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| Kashmiri leadership creating problems for Kashmiris outside Kashmir | | |
RUSTAM
JAMMU, JAN 15: According to a report in a section of the print media, “Kashmiri traders were given marching orders at the Kumbh mela that started at Prayag, Allahabad, in Uttar Pradesh” on January 14. They were given the marching orders as they were considered as “security threat”. What actually happened was that Director of exhibition Dinesh Chand Pasi asked Kashmiri traders, who had set up their stalls, to “pack off”. This led to arguments and counter arguments between the Director and the Kashmiri traders selling shawls, artifacts and clothes etc. The situation turned so ugly that the Director, according to a report, “broke into the stalls and threw away their stuff” and some of the Kashmiri traders were allegedly “abused and beaten” by the local traders.
Whatever be the cause behind the marching orders, one thing is crystal clear: The Kashmiri Muslims are an unwanted lot outside Kashmir and the reasons are not difficult to fathom. One of the most notable reasons is that the Kashmiri Muslims are considered as a threat to national security. In other words, they are being bracketed with those involved in anti-national, subversive and terrorist activities. This is not a positive development by any yardstick.
But what the question is: What has created a hostile environment for the common Kashmiri Muslims, who visit different places of the country to sell their products known the world over? And, who are responsible for the emergence of such a situation outside Kashmir Valley? The answers are not far to seek. The prosperous and well-entrenched Kashmiri leaders, without any exception, including innumerable separatists, who lead a luxurious and secure life both in the state and elsewhere in the country; who have set up big business houses in different parts of the country; who have palatial houses in Delhi and other big towns of the country; who send their wards outside Kashmir so that they could be educated and trained in prestigious educational and professional institutions; whose sons and daughters are holding important positions in the government and semi-government establishments outside the state, as also in the multi-national companies; whose highly educated sons and daughters are working in the big media houses and cinema industry; and so on are squarely responsible. They are responsible for the unfortunate incident that took place at Paryag and they are responsible for the kind of treatment common Kashmiri Muslims are being meted out in other parts of India at regular intervals.
How are the Kashmiri leaders responsible for what happened at Paryag and what has been happening at regular intervals elsewhere in the country, including Delhi? They are responsible because (1) they have been demanding autonomy or semi-independence and asking New Delhi to take on board and settle the Kashmir issue as per the dictates of Islamabad and Kashmiri leadership; (2) because they have been demanding self-rule or a step short of independence or a mechanism that treats the aggressor Pakistan equally with the aggressed upon India in the Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir; (3) because they are denouncing the Indian Army and other institutions located in Kashmir and demanding their withdrawal from the state; (4) because they consistently oppose the presence of the non-state subjects in the Kashmir Valley and because they have already rid the Valley of all non-Muslims; (5) because they have been opposing tooth and nail the idea of the refugees from West Pakistan obtaining all citizenship rights; (6) because they are refusing to include the terms of “secularism” and “socialism” in the preamble of the State Constitution”; (7) because they are playing the double role – they are taking part in the country’s process of legislation as law-makers and they, at the same time, are opposing the extension of the same legislations (to which they are a party) to the state; (8) because they are propagating that “Jammu and Kashmir State is a disputed area” and that “the accession of the state to India is conditional”; (9) because they have been mal-treating the minorities in the state and pursuing a policy of discrimination with Jammu and Ladakh regions; and (10) because they have been preaching views which are fundamentally intolerant and non-inclusive.
These and several other similar causes, including their senseless opposition to the May 26, 2008 order under which a small piece of land at Baltal was diverted to the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board on a temporary basis during the pilgrimage period, are responsible for the creation of a hostile environment for the Kashmiri Muslims outside the Kashmir Valley.
However, to catalogue some of these reasons here about the responsibility of Kashmiri leadership for what happened at Paryag is not to suggest that Pakistan is innocent. Pakistan is not innocent. In fact, it, like the Kashmiri leadership is equally responsible for the woes of common Kashmiri Muslims.
If the Kashmiri leadership really wishes that the common Kashmiri Muslims lead a dignified life and carry on their trading and other social activities elsewhere in the country in a peaceful environment and unhindered, it has to reform itself; it has to say good bye to Islamabad, which is not a well-wisher of Kashmir; the Kashmiri leaders have to prove by deeds and words that they are for India and it stands for national unity and integrity; that they would evolve and pursue policies which are holistic, all-embracing and state-centric and people-centric and not Kashmir and a particular community-centric. There is no other way.
To continue to tread the path the Kashmiri leaders have been treading since 1947 would be only to endanger the lives of common Kashmiri Muslims. How can they be a party to the process of legislation at the Centre and opponents of the same at the same time? It is not the 1946 Cabinet Mission Plan under which they are operating. They are participating the process of legislation post-1947. The Indian nation is, it appears and for right reasons, not prepared to tolerate the non-sense any longer.
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