A Hindu-majority village in Kashmir that has ducked ethnic violence, furthered peace

Their tumultuous history of the past 35 years has, perhaps, made it near impossible for most to mention Kashmiri Pandits (KPs) without affixing words such as exodus, targeted killings, transit camps, betrayal and despair. However, for the nearly 2,000-odd Kashmiri Hindus – a majority of them Kashmiri Pandits – of Lagama village in north Kashmir’s Uri town, it is the syncretic ties and bonhomie they share with their Muslim neighbours that far outweigh the unfortunate fate that has befallen the KP community elsewhere in Jammu and Kashmir.

This contrast in perception and lived experiences is not because the Kashmiri Hindus of Lagama are in denial of the excesses and misfortune that has sadly come to define the KP community in public discourse – and also now on celluloid, courtesy filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri’s perverse political propaganda movie The Kashmir Files (2022).

As a matter of fact, a sense of survivor’s guilt is easy to detect in any conversation with a KP in Lagama. But equally palpable is their strong sense of belonging, a yearning for normalcy, the camaraderie they share with the village’s Muslims – and also their swiftly eroding faith in a political class that has exploited the over three decades of persecution of the KPs for electoral gains without actually doing anything to improve their lot.

Situated barely 4 kilometres from the Indo-Pak Line of Control (LoC), Lagama, unlike the many bustling touristy hamlets of Kashmir, may not figure in any popular discourse on the ‘must see places’ in the Valley. For many, the only distinguishing features of Lagama are, perhaps, its historic walnut market or the fact that the Karwan-e-Aman bus service between Srinagar and Muzaffarabad in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) – disbanded since the 2019 Pulwama terror attack – passed through here. These aside, life in Lagama is quiet, visibly mundane, even blasé despite scenic views of the Pir Panjal range that Lagama offers or the gushing waters of the Jhelum river that flows through the village.

Yet, there’s one historical fact that differentiates Lagama from other parts of Kashmir – or even Jammu – that the village’s obscurity, unfortunately, keeps shrouded from cacophonic socio-political commentaries on J&K.

Despite its proximity to the LoC, its location within the town of Uri (now remembered largely for the 2016 attack by Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorists at the Indian Army’s brigade headquarters that left 19 soldiers dead) and being situated along the militarily strategic Srinagar-Muzaffarabad Road in the otherwise restive Baramulla district, Lagama has not witnessed a single incident of targeted killing of KPs by militants. This image of safety and calm is in sharp contrast to the Baramulla town, situated some 45 kilometres from Lagama, which has faced the brunt of repeated waves of terror attacks, targeted killings and migration of the KP community.

Targeted killing of Kashmiri Hindus, particularly the KPs, first became commonplace in the Kashmir Valley back in the late 1980s. Subsequently, threats by Pakistani terror groups as well as home-grown militants of the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front of wide-scale ethnic cleansing had triggered a mass exodus of KPs from Kashmir’s Shopian, Tral, Anantnag, Budgam and Srinagar’s downtown areas to Jammu and elsewhere in the country. Over the past year, despite the Centre’s tall claims of having wiped out terrorism in Kashmir with the abrogation of Article 370, such killings have begun afresh – not only within Muslim-majority Kashmir but also in the Hindu-dominated parts of Jammu.

“Approximately 2,500 families have migrated since the 1990s from other parts of Baramulla district such as the main Baramulla town, Khwaja Bagh, Azad Gunj, Old town and other areas,” said Sanjay Tickoo, president of Kashmiri Pandit Sangharsh Samiti (KPSS), the largest Kashmiri Pandit group in J&K.

Yet, Lagama, with its 350-odd Kashmiri Hindu households and some 30 Muslim families, has neither witnessed any targeted killing of KPs nor an exodus of the community away from the village. There may be no clear or ready explanations for what most may see as an anomaly – though undoubtedly a happy one – but it is something that the residents of Lagama are vociferously proud of and forever willing to flaunt.

Naresh Kumar (55), a shopkeeper at the Lagama Market, says the village’s Kashmiri Hindus and Muslims have always shared friendly, almost familial, bonds and those who “want to disrupt peace between the two communities” or portray Kashmir’s Muslims as the villains of the tragedy that befell the KP community “must learn from Lagama”.

Kumar, whose parents served in government jobs in volatile areas such as Sopore and Handwara, told The Federal that though their family had “never been harassed by Muslims” anywhere in the Valley, Lagama had a special place because the strong bond that the two communities shared ensured safety of the KPs living in the village. “We (the KPs and Muslims) always stand by each other. We have never been asked to leave nor have we ever been threatened by anyone… We live in peace; whether it is a mourning or a marriage ceremony, we are always there for each other,” Kumar said.

Interestingly, Agnihotri’s The Kashmir Files has been a recurring topic of discussion in Lagama ever since its theatrical release and subsequent blockbuster performance at the box office last year but the filmmaker won’t find any reason to cheer about this.

