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| Congress' U-turn on Ladakh | | Struggle for UT status | | Neha
JAMMU, Apr 24: On April 15, the Congress unit in the trans-Himalayan strategic Ladakh released 29-point manifesto for Ladakh, which, among other things, held out a solemn commitment that the party, if voted to power at the Centre, will work for Union Territory (UT) status for the grossly ignored, politically marginalised and discriminated against Ladakh region. The manifesto was released with much fanfare by the party candidate to the lone Ladakh Lok Sabha seat, Tsering Samphal, in the presence of all senior Congress leaders, including former Union Minister P Namgyal and Rigzin Jora, Cabinet Minister in the Omar Abdullah NC-Congress coalition Government . The objective, obviously, was to woo the Ladakhi voters. Election to the Ladakh Lok Sabha seat will be held on May 7.
UT status to the frontier region is the long-pending demand of the Ladakhis, leave aside a few anti-UT elements in the Shiite dominated Kargil district. They - Buddhists and Shiite Muslims - have been struggling since years to achieve independence from the pro-autonomy and sectarian Kashmiri leadership saying that their very identity and personality is in danger and that they want a dispensation that empowers them to protect and promote their distinct identity and culture and enables them to shape and control fully their political and economic future themselves within India and under the Indian Constitution, barring article 370, that grants separate status to Jammu & Kashmir on purely religious grounds. The people of Ladakh are racially Mongolite.
In 1989, the people of Leh district, mostly Buddhists, had even taken recourse to violent methods. The police-crowd clashes resulted in two deaths and fatal injuries to scores of other protestors. The Ladakhi leadership under the banner of Ladakh Union Territory Front (LUTF) suspended the agitation in what they called "national interest" following a tripartite agreement signed in October 1989 between the leaders of the movement, Home Minister Buta Singh and Jammu and Kashmir Government. The agreement envisaged for the region an Autonomous Hill Development Council. The Ladakh Autonomous Hill development Council (LAHDC) was finally set up in 1995 during the President's rule in the state much to the chagrin of Kashmiri leadership. "The establishment of LAHDC would hurt the psyche of the Kashmiris" (read ethnically Kashmiri Sunnis) was the refrain of the Kashmiri leadership.
What happened in Ladakh between 1947 and 1995 and afterwards and what the Ladakhis did from time to time to achieve emancipation from the Valley is a very long history and it is neither desirable nor possible to discuss it here considering the space constraints. Suffice to say that the Ladakhis have been insisting on and fighting relentlessly for UT status since the 1980s and that their earlier demands ranged from merger with Jammu to merger with East Punjab to NEFA-type Central administration. Another important point that really needs to be referred to here is that the Ladakhis gave a more radical orientation to their struggle against the Kashmiri domination after 1979, when National Conference (NC) president and Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister Sheikh Abdullah created with a stroke of pen Muslim-majority Kargil district out of the Buddhist majority Leh district to weaken the ongoing autonomy-from-Kashmir movement.
Since the Congress leadership knew what the Ladakhis's most cherished goal was, it promised UT status to tilt the balance in its favour. Another factor that forced the Congress leadership to endorse the UT demand was unflinching support of the BJP to it. It is important to note that the BJP's national executive adopted a resolution on UT status for Ladakh almost a decade ago and ever since then, it has been extending its unqualified support to the demand. It was hoped that the Congress would stand for what it solemnly committed on April 15, but it belied all the hopes two days later under pressure from the Valley-based pro-autonomy, pro-self-rule and pro-separatist forces. The pro-self-rule outfit was the first to oppose the Congress's UT commitment. Its was to arouse popular passions in the Valley by creating an impression that the Congress-NC coalition wanted to divide the state for vote-bank politics. "The Congress move is like another partition of India," it said on April 16, adding "such a move will not only divide Jammu & Kashmir, but will also dilute the special status the state enjoys under Article 370 of the Constitution". In fact, it charged the Congress-NC coalition with redrawing the political map of Jammu & Kashmir in its desperate attempt to woo the Ladakhi voters.
Not only the pro-self-rule party, the CPI-M, which has one MLA and whose support-base is confined to Kulgam (Kashmir) Assembly constituency, also took no time to take the plunge and air anti-UT status views. State general secretary of CPI-M, Mohammad Yousuf Tarigami, who is known for his rabidly anti-India views and who has been demanding greater autonomy, bordering on virtual sovereignty, for Jammu & Kashmir since decades, inter-alia, said: "The demand for a UT status to Ladakh region is a move not only to fragment the state, but also to dilute its special status guaranteed under constitution. Such a promise is aimed at garnering votes at the cost of integrity and unity of Jammu & Kashmir".
Convinced that the PDP and the CPI-M could upset the coalition's applecart in Kashmir, JKPCC president Saif-ud-Din Soz, an ardent believer in the concept of greater autonomy and a votary of trilateral talks on Jammu & Kashmir between India, Pakistan and Kashmiri leaders, and NC think tank and former Chief Secretary to Jammu & Kashmir Government Sheikh Ghulam Rasool came on to the scene and rejected out-of-hand the UT status demand. Soz said, "Jammu & Kashmir is a single entity and will remain so". "Our party won't compromise on the unity of the state at any cost and it won't support the UT status for Ladakh," he also said, and added that the "demand for UT status for Ladakh was actually raised by the BJP's contesting candidate (former MP Thupstan Chhewang) for Lok Sabha polls and the local Congress leadership decided not to oppose it". As for Sheikh Ghulam Rasool, he said that "the demand for UT status for Ladakh is fraught with serious consequences and such a move shall have widespread ramifications for the polity and the geography of the state".
Why did all the so-called mainstream Kashmiri leaders reject the UT status demand? The answer is simple and straight: They opposed it because they consider both Ladakh and Jammu province as Kashmir's two colonies and the people of these two regions no more than third grade subjects whose life is not one of political and economic aspirations. One thing is very clear: Ladakh will become UT sooner than later because the people there are religiously committed to achieve freedom from the Kashmiri leadership.
The negative attitude of the Kashmiri leadership will surely help the BJP candidate improve his poll prospects. Three other important factors are working in his favour. One, the Congress candidate is very weak. Two, at least three influential Shiite leaders, including one Congress rebel, are also in the election fray and each one of them is being supported by influential religious organizations. They would split the Shiite votes. Three, anti-incumbency and pro-Modi wave is also very much there in Ladakh. |
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