CONTOURS OF EXILE: DISPLACED AND BRUISED
- Ashani Dhar
- 1 day ago
- 10 min read
Field Narratives of Kashmiri Pandits from Jagati, Jammu and Delhi-NCR
Ashani Dhar
Assistant Professor
Department of Economics
Shyam Lal College
University of Delhi
Field Experiences: Traversing Three Sites of Displacement
As I pondered over possible areas of research for my thesis, I was naturally drawn to the idea of exploring my own community. With time, I realised I wanted to engage with the history of what happened to the Kashmiri Pandits more than thirty years ago and engage with it intimately – to uncover their lived experiences, narratives and memories. And this became the foundation of my thesis – a project in the pursuit of uncovering lived experiences. I decided to explore how different life trajectories had been for different set of people and thus began my journey across three sites – Jagati, Jammu and Delhi-NCR.
‘A forgotten minority community, with many being further pushed to the margins’—was my first impression from my fieldwork. My research centres on the differential impact of protracted displacement on one of the most wronged communities of India: the Kashmiri Pandits. Forced into exile in their own country more than thirty years ago, the community continues to grapple with questions of identity, justice, belongingness, and the elusive dream of return. The exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from Kashmir, triggered equally by fear and targeted violence against Hindus, forced thousands of Kashmiri Pandits to seek shelter outside Kashmir. For some, Jammu became a permanent home; for others Jammu was merely a temporary stop before they moved onward to Delhi and other cities across North India.
Despite being uprooted due to the same chain of events, the trajectories of displaced Kashmiri Pandits diverged significantly. Over three decades later, quality of life of displaced Kashmiri Pandits is not uniform but one that is layered with differences shaped by factors such as class, social capital, networks, opportunity, and access to resources. My study explores these differential outcomes, with a particular focus on women’s health and well-being.
The most reliable way to know about the lived experiences of the displaced Kashmiri Pandits was from them, and therefore, fieldwork, formed the backbone of this qualitative inquiry, helping me trace the everyday struggles, the coping mechanisms, and the subtle hierarchies that displacement has produced within the community.
The thesis was a multi-sited study, comparing the lived experiences of Kashmiri Pandits across three distinct locations: Jammu city, Jagati township, and Delhi-NCR. Each site offered unique and surprising insights into the lived realities of their displacement, highlighting how material conditions, social networks, access to healthcare services, education and employment shaped lives differently across contexts.
Entering the Field: Negotiating Access and Trust
Because the subject was deeply personal and traumatic, entering the field was not straightforward. Even though I had a distinct advantage of being a researcher from the community being studied, I was also different in terms of my diction, my context and that alone made them sceptical of my presence, making me an ‘outsider’ despite being a Kashmiri Pandit myself. Trust, therefore, could not be assumed—it had to be earned.
I relied on key informants, some of whom acted as cultural brokers, vouching for me and softening the scepticism that researchers often encounter. Even then, there were many moments of hesitation and deafening silence. At times, women would begin narrating their stories, only to fall awfully silent mid-way, overwhelmed by memories and/or trauma. Others would stop mid-sentence regretting that they probably overshared. And as I encountered more silences and hesitation, I learned to respect their silences, to sit with them without rushing to fill the gaps with ‘data’.
As a researcher, I was reminded that listening is as much about presence as it is about gathering data. My positionality was never far from my mind. I was an “insider-outsider”—not displaced myself, yet carrying my own awareness of what exile means for Kashmiris. This duality shaped both access and interpretation.
At times, respondents treated me as an empathetic listener; at other times, my outsider status allowed them to narrate with a certain distance, unburdened by the fear of being judged by someone too close to their community. Or the compulsion to sound grateful to the community for helping them in their times of distress.
Erstwhile relief camps where displaced Kashmiri Pandits lived for years in Jammu. Right next to the tents is an open drain which becomes a breeding ground for mosquitoes during rains.
Jagati Township: Confinement and Camaraderie
Jagati was my first field site and perhaps the most emotionally overwhelming. Walking through the township, the rows of one-room tenements struck me as both orderly and suffocating. Families compressed into these spaces lived lives that were stable yet profoundly limited. The pucca walls stood in sharp contrast to the memories they carried of tarpaulin tents, harsh winters and the cruel summers in the early years of displacement. Women often told me how grateful they were for these permanent structures—yet the gratitude was laced with resignation. They were glad that they didn’t have to physically hold onto two sides of the tent while it poured outside in a thunderstorm, but they weren’t too happy to live in a town that almost looks like a ghost town in the afternoon – with nothing but building slowly turning yellow.
