In this organised mess of pintsized hutments, here in Muthi outside Jammu town where some 490 migrant Kashmiri Pandit families huddle, Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed's word -- especially one that promises to take them home -- counts for naught.
"Seat Lord Ram in Mufti's chair," says Surinder Kaul, 14 years of homelessness dying his words in bitter cynicism, "and even He won't be able to do that."
Since Sayeed took over at the head of a coalition government four months ago, hopes of a better Kashmir have been high among people across Jammu and Kashmir and the country. Together with their expectations of better governance, a Kashmiri version of glasnost, and lesser -- if not, zero -- excesses from counter-terrorist forces, is another wish.
Namely, the rehabilitation of the minority Hindu community, which, fearing ethnic cleansing by Islamic militants, fled the Muslim-dominated Kashmir valley when militancy erupted in 1990.
Today, over 90 per cent of the Pandits, some 300,000 to 350,000 individuals, live outside the valley, mostly in migrant camps in Jammu, Delhi and Mumbai, on miserable doles.
Sayeed says their return is a topmost priority. He realises it will not happen overnight, but still hopes to see the first migrants back in Kashmir this summer.
For that, two 'safe zones' in the pilgrimage towns of Mattan and Khirbhawarni in Anantnag and Srinagar districts, respectively, are being prepared. Initially, according to Sayeed's quiet plan (so quiet that he drew flak for ignoring the Pandits), this will serve as a boarding area for Hindu pilgrims.
"[The idea] is to develop the areas sufficiently to sustain their interest in settling down here," Sayeed told rediff.com. "We will provide all facilities to our returning brethren."
But that intention cuts little ice with the migrants who say they would rather wait and watch. They have heard such words before from the earlier Dr Farooq Abdullah government. Even Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee has made his share of unfilled promises, said a migrant -- for one, increase their Rs 600 per person [eligible to a maximum of four per family] monthly dole to Rs 750.
"The best of our lives are over," says Kaul. "Now what's there to return to the valley for? Return and do what?"
In Muthi, and the other nine migrant camps in Jammu, four- and five-member families share one-room hutments roofed in cheap asbestos that are spacious enough to give severe leg cramps to a couple. One end of the 12x9 feet area is the kitchen, the rest their dining-sitting-bedroom. They sit, read, cook, eat, and sleep here, this population that has left behind big houses, airy rooms and open spaces back home in Kashmir.
"It's easy to say come back'," says R Bhat (not his real name). "But to go back is not so easy when your life is in danger."
Safe zones or not, Bhat says his people will not return till "things are going to be all right". And of that, he sees not enough signs right now.
"We have been brutally killed, brutally raped. We cannot trust the security forces to guard our lives. We will go back only if the majority community assures us our safety."
Sayeed's assurance of "all facilities" to homecoming migrants implies employment too. That, Bhat feels, could persuade some, especially the youth, to take the risk.
"But they won't be happy there," he says. They will be there not because they want to, but because they have to.
"A lot of work needs to be done before Muftisaab can get us to come home on our own will. The Kashmiri Pandit will think not twice but thrice before he takes that decision."
Finance Minister and Sayeed's confidante Muzaffar Hussain Baig feels this reluctance can be overcome to some extent by the offer of safe pilgrimage to Mattan and Khirbhawarni.
"Once they go there and see their homeland again," he says, "slowly the yearning to settle down, which is not there right now, may return and become an impulse."
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Image: Rahil Shaikh