ABSTRACT
The displacement and departure of the Kashmiri Pandits from the Kashmir Valley in 1990 remains an event marked by ambiguity. As a displaced people, the Kashmiri Pandits have proffered different imaginaries of Kashmir as a homeland and as home. These imaginaries traverse both the political, as evidenced by organizations such as Panun Kashmir which seek a Kashmiri Pandit homeland, and also personal, in testimonies of Pandits who remember homes left behind as they come to terms with life outside the Valley. This chapter will try to trace how ideas and practices of home and homeland have emerged and changed over time for the Pandits. This process will be explored in relation to changes in the political context of Jammu and Kashmir and to the experiences of those who have built lives outside the Valley. The chapter will draw on earlier ethnographic work conducted in Jammu and New Delhi and will engage with newer material where the struggle for home is critical to any treatment. The chapter will then conclude with a discussion of the kind of future Kashmir represents to the Pandits, in relation to recent events and moments of violence and upheaval.