Here, I was quickly made aware of the double edge of collective living. The geographical concentration of displaced Pandits created a strong sense of solidarity—stories were shared, rituals observed together, and friendships sustained survival. Marriage of girls in Jagati is almost a community affair. The marriage happens in the community hall, with the rituals and the catering being sustained by neighbours who contribute in different ways. Some bring oil, others bring lentils, and yet others offer services like stitching or painting the walls of the home.
Yet this very concentration also marked residents with a stigma. “If someone says they are from Jagati,” one respondent told me, “It is like saying you could not rise above your fate. It was reflected in rather interesting ways. Matrimonial alliances are next to impossible between those in Jagati and other Kashmiris.” This ‘othering’ despite a shared history of targeted violence seems to have far-fetched impact in terms of social cohesion and interaction. Intra-community bonds are ruptured, unrecognised boundaries between displaced and Kashmir Pandits settled outside the state are distinct.
Conducting interviews here was both easier and harder than other two sites. Easier because people were used to narrating their stories in collective settings; harder because the very density of trauma meant emotions often ran high. I recall one woman showing me the open drains outside her tenement as proof of the township’s neglect. The anger in her voice was not just about sanitation—it was about dignity, or the lack of it.
The entire township of Jagati is surrounded by such open drains that often get clogged due to heavy rains and spill sewage water in the adjoining areas. Getting the drains cleaned from time to time is almost the responsibility of the residents with no accountability from authorities.
Other women broke down recalling how difficult her life has been post-displacement because she and her two children were abandoned by her husband after displacement. But conversations were also about how women have shown unparalleled strength and resilience. Whether it is learning how to do kashida embroidery and sell it in different places to different vendors in Jammu or taking up odd jobs to sustain their families after their husbands fell prey to alcoholism. Their narratives didn’t paint them as passive victims of a historical wrong, but as active survivors who have carried out the role of a provided – material, financial as well as emotional – all equally well.
Jammu City: Diversity and Uneven Survival
In Jammu, the fieldwork unfolded differently. Here, the displaced were dispersed, living across neighbourhoods rather than in concentrated camps. My sample was shaped through snowballing, each conversation opening doors to another household. Unlike Jagati, Jammu revealed striking diversity of outcomes. Some families had managed to reconstruct a life of relative comfort, building homes that mirrored their old ones in Kashmir. Others lived precariously, still dependent on government relief as their only reliable income. And there were a few who lamented having to leave their home in Kashmir but didn’t suffer materially as they were better placed economically and had enough of a buffer to start afresh in Jammu.
What I noticed most here was the quiet resilience of women. Many had become the backbone of their families’ survival strategies—taking up teaching, tutoring, or home-based work while also maintaining cultural practices. Yet beneath their resilience was fatigue. One respondent told me: “We tried to recreate Kashmir in our homes. The courtyard, the kitchen, even the way we pray. But this house is still not home.” As I listened, I felt the weight of exile as a daily negotiation between memory and adaptation.
Each home that I visited, had remnants of Kashmir and its traditions. Most homes in Jammu still go to the local baker called a ‘kandur’ to get their bread and have that with ‘noon chai’ (a pink salted tea) every day at 4 pm. A few of these participants were also those who had lived in camps for a few years before being able to shift out. And there were yet others who lived in some deplorable conditions in Jammu, like in a garage or a tiny one-room apartment with a common toilet, just to avoid living in a ‘relief camp’ so that they could escape the stigma associated with it.
Fieldwork in Jammu made me reflect on my own position as a researcher. Moving from one household to another, I often wondered how my presence disrupted their daily rhythm. I had to remind myself to be more than just a collector of narratives—to be a respectful listener who recognized that each disclosure came at an emotional cost.
Delhi: Integration and Internal Hierarchies
Delhi presented yet another picture. Here, Kashmiri Pandits were relatively well integrated. Many held government jobs, worked in the private sector, or had retired into financial security or some kind.
In contrast to Jagati or Jammu, Delhi offered invisibility—exile did not define one’s identity in the same way. In a city of migrants, Pandits blended in, though clusters of them still existed in certain neighbourhoods.