Ahmad Din Budoo, a 67-year-old resident of Lagama believes that at a time when anyone interested in peace in Kashmir should be channelizing all efforts at healings the wounds of the past, movies like The Kashmir Files only trigger further disharmony. Budoo believes now that Agnihotri has made The Kashmir Files and shown one side of an already dominant, albeit skewed and distorted narrative, he should “make a film on Lagama to show the other, and equally important, truth,” of continuing brotherhood and a strong sense of fraternity between the KPs and the Muslims of the Valley.

At a grocery shop in Pathang, a sub-village within Lagama, 74-year-old Munshi Ram Sharma, a Kashmiri Pandit, was also discussing Agnihotri’s movie with his friends Vinod Kumar and Irshad Ahmad, also the shop’s owner, when this reporter arrived. The shop has been a permanent adda for Munshi Ram ever since he retired from a government job and he is here every day “to discuss a wide range of topics” with his friends. With a firm tone that brooked no counterview, Munshi Ram said, “such films only breed hatred, and communal disharmony… they should be avoided by all.”

Vinod and Ahmad instantly agree with their friend. “We love our Muslim brothers and they love us,” said Vinod before Ahmad let out an endearing trivia that best explained his friends’ views. Unlike Munshi Ram and Vinod, who both live in Pathang, Ahmad resides in a village seven kilometres away called Garkote. Pathang has a higher number of Hindus than Garkote, said Ahmad, explaining that he decided to construct his shop in Pathang because the area did not have a proper market and he “wanted to serve my Hindu friends”.

Ahmad believes that though a combination of factors could be credited for the safety of KPs in Lagama, the first and foremost reason is “the brotherhood between Hindus and Muslims”, which is then complimented by the fact that local Kashmiri Hindus who have lived in the villages for decades are now anchored here because “they have set up their shops and businesses and can’t just abandon them”. The village is also just a kilometre away from the Uri police station while the Army garrison – 12 Infantry Brigade – also lies in close proximity, ensuring a sizeable deployment of security personnel in and around Lagama at all times, said Ahmad.

For Madan Lal (70), another retired government employee who now runs a shop in Lagama, it is the village’s Muslims who have made the place a safe haven for Hindus. Referring to incidents of targeted killing of KPs elsewhere in the Valley and the exodus of the community from these places to Jammu and other cities, Lal said Lagama had “always been peaceful for non-Muslims… that’s what made me marry my daughters and sons locally and what made us stay here; we didn’t migrate to Jammu”.

These expressions of bonhomie and gratitude aren’t confined to the Kashmiri Hindus of Lagama. In fact, Hindus and the Muslims of the village form a mutual admiration society. Just as Ahmad claims he opened his shop in a Hindu-dominated village because of the love and affection he received from his Hindu friends, Sajjad Ahmad Mangral, a shopkeeper in Lagama, credits the local Hindus with “always coming to our rescue in our time of need”.

Recalling a time when the local Muslims wanted to build a mosque but lacked the required funds, Mangral told The Federal, “many Hindus contributed the money for the mosque’s construction… they even pay for other religious ceremonies whenever we need financial support.”

Between Pathang, Bandi, Dyar and Nagri – the four sub-villages that collectively form Lagama – there are now seven temples and one mosque. Lagama residents say they freely hop between the different places of worship, irrespective of the faith they represent, to partake in festivities and celebrations, with no one ever questioning the presence of ‘the other’.

The reasons for discontent among Lagama residents, say locals, are not communal or their own safety – we have each other to ensure that, is the common refrain – but are directed at the political and administrative brass. If KPs who were forced to migrate from other parts of the Valley to Jammu, many of whom continue to live in resettlement/refugee/transit camps, complain of a lack of financial and social security despite three decades of populist promises from successive governments, the situation of the community in Lagama isn’t very different.

Ravish Kumar (23), who graduated from the Government Degree College in Uri some years ago, told The Federal that the government “hadn’t kept any job reservation or job criteria” for accommodating the steadily increasing numbers of unemployed KPs. Sahil Sharma, a college student from Lagama echoed similar views and rued that though Kashmiri Pandits who had fled from other parts of the Valley got “some benefits from the government”, those like him who stayed back were “left to fend for themselves”. Sahil said that on one hand the current government had been claiming that it was doing a lot to resettle displaced KPs back in the Valley, on the other it had nothing to incentivise or ameliorate the condition to Kashmiri Hindus and KPs who never left their native villages.

Lack of jobs aside, locals in Lagama have been struggling to even get access to basic civic amenities such as regular water supply; a clear point of divergence from the Prime Minister’s repeated claims of ensuring “abhoothpurv vikas” (unprecedented progress) across J&K.

“We get water for just three days in a week,” said Munshi Ram, adding that the village also lacks other civic infrastructure like roads, streetlights or even a dispensary. “We have a local sub-district hospital (SDH) in Uri but it lacks basic facilities and so we have to travel either to Baramulla or to Srinagar for even simple health checks,” he said while claiming that these problems had been repeatedly brought to the local councillor and chairman of the Uri Municipal Committee “but nothing has been done so far.”