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| Make Jammu central agenda | | | | When every one was expecting an early restoration of normalcy in Jammu, the Shri Amarnath Yatra Sangharsh Samiti has pulled put of the ongoing dialogue with the government following some Police excesses on the agitators on Monday. While the resumption of dialogue gets delayed, there are some imaginative ideas coming about. Several constituent organizations of the SAYSS –including the Bar Association of Jammu –have asked the Samiti leadership to make the issue of discrimination against Jammu as one of the main items on the dialogue agenda. There is a high value of sense and logic in these suggestions. The land transfer issue has to be resolved and it will be resolved sooner or later. But one must understand that lakhs of people in Jammu region irrespective of their caste and religious affiliations joined the agitation primarily on the issue of discrimination against Jammu and the shrine land issue provided just a ticker. Though the shrine land issue remains central to the dialogue as it involves question of religious sentiments of millions of Hindus, the issue of discrimination against, if left unattended at this stage may not find the receptive ears in the near future. Jammu region has a deep rooted feeling that it being treated as subservient to the Valley, that the temperature in Srinagar determines the weather in Jammu. It has more area and its population is almost equal with Valley; yet it has less number of seats in the Legislative Assembly paving the way for political power vesting with the Kashmir leadership, always and invariably. Till some time ago even the Deputy Chief Minister's post was not with Jammu. The Gajendragadkar Commission recommendations made some difference but not enough to remove the imbalance. Delhi made no serious effort to correct the position. It looked on silently as the Farooq Abdullah government pushed through a law to freeze the number of seats in the state Assembly till 2026. The discrimination is on the financial side as well. Jammu has been demanding equitable distribution of funds in the budget and when this did not happen it started craving for a separate budget for the region. No one in Delhi or Srinagar was prepared to listen. Even Ladakh was up in arms when the state assembly passed the 'autonomy' resolution some years ago. It is demanding UT status. This is the time when voice of Jammu is being heard in Srinagar and New Delhi. Lakhs of people are no streets complaining of rampant discrimination –political and economic –against them. The SAYSS can do a great deal to the popular sentiment in Jammu by raising the issue of discrimination. |
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