{LONG THREAD} 1. On the toy train from Coonoor to Ooty today, I met a nice German fellow who was visiting India for the first time. He knew nothing about the #Kashmir situation so I filled him in. I told him that because of Mr. Modi & the BJP, many Kashmiri Hindus like myself
2. finally feel SAFE ENOUGH to SPEAK and share the truth of our horrible ethnic cleansing at the hands of Kashmiri Muslims & Islamic terrorists from Pakistan 30 years ago. I asked him to imagine going through a terrible trauma and then being too afraid to speak about it for years
3. and years. I asked him to imagine being driven out of your own homeland and then not being able to talk about it openly for fear of offending another community. Imagine the pain of seeing the story of #Kashmir written about in American media with nary a mention of the
4. indigenous Hindu community that was viciously driven out. Imagine being gaslit and verbally assaulted by your own “woke” countrymen because you dare to call a spade a spade and speak up for yourself and your community. As a psychiatrist & psychotherapist, I actually see this
5. trauma dynamic play out regularly on an individual level, but it’s fascinating to see the same dynamic play out on a larger scale with an entire abused, intimidated community, such as the Kashmiri Hindus. Yes, many (not all) Kashmiri Hindus are well-educated, well-placed
6. professionals (both then and now). Yes, many (not all) have managed to create productive, peaceful, successful lives for themselves despite enduring gruesome violence. This is a testament to their inner strength and resolve and should never be used as a weapon to minimize
7. their suffering. Pain is pain. Trauma is trauma. And Hindu suffering and trauma have been swept under the proverbial rug in India for far too long. Not anymore. Enough is enough. Going back to the friendly German guy on the toy train, to my surprise, he fully empathized with
8. my story and shared how his own Jewish German grandmother was so traumatized by the Holocaust that she never felt safe enough to return to Germany, even though it was eventually okay for her to do so and even after her own children had returned. She desperately wanted to go
9. back to the country of her birth but spent her remaining days in Israel, too terrified to even board a plane headed towards Germany. Unfortunately, she died without ever fulfilling her wish of returning to her native land. Anyway, this is me sharing what happened today on a
10. rickety train going through the beautiful Nilgiri Mountains in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Just a reminder that sharing our stories in the most unexpected of places can sometimes encourage others to share their unexpected stories too.
