Neha
JAMMU, Sept 4: The local Congress leadership in Jammu & Kashmir is not clear as to what exactly it wants. On the one hand, a section of Congress leadership opposes autonomy as demanded by the NC. On the other hand, it has been saying that it stands for Article 370. That the local Congress leadership is not clear as to what it stands for became clear on Tuesday, when senior Congress leader and Medical Education, Youth Services and Sports Minister Taj Mhi-ud-Din spoke on the issue at a convention of party workers.
"A political party (in this case NC) is harping on autonomy. The reality is that we cannot be autonomous. Our resources are limited and we cannot survive. We are dependent on the assistance of central government and demanding autonomy simply means to mislead people of Jammu and Kashmir…If J&K gets autonomy, we would even fail to pay salaries to our employees," he said. He was absolutely right when made these remarks. Indeed, the acceptance of the NC demand for autonomy would destroy the state and undo all that the country did in the state during all these more than 65 years of its accession with India.
Had Taj Mohi-ud-Din stopped just there, he would have done justice to his stand. But in the very next moment he asserted that the "Congress is the only party which can protect the interests of the state at Centre as it stands guarantee to protect Article 370". By advocating the need to protect Article 370, he completely negated his own stand on autonomy (read withdrawal of all the central laws and institutions from the state or semi-independence).
The Medical Education Minister should know that it was the atrocious, anti-people, anti-democratic and divisive Article 370 that granted autonomy to the state on the ground that it was a Muslim-majority state. But more than that, he should know that what he said about Article 370 was what the divisive and communal and anti-minority communities and anti-ST communities NC had been saying since decades.
It is intriguing that he commended Article 370 knowing it full well that it was because of this discriminatory provision that the Gujjar and Bakerwal community, which constitutes the third largest social group in the state after Kashmiri-speaking ethnic Sunnis and Dogras of Jammu province, has failed to get political reservation - one of the main demands of the community to which he himself belongs.
The Medical Education Minister needs to clear his stand on the demand of his community so that it comes to know whether or not he endorses its demand seeking political reservation. It needs to be underlined that the Gujjar and Bakerwal community has been demanding political reservation since 1991, when the then Chandra Shekhar Government granted the ST status to it. |
