Book Review: 'Our Moon Has Blood Clots: The exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits'

Book: Our Moon Has Blood Clots: The exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits
Author: Rahul Pandita
Publisher: Random House
Price: Rs499
Pages: 253

In hindsight, there were two reasons that the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits didn't seep into public awareness. First, it occurred in the era just before television news turned hyper and was thus blotted out. Though it was reported by the print media, Indian newspapers focused more on the rise of militancy backed by Pakistan since Kashmiri militancy started just as Khalistani militancy died. But the bigger, and more insidious problem, was the pervasive blindness of the so-called secular and liberal commentators and journalists. It was not helped by how agencies, many of them claiming to be international, focused on human rights abuses of Kashmiris by Indian security forces. The reports of the times speak volumes of the power of the western media and their areas of concern -- security forces' excesses -- and unfortunately, these became the Indian media's concern too, our so-called independence be damned.

For years, the plight of the Kashmiri Pandits has been an almost forgotten story. Occasionally, a story would appear about a Kashmiri Pandit killed in the Valley or about the horrendous conditions of Pandit refugees but since they moved to another part of India, they weren't deemed as newsworthy as refugees from places like Jaffna, Afghanistan and Somalia.

As a teenager, Rahul Pandita was a Kashmiri refugee. Today, he's an award winning journalist whose liberal and secular credentials can't be doubted (if the same book had been written by someone who supported the RSS, it would probably be far less credible) and his book throws light on how the Kashmir Valley came in the grip of militants who swore by a Talibanic code as well as the plight of the refugees as they fled to Jammu.

Our Moon Has Blood Clots makes for difficult reading. Not only did the refugees suffer from government neglect, even their religious kindred in Jammu cared little for them and exploited them. Entire families, with five or six members, were put up in small rooms. There was no privacy, rents were exorbitant and water was rationed.

In this moment of despair, extended families and other Kashmiri Pandits came to the fore; not the government, not Indian society at large, and not other Hindus who did not hesitate to use Pandits being forced out to vilify the Kashmiri militants.

Though Pandita's book doesn't discuss this, the reason the Pandits' story began to resonate around the world in the recent was was that, post-9/11, the light began to shine of the excesses of Islamic militancy. Soon the stories of how Pandits were driven out emerged from the shadows and Pandita's book is a welcome addition to the growing literature of the Valley's ethnic cleansing, which happened before that phrase became popular in the Balkans.

The first part of the book, where Pandita waxes nostalgically about how beautiful his valley was, is a bit too saccharine sweet. One gets the feeling that he too has fallen in the trap of the exiled, who forever believe that everything was perfect before they were driven out. But given that Pandita writes from his heart, this blemish should be ignored.

What should not be ignored is the fact that while the media and others have (rightly) focused on human rights abuses of the Kashmiri Muslims, the tragedy was that the media and commentators failed to highlight the plight of the Kashmiri Pandits when they were being killed and driven out by the thousands. Let us also be clear: if today there is attention being paid to the excesses of the militants, it has more to do a post-9/11 worldview than any sense of enlightenment. However, at least it opens us up to stories like Pandita's.