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| Non-Muslims are not a minority in J&K | | Jammu, Ladakh cannot be ignored | | Neha
JAMMU, July 25: Kashmiri leaders of all hues, including NC working president and J&K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, are playing with fire. They are urging the Government of India to talk to the Kashmiri leadership to find a lasting solution to the so-called Kashmir problem. Omar Abdullah had only recently said that it is impossible to evolve a solution that is acceptable to all and that the solution should be such as is acceptable to the majority population in the state. In other words, he said the non-Muslims in the state are in a minority and they have to accept the solution which is acceptable to the majority. We cannot work out a solution that satisfies all, he had said.
On Wednesday, another Kashmiri leader said almost the same thing while talking to a media persons in Kashmir. "They are not perfect solutions, they are working papers" (read greater autonomy document, self-rule document and Sajjad Lone's achievable nationhood), he said, adding that "it is an evolving process". Self-rule document, like the 1999 autonomy committee report and 2006 Achievable nationhood, is in public domain…"We are open to suggestions. We have to find something that is desirable and desirable is something that can be acceptable to all the stakeholders (in this case Jammu, Kashmir, Ladakh, New Delhi and Islamabad). Everybody will not be happy with the solution that we finally forge but everybody should be able to live with it".
It is clear from these formulations that they insist on a solution that may not be acceptable to all. To be more precise, the solution should be acceptable to the majority community. This is a flawed approach; this is a patently sectarian approach. And it cannot be accepted.
An impression is being created that Jammu and Kashmir is a Muslim-majority State. It is a fact. But it is also a fact that the non-Muslims constitute around 40 per cent of the state's population and this huge population cannot be termed a minority by any yardstick. The minority communities are spread across the state. They are more numerous in Jammu province, over 70 per cent, in Ladakh region, nearly 60 per cent, and in Kashmir. Of course, the Kashmiri Hindus and many Sikh families migrated from the Valley in early 1990 to escape the militants' and separatists' wrath, but they remain an integral part of Kashmir. No one could impose on these so-called minorities a solution that is acceptable to only one section of society - section that has been ruling the state since 1947 and exploiting and ill-treating all others and blackmailing and browbeating New Delhi.
Significantly, there are groups within the majority community itself who hate and abhor the concepts like autonomy. Some are demanding political reservation on the ground that are Scheduled Tribes (ST) and some are demanding ST status for them, saying they are also ethnically different people and they are facing serious socio-economic and political problems. They are all Muslims. Remember, it is only the Indian Constitution in the entire world, including the Muslim world, that grants ST status to certain communities, including some Muslim communities as, for example, Gujjar and Bakerwal Muslims. But more than that, the Indian nation as a whole is their and it is the main stakeholder in Jammu and Kashmir. The nation has made supreme sacrifices during the past over 65 years in Jammu and Kashmir. It opposes tooth and nail any suggestion that talks of another communal partition of the country. Its opinion is the final opinion and its opinion is that no more political concession to Kashmir.
The Kashmiri leadership will do well to recognize the ground realities in the country, including its Jammu and Kashmir. The best course for them would be to shun negative and communal politics and join the national mainstream. Not only this, they should come forward to help evolve a political system that is state, as opposed to Valley, centric. Not to do so would be only to strengthen those forces in the state who want the state's trifurcation, saying they do not want to have any kind of truck with the Kashmiri leadership. In fact, this is the only option left to keep the state intact. To go in for some other option would be to facilitate the state's disintegration. |
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