The metaphorical Ghost of Kashmiri Pandits portrayed in Aditya Dhar’s recently released film on Netflix—Baramulla—represents the enduring historical memory, collective trauma, and unresolved quest for justice that continues to affect the entire Kashmiri Pandit community uprooted and hounded out in 1989-90 from the Kashmir Valley. This haunting is not supernatural, but a potent, persistent moral and psychological presence of Kashmiri Pandits in the socio-political landscape of the region, challenging the conscience of those who maintained corpse silence and the state that failed to protect its minuscule minority. The ghost is a metaphor for the enduring consequences of the ethnic cleansing, a silent but powerful reminder of a past many would prefer to forget, but it manifests in several ways.
For the displaced Kashmiri Pandits, memory of the threats, targeted killings, massacres, deceit, rapes followed by forced exodus remains a deeply ingrained trans-generational trauma. This shared suffering serves as a constant, haunting narrative in our literature and oral histories, ensuring the world does not forget the events of 1989-90 and the subsequent massacres. For those who were part of the majority community at the time—whether actively participating in the hounding or passively looking away—the ghost represents a moral failure. The events of the exodus fundamentally challenged the notion of Kashmiriyat and the secular fabric of the region, forcing a reckoning with the breakdown of centuries-old amicable relations. The silence of the secularists at the time is a significant aspect of this moral lapse and collapse.
At the time of genocide and exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from the Valley in 1989-90, the entire ecosystem well entrenched in the country placed an effective lid on the realities of the colossal politico-military slip in Kashmir. We, the genocide victim Kashmiri Hindu refugees, were not only traumatized, wounded, injured, and in shock, but remained busy in trying to survive in those inhospitable subtropical environments and in hot and cruel roads and lanes of North India.
By the time, two decades later, we—the microscopic Kashmiri Hindu minority in a cruel and greedy electoral polity of this mobocracy—came out of the trauma and started stabilizing our existence, the ecosystem had already labeled us the Kashmiri Hindu Migrants. This nomenclature was so cleverly and cunningly crafted in connivance with those responsible for our exodus that it got stuck and the great but unaware people of this country just could not believe in the truth of our genocide, our exile, our blocked return, and our denied return to our homeland.
Our fiscal and social stabilization also added to our return rehabilitation woes as people generally perceived our loss in terms of finances and other materials only, which seemingly was not visible now—the loss of our culture, our civilizational continuity, our land, our home, our hearth, our spatial loss, loss of our pilgrimages, our temples and shrines, our sacred mountain peaks, our holy mountain caves and lakes, and ponds, our sacred springs, our mother tongue, our language literature—in fact our very basic existence as a distinct group, a distinct community, our traditions, our inheritances.
And the intangibles which common people of this vast country can neither see nor understand—herein lies our tragedy. The intellectual class of this country, in my humble opinion, is shallow in their comprehension capabilities and in their understanding. Our political class is visionless and bogged down by the electoral numbers that we clearly do not have. Our media is just sensation driven and we make news for them only when we are target hit in Kashmir, and our judiciary is driven by the ecosystem.
A crucial element of this haunting is the lack of justice. The fact that not a single person has been convicted for the killings and atrocities committed against the Pandits means the issue remains unresolved. This legal and judicial impunity allows the ghost to linger, a persistent demand for accountability that has yet to be met. The Supreme Court of India has dismissed multiple petitions seeking the reopening of cases and a Special Investigation Team (SIT) probe into the killings and exodus of Kashmiri Pandits in the 1990s, primarily citing the long delay of over 27 years, which makes the collection of evidence difficult.
In 2017, a bench led by then Chief Justice J.S. Khehar and Justice D.Y. Chandrachud dismissed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by the NGO Roots in Kashmir on the grounds that more than 27 years had passed since the incidents, and no fruitful purpose would emerge, as evidence is unlikely to be available at this late juncture. The Court also questioned the delay in filing the petition. Subsequent to that, a review petition filed in 2017 and curative petition filed in 2022 were also dismissed.
The absence of the Pandits has not brought peace to the Valley—instead, it has left a void that affects everyone. Kashmir lost a vital part of its multi-cultural identity with the exodus of the Pandits. The hope that the perpetrators would relish the valley all by themselves proved illusory, as the region became mired in deeper conflict and militarization. The unresolved history creates a psychological burden on contemporary society of Kashmir. As a columnist noted: Our ghosts live within us, and we cannot rid ourselves of them until justice is served. This is evident in the ongoing debates and divergent narratives surrounding the exodus.
The tragedy is often used as a political instrument, further complicating the path to justice being served. The memory serves as a reminder of the fragility of minority rights in times of conflict and the failure of state institutions to provide security to all its citizens equally. This haunting will persist, in the narratives of the displaced and in the collective consciousness of those who remained quiet, until a genuine process of acknowledgment, justice, and reconciliation allows the memory of the past to find peace and a sustainable path for the return of the community is carved.
The Ghost of Kashmiri Pandits is the enduring conscience of a society grappling with a dark chapter in its history. It is a powerful metaphor for the justice denied, the home lost, and the cultural void left behind. The Ghost represents helplessness, hopelessness of exiled Kashmiri Pandit Community, which metaphorically sees the only hope now—divine intervention, The Ghost.
