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| Conspiracy against Jammu | | | Hari Om | 1/2/2015 11:24:49 PM |
| The possibility of some Jammu-based politicians from the BJP becoming the Chief Minister of Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) has rattled and unnerved Kashmiri leaders of all hues as well as members of Kashmiri civil society. They have all joined hands against Jammu and threatened that situation in the Valley would worsen and the Kashmiri people would get further alienated from New Delhi if the office of the Chief Minister is handed over to Jammu as part of power-sharing formula reached between the BJP and any sub-regional party in Kashmir, including the People's Democratic Party (PDP) and the National Conference (NC). Some in Kashmir have opined that it would be "scientific rigging" if a Jammu-based politician is tipped for the highest executive post. Some have threatened that "there will be revolt in Kashmir if the BJP imposes a Chief Minister from Jammu on us". They have said, "It is high time that two Kashmir-centric parties (PDP and NC) joined hands to halt the BJP juggernaut". "If they (PDP and NC) claim to be well-wishers of Kashmiri Muslims, they should unite against communal forces (read BJP), otherwise all their assurances on people's welfare are fake," they have also said. Some of them have described the move as pitting the "33 per cent "minority" (read Hindus) against the "67 per cent majority" (read Muslims) to render the latter weak and irrelevant and have asked,"Is this the price we are made to pay for seeking a place of dignity and honour within Indian Union?"
And almost all those who matter in Kashmir and the parties like the Congress and the CPI-M have all urged the PDP, which won 28 seats in the J&K Legislative Assembly, to take the lead and form a "grand alliance" consisting of the PDP, NC, the Congress, the CPI-M and six independent Kashmiri MLAs to keep the right-wing BJP at bay". The argument advanced by the anti-Jammu forces in the Valley is that since the PDP, the NC and the Congress had campaigned against the entry of BJP in the Valley and the people voted for them, it would be an act of betrayal if they would facilitate the BJP to govern the state.
"The Valley voter listened to the PDP, the NC, the Congress and independents that the BJP is a 'danger' and needs to be kept away from the Valley" and they voted against the BJP, they have argued. Even People's Conference (PC) chairman Sajjad Lone, who before the Assembly elections had one-on-one meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at his official residence 7 Race Course Road, New Delhi, and hailed him as his "big brother" and "visionary", has not lagged behind. He has said in unequivocal terms that it would be suicidal to disturb the 70-year-old status quo in J&K and that it is imperative that the state power remains in the hands of Kashmiri Muslims, as they constituted majority population and J&K is a Muslim majority State. "The move to appoint a Hindu Chief Minister from Jammu would not go well with the majority community," he has also said, adding that "the idea of breaking the 70-year-old status quo is fraught with dangerous ramifications". NC additional general secretary Mustafa Kamaal, who lost his security deposit in the Assembly election, on December 28 declared that the Chief Minister of the state has to a Muslim from Kashmir, as J&K is a Muslim-majority State. He even went to extent of misleading the people of the state that the J&K Constitutions only provides for a Muslim Chief Minister from the Valley. The point is that almost all in Kashmir are up against the BJP and rejected out-of-hand the idea of some Jammu-based politician leading the State of J&K. They have made it loud and clear that they will not accept the Chief Minister from Jammu come what may. Is this the way to harmonise the existing bitter inter-regional and inter-communal relations? Is this the way to keep the sensitive border State of J&K intact? Are the people of Jammu province not part and parcel of the state's polity? Indeed, they are provoking political explosions in Jammu province by making irresponsible statements or by saying what have been saying since December 23, when the election results were declared and the state once again got a hung assembly with the PDP emerging as the single largest party and the BJP the second largest by winning 25 seats and getting the highest number of votes. The provocative, communally-motivated and patently Kashmir-centric statements of the vested interests in Kashmir have evoked a lethal reaction from one and all in Jammu. The people of Jammu have taken these statements as an affront to their self-respect. The more radicals among the people of Jammu province have even gone to the extent of saying that the time has finally come for the trifurcation of the state, which came into being in March 1846 by a quirk of history. Kashmir was merged with the Dogra Kingdom comprising Jammu province and the entire Ladakh region, including Gilgit-Baltistan, Hunza, Nagar, Chitral and so on in March 1846 under the Treaty of Amritsar, signed between Raja of Jammu, Gulab Singh, and the British Indian Government in the aftermath of the collapse of the Lahore Durbar.
The Kashmiri religious leadership had opposed the Treaty of Amritsar tooth and nail and said that the British Government sold the life, honour and dignity of Kashmiri Muslims to the Dogras of Jammu for Rs 75 lakh. It is pertinent to mention here that all the Chief Ministers of the state till date were Muslims belonging to Kashmir and one particular sect. It is also important to note that the people of Jammu province have consistently complained that the Kashmiri leadership, which was backed to the hilt by the ruling class in New Delhi, all along denied them proper representation in the Assembly by fudging census figures and ignoring accessibility and nature of terrain factors and the size of the Jammu's land area. The land area of Jammu province is two-time that of Kashmir and the road connectivity in Jammu province, which is highly difficult, and even treacherous, is very poor as compared to Kashmir. As per the Report of the task force on development of J&K, in Kashmir, the per sq km road density was as high as 49 km in Kashmir in 2006, as against the Jammu's 5.75 km and Ladakh's 3.7 km. Things have not improved in any way since then. It has also been the complaint of the people of Jammu province that while they contribute over 75 per cent revenue to the state exchequer every year, they have always got only crumbs in terms of funds for developmental activities and infrastructure development and employment opportunities. Jammu province is the most neglected region in the entire country and the rate of unemployment in Jammu province is over 69 per cent as against less than 30 per cent in the prosperous and over-developed Kashmir. Kashmiri leaders and members of Kashmiri civil society and their supporters in New Delhi and elsewhere would do well to look all these facts in the face, including the nature of mandate, and refashion their whole approach towards Jammu. Any failure on their part to do so swould be only to provoke political explosions of portentous dimension in Jammu province and hasten the process of the state's disintegration. They must remember that there are forces in this province who have been working overtime for the state's trifurcation.
( Courtesy: www.niticentral.com ) |
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