Powerful Pawns of the Kashmir Conflict: Kashmiri Pandit Migrants

Tens of thousands Kashmiri Pandits (the Hindus of Kashmir) left the Kashmir Valley during the Kashmiri Independence movement of 1989–1990. This migration has been fervently debated by all sides ever since. The voices of Pandit advocacy organizations have gained prominence and often serve to create a narrative that forwards the Indian government's interests: painting the conflict in Kashmir as one of Muslim desire for communal hegemony versus the Indian state's secularism and democracy. This paper focuses specifically on the claims for reparations for Pandit-owned properties that remain in the Valley. The international community has increasingly recognized and respected the right to reparations for property lost during times of conflict. This paper argues for a nuanced understanding of the political and social situation within which property claims of the Pandits arise and may be resolved. Given the particular context of the Pandit displacement, the paper calls for a property reparations plan that is in fact conditioned on return migration. Such a plan is both likely to result in a meaningful solution to the problem of displaced Pandits and to compel the Indian government to work towards improving the living conditions of all communities in Kashmir (rather than coloring the conflict merely as communal and focusing all efforts on neutralizing Kashmiri Muslim calls for increased autonomy). Despite their weakened position as a displaced people, the Pandits are also paradoxically a powerful community, whose fate will likely have important repercussions for all Kashmiris.