29 July 2025 | New Delhi
On 15th September 2024, the Prime Minister of India, Shri Narendra Modi, stood before a grieving, exiled community and gave voice to their pain — the Kashmiri Pandits, a people torn from their homeland, silenced by terror, and forgotten by time.
With tears in his eyes and conviction in his voice, he paid tribute to Late Tika Lal Taploo, the slain BJP leader and martyr of the Kashmiri Hindu community, murdered in cold blood on 14th September 1989. His remembrance wasn’t just a eulogy — it was a national reckoning. The Prime Minister called out the decades of injustice, the cold silence of policy-makers, and the systemic abandonment of an entire people who once stood as Kashmir’s cultural and intellectual backbone.
He promised justice.
He promised return.
He promised the Tika Lal Taploo Scheme for the Return and Rehabilitation of Kashmiri Pandit Hindus, to be etched into the BJP’s manifesto for the upcoming Jammu and Kashmir Assembly Elections.
And yet, the question that haunts every refugee camp, every exile’s dream, and every shattered home remains:
Where is the action? Where is the Bill? Where is the justice?
In 2022, a historic opportunity stood before Parliament — The Kashmiri Pandits (Recourse, Restitution, Rehabilitation and Resettlement) Bill, introduced by Vivek Tankha, himself a Kashmiri Pandit. A Bill that dared to do what decades of platitudes had not: offer a concrete, legal, and moral framework for full restitution.
It was not about politics. It was about humanity.
It was not just about homes. It was about honor.
It was not just about return. It was about redemption.
And yet — the BJP in Jammu and Kashmir remained silent.
Even as the first Assembly session in five long years since the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019 convened — a session symbolizing the return of democracy — not a single bill was proposed, not a single resolution was passed, and not a single voice inside the House demanded justice for Kashmiri Pandits.
Why?
Why does a government that invokes the pain of Kashmiri Pandits on stage fall mute in Parliament and Assembly alike?
Why does a party that mourns the martyrs hesitate to legislate for the living?
Why do promises thunder from podiums, but evaporate in policy?
Is the genocide of Kashmiri Pandits to be remembered only in speeches, not statutes?
The silence is not just political. It is a betrayal. A betrayal of history, of justice, and of the very soul of Bharat.
We must ask, and ask loudly:
• If not now, when?
• If not this government — the most powerful in decades — then who?
• If not for the children of Sharda Peeth, then for whom?
This is not a partisan plea. This is a national cry.
The story of the Kashmiri Pandits is not an archived tragedy. It is a living wound. And the longer we delay justice, the deeper the scar becomes — not just on Kashmir, but on the conscience of a nation.
We urge every citizen, every policymaker, every seeker of truth:
Remember the words. But demand the action.
Justice for Kashmiri Pandits is not a choice. It is a duty.

support the Bill for Kashmiri Pandits
Satish Mahaldar
Social Activist & National Integration Advocate
Kashmiri Pandit Representative
9819099625