RUSTAM
JAMMU, Feb 14: The lingering crisis in the sensitive border belt comprising Poonch-Rajouri area is deepening with each passing day. What is deepening the crisis is the hard attitude adopted by the major communities inhabiting this area – Gujjar and Bakerwal Muslims and the Pathowari-speaking people, Mostly Muslims, also called Paharis.
The issue, which has brought these two communities face to face with each other, is the demand of the Paharis that they should also be treated at par with the Gujjar and Bakerwal communities and given the status of Scheduled Tribe (ST). The argument of the Pahari leadership is that they are no different from the Gujjars and Bakerwals as they inhabit the areas the nomadic communities inhabit and, hence, they also all the privileges the tribal and ethnically distinct Gujjars and Bakerwals have been enjoying since April 1991. It was in that year that the then Union Government headed by Chandra Shekhar accepted their decades old demand of the Gujjars and Bakerwals and conferred on them the ST status.
That the controversy between these two communities has assumed alarming proportions is evident from the highly hard statement that was made only the other day by the state president of J&K Gujjar-Bakerwal Joint Forum (JKGBJF), Haji Shamsher Ali Boken. He has not only rejected out-of-hand the “appeal of Pahari leaders to back their demand for grant of ST status” to the Pahari community, but has also gone to the extent of declaring that “if anybody from the Gujjar community is found anywhere supporting the cause of Pahari-speaking people, he would be excommunicated from the community…”
One may or may not agree with the threat he has administered to the members of his own community, but one cannot disagree with the arguments he advanced while asserting that the demand of the Paharis is ill-designed and illogical and that under the existing rules and regulations no community could be granted the status of ST on the basis of language. It is a fact that till date no community in the country has been accorded the ST status on linguistic basis.
Even otherwise, the demand put forth by the Pahari leadership quite irrational considering the fact that it is not only the people of Rajouri-Poonch area who are Paharis, but the people of the entire state, barring a few areas in the Kathua, Samba and Jammu districts, are also Paharis because they also inhabit the mountainous and hilly areas.
Retired KAS officer and president, Society for Peace and Environmental Concerns (SPEC), Ahmad Shannas, is absolutely right when he writes on February 9 “one can identify…Pahari areas in each district that are characteristically different from the rest of the land because of their peculiar geographical position. For example, Marwah, Dachhan, Paddar, Udil, Dessa, Bhalessa, Bonjwah, Pogal Paristan, Chamalwas in the old district of Doda; Bani, Billawar in District Kathua; Gool Gulabgarh, Mahore, Dharmari, Dudoo Basantgarh in the old District Udhampur; Sialan, Hari Marrot, Arai, Loran, Sawjian, Khetan Chamreh, Poshana in District Poonch; Mangota, Alal, Dhara, Ghambeer Mughlan, Parodi, Sakri, Swadi, Keri, Kote Chadwal, Ghundha Khawas in District Rajouri. Similarly, higher reaches of Pahalgam, inaccessible areas of Anantnag and Kulwama, Uri area of District Baramullah, Karnah, Keran and other inaccessible areas of District Kupwara, etc”.
Ahmad Shannas is also right when he questions: “How can we equate the towns of Bhaderwah, Kishtwar or Rajouri, Nowshera, Sunderbani, or Poonch, Surankot, etc, with the most unusual Pahari hamlets of Dachhan, Marwah, Paddar or Kote Chadwal, Ghunda Khawas of Poshana, Sialan, etc, of the same districts?
No one can overlook the observations of Ahmad Shannas or Boken as all of their assertions are based on facts, which cannot be challenged or questioned. The fact of the matter is that over 85 per cent of the people of Jammu and Kashmir, like the people of the entire Himalayan belt, are Paharis. The anthropologists, the linguists, the sociologists, and even the historical records and chronicles establish that all those who inhabit the mountainous and hilly areas are called Paharis.
This is the factual position. The Pahari leadership would do exceedingly well to recognize these STARK REALITES. They must take a holistic view of the whole issue so that the controversy is resolved amicably and the possibility of civil war in the sensitive areas of the state is averted. The ball is in the court of the Paharis. The Gujjars and Bakerwals will, it seems, not allow the Paharis to create a counterpoise to their aims and aspirations.
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