Yet beneath this surface integration lay internal hierarchies within the community. During the interviews, several references were made to Jagati as a marker of lower social standing, even though they were forced to leave Kashmir under the same circumstances. In matrimonial discussions too, families weigh whether a potential match hailed from Jagati or from better-off circles in Delhi or Jammu. Nevertheless, it was jarring to realize how displacement itself had stratified the community, producing new inequalities within an already marginalized group.
Women in Delhi often spoke of opportunity rather than trauma. They discussed their children’s education, career choices, and upward mobility. This was not because they did not face any trials or tribulations post displacement. Many stayed in cramped rooms with their relatives, an experience that was more difficult for women than men, but their progression has been faster thereby making their displacement somewhat less traumatic than those in Jagati. Yet memory remained alive in subtle ways—through the food they cooked, the festivals they celebrated, and the artefacts they displayed in their homes.
In nearly every Delhi household I visited, I found a token of Kashmir: a photograph of Kheer Bhawani temple, a miniature shikara, or embroidered shawls. These objects quietly testified to a homeland carried in exile. It was interesting to hear how Kashmiri Pandits in Delhi, were one of the most vocal groups fighting for relocation of displaced Kashmiri Pandits, even though they themselves were in better off places.
For me as a researcher, Delhi also demanded a different posture. Here, participants were more conscious of how they presented their stories, often emphasizing success and resilience. I found myself questioning: were they narrating their lives as they lived them, or as they wished them to be seen? This reflexive discomfort became part of my field notes, reminding me that data is not just about what is said, but also about silences, self-censorship, and aspirations.
This was probably because the focus of narratives in Delhi was about the challenges faced with respect to education, employment and improving visibility instead of just the challenges faced.
Reflections on Researcher-Self
Moving between the three sites, I became acutely aware that fieldwork is as much about the researcher as it is about the researched. I carried my own assumptions and had to confront them repeatedly. In Jagati, I caught myself romanticizing solidarity until I saw how it was also a form of enforced confinement. How those in Jagati collectively narrated a much more difficult past than others in Jammu or Delhi, but also how women in Jagati felt doubly marginalised as against the men in Jagati. In Jammu, I tended to celebrate resilience until fatigue and despair surfaced in conversations. In Delhi, I almost didn’t believe the sense of security and self-assuredness I saw, only to realize it came with its own burden of deliberate denial of painful memories in the process of reconstructing their present.
There were also emotional costs. At times, I felt like an intruder reopening wounds and causing agony to older participants. At other times, I felt complicit in the silences—accepting when someone chose not to narrate further. Yet, these ethical dilemmas also deepened my understanding of displacement as a living, breathing reality that cannot be neatly categorized.
One of the most interesting features of the research across the three sites was the degree of freedom that women in each site seemed to have. Jagati allowed women to gather in one place and talk about their trials and tribulations, free from the prying eyes of men. This shared sense of freedom and privacy allowed them to divulge some of the most intimate experiences they had, even if that meant talking ill of their own family members and how they felt utterly neglected.
In Jammu and Delhi-NCR, since the interviews all happened in the homes of the women, complete privacy was difficult. Many time, the men of the house would either hover around, or intervene in the interview. As a result, women would not get the space to voice their opinions or share their experiences openly. The only time they could talk freely was when they would get together for the evening ‘aarti’ or some other ritual.
Conclusion
The field experience underscored that displacement is not only about movement across space but also about negotiation with new structures of opportunity and exclusion. For Kashmiri Pandits, displacement produced not one but multiple realities: stigma and isolation in Jagati, uneven survival and adaptation in Jammu and relative integration but fractured bonds in Delhi. At the core of these divergent trajectories, however, lies a common thread – a desire to keep Kashmir alive, whether through rituals, memories or community ties.
As a researcher, this journey for me was transformative. Fieldwork was not just a method to collect data, but it became a mirror reflecting my own positionality, assumptions and even ethical responsibilities. I left each site, carrying not only fieldnotes and transcripts, but the imprint of conversations, silences and even the resilience of women whose stories form the very heart of this study.
This article was earlier published in Anthro Bulletin, Volume 6, Issue 8 (August 2025). Anthro Bulletin is a Digital Magazine by Anthropos India Foundation.