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| Government attitude to striking employees negative & provocative | | |
RUSTAM
EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, Apr 11: J&K is passing through a critical phase. All, barring the ministers and those very close to them and stone-pelting Kashmiri youth and militants, are unhappy with the government. Ministers and legislators are happy because they are secure and enjoying the loaves and fishes of office. Bureaucracy is happy because it is ruling the roost. Stone-pelting Kashmiri boys are happy because the government has decided to reward them. Pakistan-based Kashmiri militants are happy because the government has decided to reward them and suitably rehabilitate them. The separatists are happy because the government is allowing them to regroup themselves and carry on their subversive and anti-India activities the way they want. This is one side of the story and it is disappointing.
The other side of the story is horrible and it is about the civil society. The civil society is a dissatisfied lot. It is fed up with the style of government functioning. It is angry because the government, instead of uniting the people and handing down a corruption-free, accountable, just and public-friendly dispensation, is functioning in a manner that is only pitting one section against the other and mismanaging and mishandling the affairs. In fact, each and every section of society has one grievance or the other against the government. The truth, in short, is that all are up in revolt against those managing the affairs of the state and there is chaos and anarchy across the state, which is already in deep trouble because of the militant and separatist-related activities.
What has added to the woes of the already rather angry and dissatisfied to the civil society more is the ongoing employees’ strike across the state. The strike has not only paralyzed the official functioning, but it has also made the life of the common people miserable, They are not being able to get their work done. The hospitals and the schools have stopped functioning. Economic activities have been hampered. If the present situation continues for some more days everything would come to a grinding halt and the beneficiaries would be obviously extremists and separatists who see in anarchical conditions an opportunity to implement their anti-India agenda.
The government could have induced the striking employees to give up the path of confrontation and resume duties by adopting a positive attitude towards them at the very outset. It didn’t do that. Instead, it took recourse to a line that was negative, unaccommodating and highly provocative. The senseless official actions, including arrests and cane-charging, taken to rein in and frighten the striking employees and the official statements on the issue and the full-page sized advertisements all added more fuel to the fire, with the aggrieved but determined employees further intensifying their agitation. Today the undeterred employees are confronting the police force.
The government says that it needs Rs 4200 crore to meet theemployees’ demands and it has no money available in its exchequer. But one of the Jammu-based opposition parties called what may be termed as an official bluff by informing the general public through media that “the government has a revenue surplus of Rs 5151 crores”. The sitting MLA and former party president made his point by quoting official figures. To set the record straight and establish that the government has at its disposal Rs 5151 crores for “capital expenditure”, he referred to certain pages of an official document that had been circulated by the state’s budget department. The said document was titled “Budget at a glance, 2010-2011”.
If what the sitting MLA said on the floor of the House a day earlier and during his press conference is correct, then the government can meet the employees’ demand in no time. Only the government knows the exact situation. But the fact that the state government has not refuted till date the assertion of the said MLA does convey the feeling that the government has at its disposal sufficient money that can be used for meeting the employees’ demands, which are genuine and constitutional. They are not demanding a moon. They are simply demanding what is their legitimate due.
The government would do well to initiate dialogue with the striking employees so that the issue is amicably resolved and work in offices resumed. There should be no pre-condition. After all, the Omar Abdullah-led coalition government has on innumerable occasions asked New Delhi to start dialogue with the Kashmiri militants and separatists without any pre-condition. If the Chief Minister could have a soft corner for the separatists, why can’t he adopt a similar attitude towards the striking employees, who are the backbone of the state’s politico-administrative establishment? The sooner he does so and concede the employees’ demands the better for him, for the state and for the common people who have been suffering immensely on account of the ongoing strike. |
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