news details |
|
|
| Coalition equations: Time for Congress to take stand on Saghir report | | | RUSTAM
Jammu, Jan 22: Justice Saghir Ahmed, chairman of the Working Group on Centre-State Relations (Working Group was constituted by Prime Minister in 2006) submitted his report to Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on December 23, 2009. Ever since, the people of Jammu and Ladakh, exiled Kashmiri Hindus, the Bar Association Jammu and Gujjar and Bakerwal Muslims have been protesting against Justice Saghir Ahmed and saying time and again that his report is anti-India and anti-Jammu and anti-Ladakh. They have been accusing Justice Saghir Ahmed of endorsing the National Conference’s stand on autonomy for the state and rejecting their demands.
Almost all the political parties, barring the Congress, have expressed their views on the report and the recommendations it contains. While the National Conference has hailed the report, all others have rejected the same with contempt. The parties opposed to the report have organized a number of protest demonstrations and burnt the effigies of Justice Saghir Ahmed and a couple of Kashmir-based “mainstream” leaders.
The Congress so far has not taken a clear-cut stand on the controversial report. This is not good for the Congress party whose support-base is basically confined to the Jammu province, which has been witnessing anti-report protests at regular intervals. They have been attacking the Congress and the National Conference. So much so, they have been accusing the Congress parry, whose stakes are very high in the Jammu province for obvious reasons, of strengthening the National Conference by not taking a clear-cut stand on the issue, which has the potential of dividing the state and creating anarchical conditions in the already rather militant-infested Jammu and Kashmir.
The Congress cannot afford a situation that suits its detractors. Yes, the Congress Sewa Dal has organized one press conference to denounce those criticizing the Justice Saghir Ahmed report and dismiss them as “communal, divisive and reactionaries”. It is also true that the Congress Sewa Dal has given the people to understand that the Congress does not see anything wrong in the widely-condemned Justice Saghir Ahmed report.
At the same time, it is important to note that what the Congress Sewa Dal has publicly stated has created a sort of commotion, especially among the people of Jammu and Ladakh and other religious and ethnic minorities in the state. It would not be out of place to mention that all these people hate the autonomy concept because they believe that such a concession would harm their natural political and economic rights and help the separatists achieve their goal – independence of the state from India.
The Congress Sewa Dal has created a peculiar situation for the Congress in the state in the sense that it send a signal that the Congress party is no more than an appendage of the National Conference, which is seeking to expand its constituency by telling the innocent people that it has been able to persuade Justice Saghir Ahmed to recommend maximum possible autonomy for the state.
The Congress leadership at the top must intervene without losing a single moment and tell the agitating people that it is national party and, hence, it will become a party to any decision that drives the state away from the national mainstream and recognizes communal politics as secular politics. Not to make the stand clear or to continue to allow lower-rung leaders to express their views on issues of great import would only to damage the Congress party. This should not happen. The Congress needs to be strengthened and it can be strengthened only if it rejects out-of-hand such demands as autonomy or self-rule.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
