Balidan Diwas 2026: The Kashmiri Pandit Struggle Through Centuries

A Saga of Resistance, Suffering and Supreme Sacrifice

Former MLC GL Raina

Every year, Kashmiri Hindus observe Balidan Diwas to remember those who sacrificed their lives for the nation, Dharma and the survival of their community. The day is associated with the martyrdom of Pandit Tika Lal Taploo, one of the tallest political leaders of Kashmiri Hindus before the mass displacement, who was assassinated in broad daylight outside his residence in Srinagar in September 1989.
But the assassination of Tika Lal Taploo was not the beginning of the Kashmiri Pandit struggle for survival. It was the beginning of its most tragic and devastating chapter.
The struggle is centuries old. What changed in 1989 was its form: a community that had endured successive waves of persecution, discrimination and political marginalisation was ultimately driven from its ancestral homeland in independent, democratic and secular India.
The story of Kashmiri Hindus, therefore, cannot be reduced either to the events of 1989–90 or to the convenient political narratives that seek to explain away their displacement. It is a much longer saga of survival, resistance, accommodation and sacrifice.
A history of survival
Before 1819, under Mughal and Afghan rule, persecution of Kashmiri Hindus was often imposed from above by the ruling authorities. Discriminatory taxation, forced conversions, destruction of property and episodes of mass violence form part of the historical memory and record of those centuries. Kashmir’s political history during the Mughal and Afghan periods was also marked by intense sectarian conflict, particularly between Shia and Sunni communities.
Yet through these difficult centuries, Kashmiri Hindus survived. They repeatedly rebuilt their lives, preserved their traditions and continued to contribute to Kashmir’s intellectual and cultural life. Their survival itself was an act of resistance. The nature of the challenge changed dramatically in the twentieth century.
1931 and the transformation of Kashmir’s politics
The upheavals of 1931 marked a decisive turning point in Kashmir’s modern political history. Communal violence during that period left deep scars on the Hindu minority, including attacks and destruction in areas such as Maharaj Gunj and Vichar Nag.
Yet the community did not respond by abandoning Kashmir or rejecting coexistence. It continued to live alongside its Muslim neighbours and participate in the social and public life of the Valley.
What followed, however, was the gradual transformation of Kashmir’s political structure and the emergence of an extraordinary concentration of political authority around Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah and the organisation he led.
For Kashmiri Hindus, the subsequent decades brought increasingly complex questions concerning political representation, employment, education, land and access to institutions.
This history should not be turned into an indictment of every Kashmiri Muslim. No one is even attempting that. Ordinary Muslims had no role in discriminatory policies and themselves suffered from poverty and political instability. The issue is the conduct of political and administrative systems that failed to adequately protect a vulnerable minority and, at various points, pursued policies that aggravated communal divisions.
The myth of the uniformly “privileged” Pandit
One of the most politically consequential narratives was the portrayal of Kashmiri Pandits as a uniformly privileged elite who monopolised government employment and state institutions. The reality was far from the truth and more complicated.
Some Pandits certainly occupied important positions in administration and the professions. But this was projected onto the entire community. Large numbers of ordinary Pandit families were poor, economically insecure and concentrated in small occupations and rural areas. They experienced the same famines, unemployment and underdevelopment that afflicted other Kashmiris.
The 1931 figures themselves are revealing. Of 289 educated unemployed persons with qualifications above matriculation recorded in the census, 226 were Kashmiri Brahmins. Whatever one’s interpretation of the politics of that period, these figures hardly support the simplistic image of a uniformly privileged community monopolising opportunity. They studied hard because they had no choice.
Sir Walter Lawrence’s observations in The Valley of Kashmir also provide a useful corrective to sweeping claims about Pandit dominance. Writing about the revenue administration, he noted that of eleven tahsildars, only one was a Pandit. (The Vale of Kashmir- page 7)
These facts matter because political caricatures have consequences. Once an entire minority is portrayed as privileged, discrimination against its members can be rationalised as merely correcting an alleged historical imbalance.
Land, education and employment
Land reforms provide another important area requiring a more nuanced historical examination.
Land redistribution was projected to be intended to transform the agrarian structure of Kashmir. But its implementation also generated serious grievances among the Pandit community, including vulnerable small and marginal landowners. Accounts by writers such as Prof. M. L. Koul describes instances in which land belonging to widows, pensioners and physically disabled persons  was  transferred to more affluent beneficiaries.
Daniel Thorner, a die-hard French Communist, who studied Kashmir’s land reforms, was himself critical of the assumption that the reforms had automatically transformed the economic condition of the ordinary peasant.
The larger point is to question and debate the manner in which the reform process was politically interpreted and implemented, and whether vulnerable members of a minority were adequately protected.
The same concerns surfaced in education and public employment.
The struggles of Ajay Hasia and Arti Sapru became landmark episodes in the battle against arbitrary selection mechanisms. High-merit students challenged admission procedures in engineering and medical education that gave excessive weight to subjective interviews and other non-transparent criteria. The litigation ultimately contributed to important constitutional jurisprudence concerning fairness, equality and the meaning of “State” under Article 12.
Similarly, the Triloki Nath Tiku litigation became part of the constitutional debate over communal and regional considerations in public employment. The Supreme Court’s jurisprudence reinforced the principle that equality of opportunity cannot simply be replaced by arbitrary communal mathematical formulas.
These were not merely individual legal battles. They represented a broader determination by members of the community to challenge discrimination through constitutional and democratic means.
From political marginalisation to displacement
By the 1980s, Kashmir’s political environment had deteriorated dramatically. Separatist mobilisation, radicalisation, targeted killings and terrorist violence created an atmosphere of terror.
The assassination of Tika Lal Taploo in 1989 became a chilling symbol.
He was not merely a political leader who was killed. He represented a community that was increasingly being told, through violence, threats and propaganda, that it had no secure future in its own homeland.
What followed in 1989–90 was the mass displacement of Kashmiri Hindu Community.
This was not an isolated event detached from history. It was the culmination of decades—and, in the community’s collective memory, centuries—of insecurity. The fact that the displacement occurred in independent India makes it no less tragic. Indeed, it makes the failure to protect the community even more painful.
We remember because we resisted
From Pandit Kripa Ram Dutt and Pandit Birbal Dhar to the Kashmiri Pandit Reform Association, founded in the early twentieth century; from the All State Kashmiri Pandit Sabha and the political struggles of the twentieth century to the constitutional battles of later generations, Kashmiri Hindus repeatedly chose resistance over surrender.
Balidan Diwas is therefore not merely a day of mourning.
It is a day of remembrance—and remembrance is not revenge.
A community cannot be asked to forget its dead in the name of reconciliation. Nor can reconciliation be built upon historical amnesia. Genuine reconciliation requires truth, acknowledgement, justice and the assurance that history will not be repeated.
The young generation, in particular, must know that the Kashmiri Pandit story did not begin with displacement. Their ancestors endured persecution, poverty, political marginalisation and repeated adversity, yet continued to preserve their civilisation, traditions and identity.
That is why the most important message of Balidan Diwas is not one of despair.
It is resistance.
Tika Lal Taploo and the many known and unknown martyrs of the community remind us that a people can lose homes without losing their history; they can be displaced without being erased; and they can suffer immense adversity without surrendering their identity.
We remember them because they sacrificed.
We remember them because others survived.
And, above all, we remember them because the community never surrendered and never quit.
( Girdhari Lal Raina is a former Member of the legislative council of Jammu Kashmir and spokesperson of BJP JK-UT)