Dec 28

Displaced KPs continue to fight – right to return

December 28, 2015
Displaced KPs continue to fight for their right to return, led by the group’s NGOs to choose to return to a “Separate homeland”.

On December 28, 1991, KPs first raised their demand for a “distinct homeland” within the Kashmir Valley, from which they were forcibly evicted in 1989/90, the new homeland to be called “Pannun (our) Kashmir” to be governed by a centrally-administered (Delhi government) territory under the Indian Constitution. December 28 has come to be observed as the ‘Homeland Day’ among this community when the ‘Margdarshan Resolution’ was passed in 1991.

Pannun Kashmir, a civil society movement representing this community has lately promoted this idea through ‘Kashmiri Youth Conference’, with its nodes in many part of the globe, known as the ‘Friends of Pannun Kashmir Overseas’. NGO has mobilized the youth in solidarity in many parts of Europe and ask the community to “engage people and politicians in dialogues even with whom they disagree”.
The NGO has also been voicing its opinion to set up a tribunal to probe into the violence responsible for the eviction of this community, labeled by the group a ‘genocide’ and an ‘ethnic cleansing’ of this community.

Dr. Sudha Rajput
Professor: ‘Refugee and IDP Issues Analysis’
School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason University
Consultant/Trainer (USAID) Bahri University, Khartoum, Sudan
Book Chapter: “Internal Displacement of Kashmiri Pandits” in State, Society, and Minorities in South and Southeast Asia.
World Bank (Ret.)
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www.linkedin.com/in/sudharajput/
Link to the full story
http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/jammu-kashmir/kps-hold-youth-conference-reaffirm-demand-for-homeland/175935.html

srajput2

Dr. Sudha G. Rajput is the author of Internal Displacement and Conflict: The Kashmiri Pandits in Comparative Perspective (Routledge). Her 31-year career at the World Bank touched on multiple aspects of international development, working on thirteen countries of the former Soviet Union. Her co-authored book chapters appear in Scientific Explorations of Cause and Consequence across Social Contexts (Praeger) and in State, Society, and Minorities in Southeast Asia (Lexington Books). She writes for the Forced Migration Review. Her doctoral research has investigated issues of conflict-induced displacement in Kashmir, with a focus on societal and policy reform, leading her efforts to the development of a graduate course, Refugees and IDP Issues, drawing students from fields of conflict resolution, international development, humanitarian assistance and peacebuilding. She is a Senior Researcher at the Refugee Law Initiative, a U.K. based think-tank. She is a Consultant/Trainer for USAID, designing and conducting capacity building workshops in Khartoum, Sudan, promoting cross-border co-existence. As a Professional Lecturer, at George Washington University, she teaches at the Elliott School of International Affairs, where she brings multi-disciplinary approaches to her course on Refugee and Migrant Crisis. She is a trainer for the Forage Center for Peacebuilding Education, where during a 4-day humanitarian assistance simulation, she coaches students on systematic understanding of protracted displacements. She teaches at the University of Maryland Global Campus, delivering the MBA program for the military students. Her interests on post-conflict issues include her past travels to: Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Sudan, and Ukraine. Sudha’s blog on internal displacement can be found at www.internaldisplacement.info. Dr. Rajput lives in Washington, D.C. and can be reached at sudha_rajput@yahoo.com

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