Kashmiri Pandit Diaspora & The KOA
Brij Krishen Saraf, San Jose,
California
[An address delivered the KOA members at Fremont, California]
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Today we are all gathered here to discuss an
age-old dilemma.
How do we hold on to our past while marching to the drums of the future ?
How do we make our young aware of our rich cultural heritage and their roots
while living in an alien world ?
How do we foster a sense of pride in our past and belonging, in our community
while living in a materialistic and ever changing culture where the old is
tossed aside and supplanted by equally transient substitutes ?
History bears out that the Kashmiri Pandit community has been repeatedly
forced into exodus from our native land and dispersed throughout India.
From the remnants of that community in the valley we grew back into a small
well-knit community. The present Diaspora is very disturbing and ominous.
We have now been effectively uprooted, deprived of our personal space and oxygen
that sustained our culture heritage and customs, Now we find ourselves spread
thin throughout the world and in imminent danger of finding our cultural
moorings snapped and drifting rudderless.
Dark clouds hang over our community putting a question mark over its survival
in an unfeeling world. However, there is a silver lining around this
cloud, which we hope will ensure that our conu-nunity lives and grows.
This lining is that of our culture and heritage, which we received as a rich
legacy from our forefathers. The height of their spiritual and
intellectual thought, depth of their scholarship and wisdom and the breadth of
their vision are all well embedded in the cultural treasure bequeathed to us.
Let us look at the Jews who suffered persecution over centuries culminating
in Holocaust and a colossal exodus. What kept the community from going
extinct were their very strong cultural bond and their fierce, almost fanatical
adherence to the modes and mores, religious and social traditions, and
practices. Whether Jews live in faraway Kerala in India or in any European
or American cities, they all observe the same rituals and practices. They
did not lose their faith in their cultural strength and it stood them in good
stead and kept them bound together through their survival struggle into a
successful emergence as a power to reckon with.
Are Kashmiri Pandits any different ? No ! We too have faced and are facing .
persecution and deprivation. What should hold us together is our strong,
unbreakable chain of our culture. While voices are being raised in
different fora for our political and physical rehabilitation which will be a
long and protracted struggle, KOA has today rightly raised a wake-up call to
launch a campaign urging promotion, preservation and propagation of our culture
and heritage. Today we are here to present some ideas to see how best we
can achieve these objectives. I have a few thoughts and ideas to share
with you.
1) Observe and celebrate our religious festivals together and with due
reverence. These should not be social occasions merely for Khana Peena,
chit-chat, breast-beating, griping, and exchanging hard-luck stories about our
fate. In these functions we should have brief and interesting talks about
our culture and heritage. These talks should be designed to disseminate
the wisdom of our illustrious ancestors like Lal Ded, Roopa Bhavani, Amimal,
Master Zind Kaul, Paramanand, Swami Laxman joo to name only a few from our
galaxy of thinkers and philosophers. However, since we are targeting the
younger generation who are impatient and want concrete guidance and advice,
these talks should be presented in a language and style which is similar to what
they are used to in their daily interaction. This is very important in
order to engender and sustain their interest in connecting them seamlessly to
their cultural roots.
2) We should start a regular magazine maybe monthly / bimonthly written in a
modem language and style. Knowledgeable members of the community should
write the articles about our ethos and edited and formatted by younger members
of the community who are aware of the style which will engage the eye, mind and
spirit of the young readers. We have a treasure trove of writings of
eminent thinkers of the past from which we can draw substance for these
presentations. The presentations have to avoid the rather ponderous and
verbose style that will turn off the young readers.
3) Books on our culture and heritage available back home, should be imported
by KOA and sold to the community members. It would be excellent if some
sort of libraries were setup where these books including our great Indian epics
like Ramayana, Mahabharata and Gita would be shared among the members.
