The abrogation of Article 370 was projected as a historic corrective, a bold step meant to end decades of injustice, separatism, and discrimination. For the nation, it symbolized integration, constitutional equality, and the promise of a new beginning for Jammu and Kashmir. But for the Kashmiri Pandits who have lived in forced exile for more than three and a half decades, a painful and unavoidable question remains unanswered: has this decision truly benefited the original inhabitants of Kashmir who were brutally uprooted, hounded out, and reduced to refugees in their own country?
The honest answer, even today, is deeply disturbing.
Despite the constitutional change, the lived reality of displaced Kashmiri Pandits remains unchanged. They are still in exile. Their land, orchards, houses, shops, and temples remain occupied, encroached upon, or lost under distress sales forced by terror, fear, and helplessness. No effective mechanism has been created for the restoration of their immovable properties. No time-bound legal framework exists to reverse the historic wrongs inflicted upon them. Justice, like before, remains postponed indefinitely.
Worse still, the ecosystem in Kashmir continues to be dominated by the very political forces, mindset, and administrative structures that presided over the destruction of Kashmir and the ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Pandits. Power has once again gravitated towards those who either remained silent spectators or active beneficiaries when Pandits were killed, their women threatened, their houses looted and burned, and their community erased from the Valley. A change in constitutional status has not translated into a change of conscience.

There has been no credible commission of inquiry into the targeted killings, massacres, and selective murders of Kashmiri Pandits. No accountability has been fixed. No perpetrators have been punished. The blood of thousands cries out for justice, but the system remains mute. Files gather dust, memories fade deliberately, and the victims are expected to move on without truth, without closure, and without dignity.

The injustice did not end with the forced displacement. Hundreds of Kashmiri Pandit government employees were compelled to flee for their lives, and in the process, their jobs were unlawfully snatched away. These posts,numbering well over a thousand,were never restored to their rightful owners, nor were they refilled by their kith and kin or by deserving youth from the Kashmiri Pandit community. Even today, there is no comprehensive or humane policy to restore these jobs, compensate shattered careers, or even formally acknowledge the grave institutional discrimination inflicted upon these victims.
The only partial and inadequate response came years later in the form of about five thousand temporary jobs provided under the Prime Minister’s Package by the Central Government, along with related funds and expenditures. Shockingly, even within this limited relief, nearly one thousand posts were filled by individuals from other communities, further deepening the sense of injustice and exclusion among the victimized Kashmiri Pandits.
Laws and administrative mechanisms that should have protected the victims instead became instruments of silence, delay, and neglect. Rather than delivering justice, they legitimized discrimination and prolonged suffering.
To add insult to injury, more than fifteen hundred posts vacated by displaced Kashmiri Pandit employees were swiftly filled by successive NC and PDP governments, largely accommodating their own kith and kin, party workers, supporters, and sympathizers. This was done without any moral hesitation, legal accountability, or concern for the original rightful claimants.
Such actions stand as a stark reminder that the dispossession of Kashmiri Pandits was not merely an outcome of violence and terror, but also a consequence of sustained institutional apathy and political betrayal that continues even today

What hurts the most is the culture of lip service that has replaced genuine intent. Symbolic statements, hollow assurances, selective meetings, and recycled promises have become fashionable. On paper, concern is expressed; on the ground, nothing moves. The suffering of Kashmiri Pandits is often reduced to a ceremonial reference, invoked when convenient and forgotten when action is required. This is not reconciliation; it is moral evasion.
A dignified, secure, and permanent return of Kashmiri Pandits to the Valley remains a distant dream. There is no concrete roadmap, no guaranteed security architecture, no political will to ensure a homeland within the homeland where they can live without fear. Without justice, without restitution, and without accountability, return becomes not rehabilitation but re-victimization.
The abrogation of Article 370 could have been a turning point for the Kashmiri Pandits. It could have restored their rights, reversed illegal land grabs, ensured justice for their dead, and reaffirmed their rightful place in Kashmir. Sadly, for the community still living in exile, it has so far remained an incomplete promise.
History will judge not the announcement of decisions, but their impact on the most wronged. Until the Kashmiri Pandits are restored, rehabilitated, and respected as equal stakeholders in Kashmir, every claim of normalcy will ring hollow. Justice delayed for this community is justice denied, and silence in the face of such injustice is nothing but complicity.
The Kashmiri Pandits do not seek charity. They seek justice, dignity, and the restoration of what was violently snatched from them. Anything less is mere lip service, and lip service cannot heal a civilization that was deliberately wounded.

      SEVAK 

[ Kundan Kashmiri]
Civil society activist, Kashmir Watcher, Freelancer & President KPC
Mobile No 8802167855