Kashmir’s Pain and Promise Reflected in ‘Kashmir Nativity Regained’, Says LG Manoj Sinha The Lieutenant Governor of Jammu & Kashmir, Shri Manoj Sinha launched the book ‘Kashmir Nativity Regained’ written by Ashok K Kaul and quoted Mirza Ghalib: हज़ारों ख्वाइशें ऐसी की हर ख्वाइश में दम निकले बहुत निकले मेरे अरमान लेकिन फिर भी कम निकले मोहब्बत में नहीं है फर्क जीने और मरने का उसी को देख कर जीते हैं जिस काफिर में दम निकले The Vice Chancellor told about Kaul Saheb, he is also a Banarasi, our acquaintance with him is roughly about fifty years old. I congratulate him very much on the formal release of his book ‘Kashmir Nativity Regained’. LG said. And I wish this book becomes a bestseller. and reaches not only the country but the world. I came here considering the release of this book not as a formal event but as a moral obligation, he added. When many people exposed the atrocities and suffering of Kashmiri Pandits, there was an ecosystem whose elements had the audacity to call it propaganda. I believe that the massacre of Kashmiri Pandits which was termed as propaganda means they were massacred again, LG spoke. I am happy that today many people of the new generation of Kashmir Valley are accepting this truth. Seen from that perspective, Kaul Saheb’s book is not just a literary work, but it is a meaningful attempt to break that silence that has been looming over our collective consciousness for decades. I believe that before a house gets destroyed, a person’s mind gets destroyed. And one of the greatest troubles in the world is to become a stranger on your own land. And I think this is what happened in Kashmir. The pain of the killing of Kashmiri Pandits by terrorists in 1997 is so deep that even the balm of time will not be able to heal it. It was not easy for lakhs of Kashmiri Pandits to say goodbye to their gardens and fields. But a storm of fear and terror separated them from their own land. Kashmiri Pandit families fled their villages in the dead of night after receiving warnings from terrorists. Most of them came to Jammu, but their displacement remained largely untold except in a few news reports for decades. And that song remained buried in their hearts. Even today, sometimes I feel that that song emerges and dies in the breath of the Kashmiri Pandit community. In 2019, when the Honourable Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi abolished Article 370 and re-integrated Jammu and Kashmir, the pain burning in the hearts of millions got some relief. That day, many people remembered the call of their homes left behind, the wait for their soil and that courtyard. And they felt a belief that perhaps the new generation could touch those roots without fear. These hopes are also reflected in ‘Kashmir Nativity Regained’. Anyone who betrays the country and supports terrorists must be punished in such a way that their next seven generations will remember it, LG sternly added. Such citizens of Jammu and Kashmir should be given government jobs, who were brutally killed by Pakistan-backed terrorists. They do not belong to any one religion, they are Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs and a large number of people, about 500, have been given jobs. It is my wish and also my prayer to Mata Vaishno Devi that this book of Kaul Saheb should not only be read but the hidden feelings in the words of this book should be heard and felt and inspired by it, prayers should be made in the direction of how justice can be achieved, said the Lieutenant Governor of Jammu & Kashmir, Shri Manoj Sinha.
