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Down memory lane in Kashmir

By Shujaat Bukhari

Congress supporters performing a Kashmiri dance during the party president, Sonia Gandhi's election rally in Srinagar on Thursday. — Photo: Nissar Ahmad

SRINAGAR SEPT. 19. The Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, today struck an emotional chord at her first-ever public meeting in Kashmir. Touching on the Nehru-Gandhi family's roots in Kashmir, she said she was agonised over the turmoil engulfing the valley.

``Kashmir ke saath hamara rishta bahut gehra hai. Hamarey buzarg yehan se gaye hain,'' (we have deep relations with Kashmir and our ancestors had migrated from here) she opened her written speech with these words.

Stressing that her family had not snapped its links with Kashmir, Ms. Gandhi said, "in our house, we still go by the Kashmiri traditions and celebrate festivals. That is why I see a homely relation with this place.''

Recalling her association with the valley, Ms. Gandhi said: "My memory goes back to the days when I used to come here with my husband and children." There was a lot of difference between the Kashmir of those days and of today.

Ms. Gandhi said she was not only aware of the miseries the Kashmiris had gone through but also "I feel it as my mother-in-law, Indira Gandhi, and husband, Rajiv Gandhi, were also victims of violence.'' Here, innocent people had been killed, thousands orphaned and hundreds of women had lost their support.

The great tradition of secularism in Kashmir was seen as an unparalleled example and it had made the history of India glittering. The place, which was referred to as `paradise on earth', was now burning and the people who earned their livelihood by tourism were jobless. This situation could not go on forever. "This needs to be changed,'' she said, complimenting the people for defying militants and the external interference by participating in the first phase of elections so bravely.

Criticising the Delhi and the Srinagar Governments for not coming to the rescue of the Kashmiris, Ms. Gandhi said her party would certainly try to address the problems here. She talked of relief to the victims of violence and said the displaced Kashmiri Pandits would have to return to their homeland.

``A government circular will not get them back but they should feel that you want them here,'' she said.

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• Down memory lane in Kashmir
• Campaign for second phase of polls hotting up
• Parties woo Pandits in camps
• EC reviews poll arrangements

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