Rustam
JAMMU, Oct 22: Is Jammu & Kashmir a democratic State? Are the Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs) and Other Backward Classes (OBCs) entitled to exercise rights which are available to their counterparts in the rest of the country? Do the refugees from West Pakistan exercise citizenship rights in Jammu & Kashmir? Jammu & Kashmir cannot be described as a state that is governed by a democratic constitution. The State of Jammu & Kashmir is governed under a constitution that is biased against certain sections of the society, all inhabiting Jammu province, and it is ruled by a political class that is not just Kashmir-centric, but also anti-SCs, anti-OBCs, anti-OBCs and anti-West Pakistan refugees.
That Jammu & Kashmir is governed under a constitution that is undemocratic and biased towards certain sections of society could be seen from the fact that the Centrally-Sponsored Schemes meant for the SCs, STs as well as refugees from Pakistan are not applicable to the state because the state has a separate constitution, as also because the ruling elite in the state is biased against them and biased in favour of Kashmir and a section of Kashmiri society. The STs, for example, enjoy political reservation across the country, barring Jammu & Kashmir. Similarly, those who migrated to India from Pakistan in the wake of the country's communal partition in 1947 have been enjoying all citizenship rights all over the country with some of them even becoming Prime Ministers and Deputy Prime Ministers, but those who migrated to Jammu in 1947 have been deprived of all citizenship rights, including the right to immovable property, right to government job, right to vote, right to education, right to bank loan and so on. They have been crying for justice since their migration caused by the radical Islamists, but with no result.
These sections of society in Jammu province have done all they could during all these 65 years of the state's accession to India to persuade the authorities to consider them Indian nationals so that they could also enjoy the rights which are available under the Indian Constitution, but have failed to evoke any favourable response. Leaders of the parties in power do on occasions talk about the problems confronting these sections of society in Jammu province, but these are merely lip-services. They exploit them at the election time, garner their votes and forget them. This has been happening since the adoption of the Jammu & Kashmir Constitution in 1957.
It is indeed a sad reflection on the state's ruling elite and state's constitutional framework that the BJP has to organize a week-long "Refugee Adhikar Yatra" from Poonch to RS Pura to attract the attention of the biased authorities to the miserable plight of the refugees from West Pakistan, refugees from POJK and refugees of 1965 and 1971 and obtain justice for them. What kind of democracy is this? It must remain a matter of shame for those who term themselves secular and democratic but devise and implement policies which are fundamentally communal and anti-democratic. |