Study of such books and articles will go a long way in developing cultural
awareness among our members and our growing children. For small children,
we should get picture books on religious stories of epics. Parents have to
be urged by KOA to find time to be close to their kids telling them bedtime
stories from these picture books. You may scoff at this idea but picture
books have a very healthy and direct impact on the child as pictures immediately
engage the eye, mind and the spirit. The lessons drawn from these stories
will register on the child and help in developing healthy attitudes like belief
ingod, discipline, respect towards elders, and a sense of community. This
is a small price to pay for priceless peace of mind and satisfaction of seeing
kids grow well-rooted and well-groomed into responsible young men and women to
carry on our identity.
4) KOA should give serious consideration to having a stronger representation
of women in their ranks and decision making. Women by nature are more
community oriented and involved in the welfare and development of their family.
I believe there should be a 50% representation of women in the office bearers of
the organization and as a matter of fact women should be encouraged to get the
top post in the organization. Women traditionally have the ability to put
their egos aside for the common good of the community instead of trying to butt
heads in buttressing fragile egos. This principle is being followed even
in the top US and even Indian corporations. Research is beginning to show
that women may be better managers @han men.
5) KOA should set up a world wide Congress of Kashmiri Pandits where
intellectuals of the community present talks and hold seminars on topics which
are of relevance to the Kashmiri community. These talks can be on wide
ranging subjects that could stretch from Shaivism to discussing the unfortunate
upsurge of divorce in the community. We can provide some sort of mechanism
whereby counseling could be made available to troubled families and couples in
an attempt to resolve estrangements.
6) Language is the cement that binds a people together. We notice that
Kashmiris unlike other Indian communities shy away from use of their own
language. The result is that they and their children have become only
English speaking. This has resulted in their getting alienated from their
own people . When they go back to India for vacations they cannot communicate
with their cousins and most importantly the elders of the community. They
feel left out, bored and basically they tune out and eventually lose interest in
anything connected to the old country. I have seen Gujrati people who have
immigrated to Kenya, Uganda or even the USA several generations back but their
present day children besides speaking English and the local language speak and
read their mother tongue fluently. If they can do it, so can we. KOA
comes into the picture by emphasizing this need in the KP families by constantly
urging the members to speak at home in their mother tongue Kashmiri and during
our social meetings. However, several young families do not speak Kashmiri
fluently. In these cases Hindi is the next best substitute. KOA
should emphasize the threelanguage formula. Our children should be taught
to speak the mother tongue Kashmiri, the national language, Hindi, and the world
language of English. We just need to sustain a living and vibrant
language, an easy task and I know we can do it. This will throw open the
window to our past and our wonderful heritage to the children so that they will
get a clear understanding of their cultural background and roots. This
will help develop their personality, outlook and enable them to acquire,
maintain and proudly wear the badge of their unique identity while living next
to people of other cultures.
7) This point is more specific to the West Coast. We find an increasing
number of Kashmiris is coming to live and work in California. The West
Coast KOA has done a very commendable job of creating a community environment.
However, West Coast KOA needs to increase the number of community activities
including camping, picnicking, hiking trips, etc. which involve children.
8) Next I would like to raise the most important of all questions, namely
marriage. Scattered as we are, parents are facing a vexing problem of
finding appropriate matches for their sons and daughters. Since, we have
left the city of seven bridges and spread out to seven continents the search for
life partners has become very difficult. KOA can facilitate this process
by setting up a database of eligible boys and girls with detailed information
about them and a mechanism whereby the parents and the boy and girl can easily
meet and interact. There is no shame in putting the word out in the media
when the time for marriage of our children looms. We should consider this
as a perfectly honorable and dignified method of search in the absence of "Manzumyors"
of the old country. This will help in consolidating our community and
keeping our limited genetic pool intact as far as possible.
Finally, I must sum up and say that although the work on preservation,
promotion and propagation of our unique culture appears daunting but with all of
us standing firmly behind KOA we can shoulder this bag of responsibility.
This task is doable, objectives achievable and dreams about bright future
realizable. This package of our cultural values from our forefathers has
to be received, respected, nourished and then passed on to the next generation.
This way we will not only survive but thrive too. What better way of
expressing it than quoting a line from Kahlil Gibran who said, "We will
give it unto our children, they, unto their children and it shall not
perish".
Thank you all. God bless our community. God bless India.
God Bless USA where we have opportunities to live and work with dignity.
Thank you.
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