by Jia Lal Kilam

PREFACE

This small book was written by me at Jammu in the winter of 1951. But then I stopped at that. For this reason or that I did not feel inclined to publish it though I got some alluring offers from many Indian publishers. The book would have thus remained without seeing the light of the day, had not my friend Pandit Shambu Nath Dar, intervened. He made a request to me to make a gift of the book to Gandhi Memorial College, Srinagar of whose Managing Committee Pandit Shambu Nath is the Secretary and I, the President. This I could not refuse and I at once handed over the manuscript to Pandit Shambu Nath, who arranged its printing. Pandit Shambu Nath himself belongs to a high family of the Kashmiri Pandits. He is a direct descendant of Mirza Pandit Dar who has an assured place in the history of Kashmir.

But then I offer no apology for having written the book, which I might say has been written with a definite purpose. This was to show that a small community also can hold its own against all odds even under most adverse circumstances, provided it has equipped itself with those basic virtues which provide moral strength and, therefore, justification for it to live a life of self-respect and self-reliance. The epoch- making changes that have swept over the country in no distant past have created a sort of fear and anxiety in the minds of many persons belonging to the Kashmiri Pandit community.

These fears and anxieties can be removed only if the people firstly realize the inevitibility of change and then prepare themselves for adjustment to the changed circumstances. The Kashmiri Pandits had understood this secret of life in the past and their history shows that they acted up to this principle all through. At times it demanded of them colossal suffering and sacrifice. But they continued the struggle with methods both right and righteous and succeeded in maintaining their existence as effective partners in the great drama of life. There can be no denial to the fact that the Kashmiri Pandits have had a great past, but they should know that too much emphasis on the past alone is not going to do any good to them. They must certainly draw inspiration from the past, but then their approach to the present day problems must be in terms of the modern world. They must equip themselves with a mental outIook that is neither narrow nor sectarian and with a single-minded devotion, unmindful of results, they must offer a relentless battle to all disruptive forces like communalism, parochialism and sectarianism wherever they exist. If they act thus, their future both as a community or as a group of individuals is assured for all time.

JIA LAL KILAM
Srinagar,
14th June 1955.