Understanding the Displacement of Pandits from Kashmir Valley: Dialogism in The Garden of Solitude

Abstract

Mikhael Bakhtin has fundamentally changed our
understanding of the novel form by shifting emphasis from
monologism and freeing the novel author's/narrator's vision
controlled narrative to dialogism where multiple voices are
possible and there is a recognition of more than one valid
understanding of the context. Sidhartha Gigoo's novel The Garden
of Solitude functions as a work of art that brings out the true nature
of fundamentalism, which is characterised by a total lack of
openness to the voices of the other side. This paper reads into the
multiple voices in the novel and constructs a critical
understanding of the displacement of Pandit's from Kashmir. It
argues that the insurgency of the 1990s in Kashmir, which was a
result of aspiration for a separate political identity for Kashmir
was turned into a 'Jihad' against the non-Muslims.
Fundamentalism hijacked the age-old plurality of the Kashmiri
culture and the casualties were the Pandits and the Sufi form of
Islam that was practiced in the Valley. The paper makes a case
against fundamentalism that forced Pandits to leave their homes
but could not break the emotional bond amongst the Muslims and
the Pandits of Kashmir, and presents dialogue as an antidote.