There was an old man I knew in 1990. In exile in Jammu he became senile and kept shouting: take me to Mattan naag (spring), take me to Mattan spring (near his home) +
+ His distraught son finally took him to Chinaur, a deserted area on the outskirts of Jammu where he was made to believe that they had returned to Mattan in Kashmir Valley, but the spring had dried up. He died a few months later +
That is the story of the ‘privileged elites’ of the Valley - abused before exodus by insults such as “Batni’e, Batni’e dodyay mass” (Pandit lady, Pandit lady, may your hair catch fire), in 1990 dragged out of homes, offices, buses and shot dead, terrified, brutalised +
+ In exile, we lost everything. Lived in cowsheds, slept on newspaper sheets, then on blankets donated by the BJP. Our elders starved themselves, but sent younger ones to school. In first few years, hundreds of elderly people died of sunstrokes, snakebites, suicides in canal +
+ But we stood up gradually. We had not parted with our books, our ancient hymns and texts. Our heads kept rolling, but we did not let go of our Gods +
+ Now, you can support ‘Azadi’, no problem. You can eulogise Jamaati headmasters and their terrorist sons, no problem. But stop spreading lies about Kashmiri Hindus. If you do, we will take you down, one by one. +
+ You call us rightwing, troll, hatemonger, paranoid - we don’t give a fig. We will take you down. Stop spreading lies about us, stop justifying our ethnic cleansing.
