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| In 2002, Cong sought mandate to redefine centre-state relations | | Playing with national interest | | Neha
JAMMU, June 30: Friends and well-wishers of India, people of Jammu and Ladakh and sections of Kashmiri population, including the persecuted and hounded out Kashmiri Hindus, criticize the National Conference (NC), saying it always questions the presence of India in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), opposes the Central laws and Central institutions and demands autonomy from India. Their criticism is valid. But what is intriguing is their different attitude towards the Congress whose attitude towards the state is no different. They consider the Congress as a mainstream political party, which is not the case. The Congress is as a reactionary and questionable party as the NC and similar other outfits in Kashmir are. In fact, it is more critical of the NC and its grouse against the Abdullah dynasty is that the Congress leadership at the Centre empowered it drive J&K away from India, but failed. Believe it or not, but it is a fact. It is the Congress party that has created the whole problem in Kashmir by promoting fissiparous tendencies and flirting with parties like the NC. It has always sided with the pro-autonomy leadership in the Valley and helped them create inter-regional bitterness and mistrust between the communities. The Congress also doesn't consider J&K as an integral part of India in the real sense of the term. It, like the NC, wants restoration of Article 370 to its original position and restriction of the New Delhi's jurisdiction over J&K to just three subjects - defence, foreign affairs and communication.
Just look at the 2002 Congress's election manifesto for J&K and you will know what the Congress stands for. Its 2002 election manifesto said that the Congress wanted a mandate to form Government in J&K and declared that "once the new Assembly is constituted, a new beginning can be made to define a new relationship between J&K and New Delhi". Underline the words "define a new relationship between J&K and New Delhi. The same manifesto denounced the NC leadership for not implementing the 1975 Indira Gandhi-Sheikh Abdullah accord. "The Accord was…very flexible. It provided for an amendment or repeal of all those Central laws and regulations that the state Assembly felt were eroding the autonomy of J&K. Unfortunately, for some reason or the other, successive NC Governments in J&K have not made use of this provision in the Accord to work out a meaningful autonomy package," the 2002 election manifesto of the Congress party said. Again, underline the words successive "NC Governments in J&K have not made use of this provision in the Accord to work out a meaningful autonomy package".
It was not only in 2002 that the Congress condemned the NC for not invoking the 1975 Accord to further widen the already rather wide constitutional gulf between J&K and New Delhi. In 2008 as well, it did the same. Its 2008 election manifesto for J&K, which was released by Saif-ud-Din Soz, Ghulam Nabi Azad and Prithavi Raj Chavan (Maharashtra Chief Minister at Press Club Jammu) also said the same thing but in a modified and more sophisticated manner. "The Congress remains fully committed to comprehensive devolution of power to the J&K State so that the people of the state (in this case Kashmir) would be free to realize their full potential". All this should help clinch the whole issue and establish that the Congress and the NC are on the same page as far as their stand on J&K is concerned.
Each one of them favours a loose type relationship between the State and the Centre and they all agree that the regressive will of the Kashmiri leadership must be imposed on the unwilling people of the state in general and people of Jammu and Ladakh in particular. It's no wonder that the people of the state decimated both the Congress and the NC. And the manner in which the leadership of the both these parties has been behaving post-May 16 clearly suggests that it is not willing to feel the pulse of the people and as a result, further becoming unpopular with each passing moment. |
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