues of cultural fusion and assimilation. During the latter phases of migration, the Pandits began to sell their property – houses, lands and orchards. By now, according to an unofficial estimate, some 36 percent of these communities' total assets have been disposed of since the migration began. Yet such figures are very difficult to come by in general. For its part, the state government attempted to block the selling of properties in the Valley in legislation that was ultimately rejected by the Supreme Court of India. Furthermore, under the 2001 census the Pandits could not be registered in Kashmir because they were living outside of the state. Indeed, this brings up one of the most crucial developments on the issue: the fact that the Pandits have been excluded from census records as a separate, distinct community both in and out of Jammu & Kashmir.