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| Alienated from Kashmir, Jammu Pradesh deserves statehood | | Opposition of Omar to Telangana intriguing | | Rustam
JAMMU, July 31: On July 30, the UPA Government ultimately decided to bifurcate Andhra Pradesh and create out of it separate Telangana State. Of course, the Congress-led minority Government accepted the almost 60-year-old demand of people of Telangana keeping into consideration the electoral interests of the unpopular Congress party, which had won 33 Lok Sabha seats in 2009 and is unlikely to win even five seats in the upcoming elections on its own. Notwithstanding this political expediency, the decision needs to be appreciated by one and all, as it was based on the people's just aspirations.
It is intriguing that NC working president and J&K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, a votary of greater autonomy, bordering on sovereignty, opposed the decision of the Union Government of which the NC is part. His father and Union Minister Farooq Abdullah was a party to the decision on bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh, as he attended the UPA Coordination Committee meeting last evening in which the decision to create Telangana State was unanimously endorsed.
Opposing the move to create separate Telangana State, Omar Abdullah, among other things, said: "Telangana is being created on the basis of an agitation. It is not being created on the basis of any recommendation of a state reorganization commission or something like that. It is a dangerous trend. An impression is being created that an agitation can lead to the creation of a new state, be it Bundelkhand (UP), Gorkhaland (WB) or our state. Will you tell the people of Jammu that you agitate for eight or 10 years and you will get a separate state? I am not in favour of bifurcation of states. I believe that remaining as one is very important for states like Jammu and Kashmir, even with their diversity. It is alright to form a new state, but it should not be piecemeal. What is happening is that you are giving incentives to agitations. If there is a need to create new states, a states reorganization commission should be set up and it should be given this task". He made these unwarranted and politically motivated comments on the sidelines of a function in Srinagar.
Notwithstanding his opposition to the otherwise very rational move, Omar Abdullah acknowledged that the prevailing widespread discontent and dissatisfaction in Jammu Pradesh, which has nothing in common with Kashmir, as it is a historically, politically, culturally, ethnically and economically a distinct region, might explode anytime. He himself admitted that Jammu and Kashmir State is highly diverse. His senseless opposition could be legitimately interpreted as ill-motivated.
Omar Abdullah and other Kashmiri leaders know that the trifurcation of the state or creation of separate Jammu State and grant of Union Territory status to the trans-Himalayan Ladakh would not only end the over 65-year-old Kashmiri domination and hegemony over the state's polity and economy, but also harm the financial interests of Kashmir, which has made progress on an unprecedented scale at the cost of Jammu and Ladakh. In other words, the trifurcation of the state would at once mean a great loss to Kashmir, which has been ruling Jammu and Ladakh and exploiting their natural resources like England did during its rule in India. Kashmiri leadership has been treating Jammu and Ladakh as Kashmir's two colonies like England treated India as its colony. Omar Abdullah's opposition cannot change the situation, as it has been prevailing in Jammu Pradesh since October 1947, when Kashmiri leadership usurped state power using the good offices of the then Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, who was anti-Jammu by conviction.
The people of Jammu Pradesh would have got the status of statehood and people of Ladakh Union Territory status long back, had they taken recourse to violent means. Since they believed in constitutional method of agitation, the authorities did not take cognizance of their demands. In fact, the authorities took them for granted. It would not be out of place to mention here that the people of Jammu Pradesh and Ladakh had demanded separation from Kashmir in 1947 itself, saying they could not link their fate with the Kashmiri leadership which stood for a separate status on the ground that Kashmir was a Muslim-majority region. Ever since then, the people of Jammu Pradesh and Ladakh have been struggling in their own way to achieve independence from Kashmir, but with no result. People of Ladakh did take recourse to violent methods in 1989 and got an Autonomous Hill Development Council - an institution that has not ended unrest in the frontier region.
A number of political groups in Jammu and Ladakh have been active demanding trifurcation of the state and there are reasons to believe that the July 30 decision on Telangana would surely give a fillip to the demand in Jammu Pradesh and Ladakh region. The fact of the matter is that if there are two regions in the country which deserve the status of statehood all the more and most urgently are Jammu Pradesh and Ladakh in the sense that they are more backward, grossly neglected and highly under-developed. It would be no exaggeration to say that Jammu Pradesh and Ladakh region are the most looked down upon regions in the country and the two main culprits who are responsible for the miserable plight of the people of Jammu and Ladakh are New Delhi and Kashmiri leadership and its handful of agents in Jammu and Ladakh. |
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