Why I left India despite being a Nationalist

I have a lot many times been asked that if I was a nationalist, why did I have to leave India to settle in a foreign country? In fact, many a times my love and passion for India has been questioned and undermined. Being a Kashmiri Hindu, I cannot ever the forget what we had to go through decades back when we had to leave our home in Kashmir. We had a wrong notion that the rest of Indian Hindus are and will be with us if ever something bad happens to us, but we were proven wrong by the majority Hindu population of India. The media distorted our forced migration. Nobody ever cared about the Kashmiri Hindus killed by Islamist forces in the vale. Our temples and religious places were desecrated. There were a lot of abductions, rapes and conversions of our women folk. Even some brazen daylight killings of prominent Kashmiri Hindus. I personally narrowly escaped death and I have no idea why this guy who showed me his AK-47 did not kill me. My only fault, I was talking about alcohol content in one of our pharmaceutical products while traveling in a bus wherein this terrorist was also traveling and listening to our conversation. Kashmiris were never poor, be it a Hindu or a Muslim. Everybody had enough to eat and a roof over their head. Hindus of Kashmir were relatively well off with 100% literacy rate. There were a lot who were dependent on their land and orchards for their livelihood. Yet some others were traders and businessmen, though most were in government or private service. With the situation changed on ground and there was nobody to look up to, we had no other option then to leave the valley. I have personally witnessed the plight of the people who one day had everything and then the next day found themselves on the roads and footpaths of Jammu with their meagre belongings and young children by their side. Lot many others perished due to the harsh temperatures, snake bites and mental illnesses. The pain is immense and can only be imagined if you have not gone through it. I have questioned myself many a times, would it have been okay for us to play in with those elements of Kashmir who were demanding “Azadi” from India? Join them claiming “Azadi” from India. That way, we would not lose our homes, our land, be displaced and most importantly, not lose our culture. At least we would have been spared from the illusion that we were safe and respected outside Kashmir as Hindus in Hindu-majority India. I am sure many of Kashmiri Hindus would have taken that course had the Kashmiri Muslims not terrorised us in the name of religion and had they not persecuted us for religious reasons. Needless to say that instead of helping us selflessly, the people outside Kashmir took full advantage of our situation. Many cowsheds were converted overnight into living quarters and rented out for good money. Our people were exploited in all ways you can imagine. We were not given our due share of respect that we deserved in our own country. My illusion was broken. There was nobody for us in rest of India. Nobody to wipe our tears. Nobody to listen to our stories, nobody to empathise with us and nobody to help us rehabilitate. So, for me, it was “If not Kashmir, then not India”. I started looking up for an opportunity and worked towards it. When the opportunity presented itself, I grabbed it up with both of my hands. I have no regrets leaving India but given a chance/choice, would like to go back to my roots in Kashmir. Notwithstanding the above story, I will always have respect and love my country of birth. Jai Hind.