India's Kashmiri Pandit community: Its history and prominent personalities

New Delhi: The Kashmiri Brahmin Community, popularly called Kashmiri Pandits, form a distinct class of their own and are considered to be the purest specimens of the ancient Aryan settlers in the Valley. This small community is highly advanced in education, more than 70% of their members being literate. Their chief occupation is government service. In India many well-known administrators and politicians have been Kashmiri Pundits. In the field of art, philosophy and literature, they have produced a galaxy of authors, savants and saints. The Kashmiri Pundits are scattered throughout India, particularly in the northern regions and many occupy high governmental and private posts. But the majority lives in Kashmir. The history of the Kashmiri Brahmins is ages old. The Kashmiris form a branch of the race which brought the language of the Indo-Aryan type into India as seen in their language and physical appearance but the period of their immigration and the time they came by remain unresolved till date. They are a distinct class and are probably the purest specimen of the ancient Aryan settlers in India. The Kashmiri Pundits are divided into 133 exogamous gotras, each member of which claims to be a descendant of a rishi whose name the gotra bears. Generally, the social position is determined by the nature of occupation followed, rather than by the gotra. Those who have been employed in superior state service since two or three generations hold their heads high above others. During their numerous political upheavals, they have suffered enormously at the hands of religious persecutors. Subsequently, during the long and peaceful reign of Sultan zain-ul-Abidin most of them returned to their original homeland. The Kashmiri Brahmins who had become well-versed in Persian got good posts under the Muslims as Persian was also the court language at Delhi. Particularly because of their good knowledge of Persian, some of the Kashmiri Pundits who migrated to Bengal, Rajasthan and Central India became Diwans of the princely states. Before 1930 the Kashmiri Pundits were all-powerful in Kashmir, economically, socially and politically. But after the partition of the country their population started diminishing and is now almost on the verge of extinction. The Kashmiri Pandits, who had stably constituted approximately 4 to 5 per cent of the population of the valley during Dogra rule (1846–1947), and 20 per cent of whom had left the Kashmir valley by 1950, began to leave in much greater numbers in the 1990s. The US government has reported on the terrorist threat to Pandits still living in the Kashmir region.Notable personalities of Kashmiri BrahminMotilal NehruPandit Motilal Nehru, an eminent lawyer and politician, was born on May 6, 1861. The Nehrus hailed from Kashmir, but had settled in Delhi since the beginning of the eighteenth century. Motilal's grandfather, Lakshmi Narayan, became the first Vakil of the East India Company at the Mughal Court of Delhi. Motilal's father, Gangadhar, was a police officer in Delhi in 1857, when it was engulfed by the Mutiny. When the British troops shelled their way into the town, Gangadhar fled with his wife Jeorani and four children to Agra where he died four years later. Three months after his death Jeorani gave birth to a boy who was named Motilal. Motilal spent his childhood at Khetri in Rajasthan, where his elder brother Nandial became the Diwan. In 1870 Nandlal quit Khetri, qualified as a lawyer and began to practice law at Agra. When the High Court was transferred to Allahabad, be moved with it.Jawaharlal NehruJawaharlal Nehru, born on 14 November 1889, often referred to as Panditji, was a politician and statesman, a leader in the Indian Independence Movement, and the first Prime Minister of independent India. Nehru was elected by the Indian National Congress to assume office as independent India's first Prime Minister in 1947, and re-elected when the Congress party won India's first general election in 1951. He was one of the founders of the international Non-Aligned Movement.The son of moderate nationalist leader and Congressman Motilal Nehru, Jawaharlal Nehru became a leader of the left wing of the Congress. He became Congress President under the mentorship of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Nehru advocated Democratic Socialism/Fabian Socialism and a strong public sector as the means by which economic development could be pursued by poorer nations. He was the father of Indira Gandhi and the maternal grandfather of Rajiv Gandhi, who were to later serve as the third and sixth Prime Ministers of India, respectively.Indira GandhiIndira Priyadarshini Gandhi was an Indian politician who served as the third Prime Minister of India for three consecutive terms (1966–77) and a fourth term (1980–84). Gandhi was the second female head of government in the world after Sirimavo Bandaranaike of Sri Lanka, and she remains as the world's second longest serving female Prime Minister as of 2012. She was the first woman to become prime minister in India. She was also the only Indian Prime Minister to have declared state of emergency in order to 'rule by decree' and the only Indian Prime Minister to have been imprisoned after holding that office. She was assassinated by her bodyguards in retaliation for ordering Operation Blue Star. Tej Bahadur SapruSir Tej Bahadur Sapru was an eminent lawyer, political and social leader in India during the British Raj. He was knighted in 1922. Tej Bahadur Sapru was born on December 8, 1875 in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh. He was born in a Kashmiri Hindu family of the Sapru sub-caste. He was educated at the Agra College,He served as a dean of Banaras Hindu University. Sapru worked in the Allahabad High Court as a lawyer where Purushottam Das Tandon worked as his junior. Tej Sapru was probably the best Hindu lawyer in British India.Durga Prasad DharDurga Prasad Dhar (1918–1975) was a prominent Kashmiri politician and an Indian Diplomat who was a confidant of Indira Gandhi. He served as Ambassador of India to the Soviet Union, and as a minister in the Kashmir and Delhi administrations.D.P. Dhar was born on 24 April 1918. He did his bachelors degree for University of Punjab and went on to complete his LLB from the University of Lucknow. He was also dy. chairman, planning commission of India.Parmeshwar Narayan HaksarParmeshwar Narayan Haksar (1913–1998) was a strategist in the process to achieve political democracy of independent India. His most important role was in the political ascent of Indira Gandhi. He was an advocate of centralization and socialism. Haksar was an Indian diplomat and acted as the Ambassador for Austria and Nigeria.Triloki Nath KaulTriloki Nath Kaul (1913 - January 16, 2000) was one of India's foremost diplomats, who remained Indian Foreign Secretary (1967 - 1972) and strategic studies experts.Born in 1913 in Baramulla, Kashmir, and educated at the universities of Punjab, Allahabad and London. He died aged 86 in January 2000 due to cardic arrest at his orchard in Rajghar, Himachal Pradesh.A. K. HangalAvtar Kishan Hangal popularly known as A. K. Hangal, was an Indian freedom fighter from 1929–1947 and also stage actor from 1936–1965 and later became a character actor in Hindi films from 1966–2005. His most notable roles are as Ram Shastri in Aaina (1977), as the Inder Sen in Shaukeen, as Bipinlal Pandey in Namak Haraam, as Imaam Sa'ab in Sholay, as Anokhelal in Manzil and the antagonist in Prem Bandhan and the 16 films he did with Rajesh Khanna. He has acted in around 225 Hindi films in a career spanning from 1966 to 2005.Anupam KherAnupam Kher is an Indian actor who has appeared in nearly 450 films and 100 plays. Though mainly appearing in Bollywood films, he has had roles in some films from other nations as well. He has held the post of Chairman of the Censor Board and National School of Drama in India. Anupam Kher was born into a Kashmiri Pandit family and lived in Shimla and was educated at D.A.V. School there. He is an alumnus and a former chairperson of the National School of Drama. Some of his early acting was in plays performed at the Himachal Pradesh University.