Die is cast: Hindu refugee families from Pakistan to vote first time since 1947

SRINAGAR: For the first time since their ancestors migrated from Pakistan to J&K during the 1947 Partition, over 5,000 Hindu families will vote in the ongoing assembly elections.

Forced to live in 39 squalid camps near Jammu for over seven decades because Article 370 on J&K’s special status denied them land and other rights, these refugees are looking forward to the Oct 1 polls as a watershed moment. The right to exercise their franchise follows Article 370’s abrogation in Aug 2019, a move which cleared the way for granting these refugees permanent resident status after decades of political marginalisation.

To add to their political heft, two seats have been reserved for these immigrants in the assembly. The Centre will nominate the two members.

“For us, voting day will be a festival,” said Labhu Ram, president of West Pakistan Refugee Action Committee, adding the families will celebrate the ballot with special dishes like puri-halwa and laddus to express excitement and gratitude for this long-awaited opportunity.

The ancestors of the refugees, numbering around 5,700 and mostly from Scheduled Castes (SCs), have lived so far without many of the rights and privileges enjoyed by residents. “The abrogation brought about a seismic shift in our political status, finally allowing us full participation in the electoral process. Till now, we were living as second-class citizens. This basic democratic right was snatched away from us by those who today claim to safeguard democratic institutions,” said Des Raj, a camp resident, alluding possibly to J&K-based parties.

Some of the refugees were forced to leave areas of Kashmir occupied by Pakistan in 1947, while others came from areas of Sialkot, bordering Jammu. They were provided land in Jammu in 1960s but Article 370 --- which barred outsiders from owning land in J&K -- meant no ownership rights. This prevented them from getting benefits of govt housing schemes or access to bank loans. These refugee families were treated as “non-state subjects” as they not were not residents of the then princely state of J&K during the 1947 Partition.

Ahead of a Supreme Court-stipulated Sept 30 deadline for holding the assembly polls, J&K administration on Aug 2 this year granted the refugees proprietary rights to the “state land” on which their ancestors were settled by the then govt decades ago.

The Hindu refugees’ livelihood and survival problems date back to the 1974 Partition, based on the nation theory, which led to large-scale cross-border migration and mayhem. In those tumultuous days, many Hindu families fled villages in Pakistan’s Sialkot and came to neighbouring Jammu’s Kathua and RS Pura areas. While some stayed back in Jammu, many others left and settled in Punjab, Delhi and other states of India.

The main reason for the influx into Jammu was connectivity: Sialkot was then linked to Jammu by rail and road. Such people also shared cultural and economic affinity with Dogras of Jammu. According to some historians, many of the refugees had relatives in border villages of Jammu, leading them to be welcomed in the initial years of the crisis.

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