Kashmir: The Land of Kashyapa The Saga of the Kashmiri Pundits

Dr. Chander Kanta Gariyali is a 1972 batch IAS officer of Tamil Nadu cadre. She was born at Narparistan Ghat in Srinagar, Kashmir in 1948. Her family shifted to Delhi soon after her birth. Her father Kashi Nath Garyali was a freedom fighter and her mother was a social worker and Founder of Saraswathi Educational Cultural and Charitable trust. A postgraduate in Social Work from Delhi University, she studied Poverty Alleviation' at IDS in University of Sussex and Political Empowerment of Women at Queen Elizabeth House, Oxford. She did her PhD from Mother Teresa's University on Women's Empowerment through Federations of Self-help Groups. In Tamil Nadu she had a distinguished career and has served both as Principal Secretary to Governor as well as Principal Secretary to Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. Her Tsunami rehabilitation work in Cuddalore district was globally recognized.She has won many awards for her outstanding contribution in the areas of population limitation and poverty reduction through women's participation in Tamil Nadu. Known as mother of women's Self-help Movement, she has authored five books on the subject. Since her retirement in January 2008, she is involved with the Equitas Development Initiative trust as a Founder Trustee. The Trust is handholding thirty lakh women engaged in micro-enterprises in eleven states of India.Although she never lived in Kashmir, she continuously visited the valley every summer and kept her love for the land alive. She has deeply imbibed rich Kashmiri Pundit culture from her family, which continued to follow all the Kashmiri traditions, rites and rituals outside Kashmir. She did extensive fieldwork in Kashmir while writing her thesis on 'Child 'Labor in Carpet Industry of Kashmir'. She feels deep passion and longing for her native land and is extremely proud of her heritage.She wishes to tell the hitherto uncaring world, the saga of the unlimited atrocities borne by Kashmiri Pundits for centuries and their latest exodus in 1990's. She felt mentally devastated by the exodus of half a million Kashmiri Pundits from their home of 5000 years. She feels remorseful for not having been able to serve in Kashmir and help the people there in anyway. To make up for the lost time, she has been working with displaced Kashmiri families in refugee camp in Jagti and other parts of Jammu since 2017. She has also set up a Witasta Welfare Fund' for helping them, which is administered with help of Help-Line Humanity, a Jammu Based NGO. Together they have been organizing books, computers, study material, financial aid, medicines. Emergency relief, job fairs and career counseling, on-line competitions for the displaced families and their children.