Never in global history there is another instance where people in their own country were forced out by religious and ethnic cleansing inflicted by a minority. This is the true history of over 400,000 Kashmiri Hindu Pandits who during the period 1989-1991 were forced out from their ancestral homes in the Kashmir Valley Islamic fundamentalists using terror and persecution as a brutalising weapon.

The major aim of this this religious cleansing by Kashmiri Muslims, basically those spearheading Pakistan’s separatist agenda in Kashmir Valley was to alter the demographic ratios in the Kashmir Valley.

The Indian nation-state was and is a mute spectator to this exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from the Kashmir Valley. The Indian nation-state had a vast and extensive security presence and apparatus in the whole of J &K State and also in the Kashmir Valley to stop the exodus of persecuted Kashmiri Hindu Pandits. Why was the helplessness so acute? What were the political reasons that held back the Indian Government’s hand? This has never been satisfactorily explained.

The pity is that even after nearly twenty five years successive Indian Governments have not facilitated the return of the Kashmiri Hindu Pandits to their ancestral homes in the Kashmir Valley. Why has the Kashmir Valley not been bifurcated to provide a separate and secure ‘Homeland’ for the Kashmiri Hindu Pandits? Why have not been the properties left behind by Kashmiri Hindu Pandits not resumed from the Valley usurpers, consolidated and auctioned by the Government and appropriate compensation paid to the original Hindu owners?

What steps have been taken by the Indian Government to ensure that the Kashmiri Hindu Pandits forced out of the Valley are not defrauded by the State Government of their citizenship and electoral rights including their follow-up generations?

Where have been all the NGOs and Civil Rights groups who cry hoarse over Gujarat 2002 events remain deafeningly silent about the atrocities inflicted on Kashmiri Hindu Pandits and continued efforts to make their return to their ancestral homes untenable?

Jammu & Kashmir is an integral part of India and the Special Resolution of the Indian Parliament 1994 makes that issue non-negotiable by any Indian political party including those of the State.

The end answer lies in a bold decision to trifurcate Jammu & Kashmir State into three separate States of Kashmir Valley State, Jammu State and Ladakh State to ensure the disproportionate domination of the existing State by the Valley Muslims which creates political rumblings, accusations of discrimination and political disquiet amongst the other stakeholders of J&K State.