Mirwaiz Umar Urges Displaced Kashmiri Pandits to Return to Their Hearth & Home
Srinagar: As thousands of Kashmiri Pandits turned up for the annual mela or fair at the revered shrine of Kheer Bhawani at Tulla Mulla, a sleepy village about 27-km north of Jammu and Kashmir’s summer capital Srinagar, on Friday, coinciding with the festival of Zeystha Ashtami, the Himalayan region's chief Muslim cleric Mirwaiz Umar Farooq made a passionate appeal to the displaced minority community members to return to their hearth and home and "live with us as before".
While speaking from the pulpit of Srinagar 's historic grand mosque during a Friday congregation, the Mirwaiz who is also the chairman of his faction of separatist Hurriyat Conference alliance said, "Today is Mela Kheer Bhawani and I would like to felicitate our Kashmiri Pandit brethren on this occasion. I would also once again ask them to return to their motherland which awaits them, and live here as they did in the past, in our common and shared heritage". He added, "It’s time to reconcile and rebuild the broken bonds. We owe it to our next generation".
He also appealed to those at the helm of affairs in Srinagar and Delhi that the issue and sentiments of people of J&K thereto should be addressed through deliberation.
A vast majority of Kashmiri Pandits or Brahmin Hindus fled the predominantly Muslim Valley amid the separatist campaign bursting into a major violence in 1989-90. Majority of the displaced families took shelter in makeshift or rented accommodations in Jammu, Delhi and other parts of the country. The displaced families are currently living in various parts of the country and abroad and most of them are settled in life.
Apart from those who stayed put then, thousands of Pandit devotees drove or flew in from Jammu, Delhi, Mumbai and other parts of the country to join the annual mela and pay obeisance at their most revered place of worship back home. Politicians also made a beeline to Tulla Mulla to mingle with the devotees and go over their often-stated assertion ‘Kashmir is incomplete without Pandits’. Groups of tourists currently in Kashmir were also seen praying there. Several government functionaries too attended the annual mela and paid obeisance at the temple.
The three-day mela is also witnessing the display of Kashmiriyat, the ethno-national and social consciousness and cultural values of the Kashmiri people, with Muslim residents of Tulla Mulla and its neighbourhood also relocating to the temple premises to greet and receive the visitors with open arms.
Kheer Bhawani is a historic temple which sits next to a sacred stream. The spring is on an island and in the centre of it (spring) is a small marble temple. The occasion is the eighth day of the full moon (Ashtami Shuklapak) when, legend has it, the goddess changes the colour of the waters of the spring-to turn rosy, various shades of green, diluted milky and light blue.
Following the tradition, the devotees- for seeking blessings from the goddess Ragnya Devi - after taking dip in the stream outside the temple premises and washing their clothes offered milk, sugar-candies, raisins and clarified butter and lighting candles and small clay oil lamps amidst chanting of vedic and tantric hymns. Though most Kashmiri Pandits are non-vegetarians, they abstain from eating meat during the Kheer Bhawani mela.
Meanwhile, during his customary post-Friday sermon speech, the Mirwaiz referred to the recent incident of a group of tourists openly consuming liquor while riding a Shikara (water gondola) in Srinagar 's Dal Lake area and said, "The outrageous incident shocked us all but, thankfully, some action has been taken against those involved by the authorities"
He, however, also said, "The onus of preventing such incidents lies equally on us, individually and as a society. Kashmir being a tourist place, all kinds of visitors will come here. It is for us to ensure that the ethos of Kashmir based on the values and principles of Islam , stays intact. We have to be aware of it all the time and consciously work towards preserving it, especially those people who are directly or indirectly associated with tourism".
He further stated, "I am hopeful that they will continue to play their active role in preserving our moral and religious character. Our prosperity in the real sense -which will stand us in good stead in this life and in the hereafter, lies only in following the righteous path shown by Islam in all affairs of life and dealings with others; and not in immoral acts, corrupt practices and cheating as a short cut to 'flourish'."
The Srinagar police arrested two persons amid public outrage after a video showing the tourists openly consuming liquor in the lake area went viral. While alcohol has no social sanction in J&K, the laws governing its consumption and sale prohibit consuming it in public places.
The Mirwaiz demanded an impartial probe into the recent death of a 36-year-old resident in the police custody in southern Pulwama district, saying those found guilty must be punished and justice delivered to the victim's family. He also said that the dismissal of four more J&K government employees from service on the chages of being involved in anti-national activities adds to the distress among the people. 'Such measures only add to the mistrust and only deepen the chasm", he asserted.
