news details |
|
|
| Jammu on the edge | | | Prof Hari Om
The alarmed people of Jammu province -- the second largest region of Jammu and Kashmir after Ladakh - are seething with anger. In fact, an extreme sense of insecurity has gripped them. They have come to believe that their fate would be no different from that of the miniscule minority of Kashmiri Hindus, which quit the Valley in January 1990 to save their lives, culture and religion, in case they remained indifferent to the fast-deteriorating situation in the state and not do anything to avert the impending disaster.
Will they or will they not be able to survive in Jammu province and should they or should they not think of quitting their habitat like the hapless, unprotected and abandoned Kashmiri Hindus did 27 years ago to become refugees in their own motherland are the two questions which are haunting them. They are asking these questions to each other. Such is the situation in Jammu province, the backbone of the Indian nation in the sensitive Jammu and Kashmir State.
In short, Jammu province is on the edge and anything can happen there anytime. One can cite several reasons. A reference to at least eight of them would be quite in order.
Reason one: The February 22, 2016 RSS' statement that "Jammu and Kashmir, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh can't be considered part of the national mainstream" and that "it would be politically imprudent to treat these states like other states of the Union," its ideologue Rakesh Sinha said (Sab Se Bada Swal, News24).
Jammu and Kashmir State consists of three culturally and ethnically distinct regions - Hindu majority Jammu, Muslim-majority Kashmir and Buddhist-majority Ladakh. The Muslims constitute nearly 60 per cent of the state's population and the non-Muslim minorities in Jammu and Ladakh, besides the internally-displaced Kashmiri Hindus, form almost 40 per cent of the state's population. All these minorities have been struggling since 1947 to throw in their lot with Delhi, saying they can't have any kind of truck with Kashmiri Muslim leadership. Their grouse against the Kashmiri Muslim leadership is that it hates and despises everything Indian, including Indian Constitution, and vouches for a regime that is not only outside the political and constitutional organisation of India but which is also Sunni-dominated Pakistan like. They want a dispensation that is independent of Kashmir and under the Indian Constitution.
Reason two: The appointment of a committee consisting of retired Director General of Military Operations (DGMO) and former Director General Border security Force, whose duty is to identify those areas in the state from where Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) could be withdrawn (Anil Bhat, PTI correspondent, JK Channel, March 15).
Reason three: The March 18 Jammu and Kashmir Governor NN Vohra's order that Northern Command of Army must hand over 16,30 acres of state land held by it adjoining the campus of Jammu University; 212 acres of land held by it at Tatoo Ground, Srinagar; 456.60 kanals of land at High Grounds, Ananatnag; and land held by it at lower Khurba in Kargil to the state government at the earliest (PTI, March 18). All these are strategically located camps and the vacation of these camps would hamper the military operations against seditionists and Pakistan-backed and indoctrinated terrorists.
Reason four: The exodus from Kashmir on April 12 of all the 2000 harassed and victimised non-local students of National Institute of Technology (NIT) Srinagar. Their crime was that they waved national tri-colour and chanted Bharat Mata Ki Jai slogan to uphold the Indian cause in Kashmir. Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti described the NIT gory incident a "non-issue" (IANS, April 8), Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh as a "minor administrative matter" and BJP national general secretary and the party's point-man for Jammu and Kashmir Ram Madhav charged them with doing politics rather than pursue their academic career.
"They (non-local students) are in the Valley only to pursue their academic careers; they are not there to pursue politics," Ram Madhav, inter-alia, said during the book release function, which was anchored by NewsX editor, Rahul Shivshankar.
As if all this was not enough to discourage the non-local students, Additional District Magistrate, Nazir Ahmad Baba, has, in his report, indicted the outstation students for "vitiating the academic atmosphere" on the campus. He was charged with the responsibility of Jammu and Kashmir Government to look into the April 6 NIT episode and fix responsibility on those who vitiated the atmosphere on the campus. He submitted his report on April 24.
Reason five: On April 18, the Jammu and Police registered a murder case against the Army in the April 12 firing incident at Handwara in Kashmir's Kupwara district that led to the killing of three persons after a seditious crowd attacked the Army personnel, tried to set afire their bunker and ransack it. The mob of subversives attacked the bunker to avenge the alleged molestation of a minor girl by a soldier - a charge denied vehemently both by the girl and the Army. Had the soldiers not acted, the seditionists would have lynched them.
Development six: Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti -- instead of appreciating the difficulties of soldiers and CRPF personnel, who were involved in anti-insurgency operations on the directions of the political established - described the killing in firing of subversives as an "inconsolable loss" and declared that the "troopers involved in the killing of youth in Handwara would be handed exemplary punishment" (Rising Kashmir, April 13). Development seven: Dismantling of four strategically located bunkers in militant-infested Handwara the very next day, April 19, during the day time to satisfy the agitating local population. The authorities could have dismantled these bunkers during the night, but it didn't do that. They dismantled the bunkers in the presence of local population, which described the decision to remove them as a victory of their "historic movement" (Rising Kashmir, April 20).There is nothing whatsoever in the horizon which could even remotely suggest that the bunkers were removed with the consent and concurrence of the security forces, especially the army.
These are some of the disturbing developments which have disturbed and frightened the people of Jammu province and given them to understand that the authorities in the state and at the centre are pursing a "dangerous policy". They say that the authorities are implementing step-by-step the People's Democratic Party's 2014 "Aspirational Agenda", which contemplates demilitarisation of and self-rule (read a step short of complete independence) for Jammu and Kashmir, porous borders, economic independence and dual currency and also talks about "supra-state measures". By supra-state measures the Aspirational Agenda means a regime under which New Delhi and Islamabad will share sovereignty in this part of the state and have joint-control over the state.
Their argument is that it was the indifferent and callous attitude of the authorities which left the Kashmiri Hindus and 2000 non-local students of NIT Srinagar with no other option but to quit the Valley to escape the Kashmiri wrath and save their lives and that if the authorities continued to behave like before, they will also be left with no option but to quit their birthplace. The truth, in short, is that they have been saying that the PDP-BJP Government doesn't belong to them and they base their assertion on what Mehbooba Mufti had said on December 12, 2015 while speaking at Agenda Aaj Tak. She, inter-alia, had said: "With Vajpayee the experience was good, but forming an alliance with the present BJP was not easy for us. It took us two months to decide the agenda of alliance. Hurriyat party was also called and getting consent on most of the issues the government is working" PTI/agencies, Dec 13, 2015).
Indeed, the situation as it has been developing in the state is extremely alarming. The concerns being expressed by the people of Jammu province are genuine and can be overlooked at one's own peril. All that has happened during the past few days has only sent weak and wrong signals to the hostile nations and further emboldened the secessionists in the Valley to demand complete demilitarisation of the state and end Indian presence not only in the Valley but also in Jammu and Ladakh. The authorities need to reassure the minorities in the state and the people of Jammu province that they shall be with them and always at their back and call and that they will not allow the secessionists and terrorists to extend their tentacles beyond the Kashmir Valley. The best thing for them to do would be not to see things through the Kashmiri prism and reverse the 70-year-old Kashmir policy that has only brought death and destruction and damaged the national cause in the sensitive state. The nationalist forces have to protected and further promoted at whatever cost. There is no other way. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
STOCK UPDATE |
|
|
 |
| BSE
Sensex |
 |
| NSE
Nifty |
|
|
| |
CRICKET UPDATE |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
