news details |
|
|
| Tinkering with AFSPA would mean tinkering Indian sovereignty | | | RUSTAM
EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, Sept 25: The current strife in the Kashmir Valley is not because the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) is in force in the state. It has been in operation since 1990. The prevailing discontent and ongoing violent activities, including incidents of stone-throwing, are the immediate results of the failure to provide a good, people-friendly, corruption-free, transparent and accountable administration.
It is, however, a different story that the unemployed youth and dissatisfied and cheated people in the Jammu province have refused to imitate their brethren in Kashmir. The people of Jammu province believe in constitutional method of agitation. They seldom take the law of the land into their hands. They agitate and bring to a grinding halt everything when they feel that moves are afoot to destroy the national unity and integrity and force down their throat regressive and intolerant ideology as represented by the Kashmiri leaders in general and separatists in particular. And, when they agitate, no one can control them. They can sustain their movement for any number of months. Take, for example, what they did in 1998 and 2008. Otherwise, the people of Jammu province are law-abiding and peaceful. They - Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs -- never disturb the socio-religious and political equilibrium in their province, leave aside a few aberrations here and there and such aberrations do take place everywhere and in every society. The political behaviour of the people of the far-off Ladakh and Kashmiri Hindus is no different. In fact, the people of Jammu and Ladakh and Kashmiri Hindus could be bracketed together; they belong to one category of people.
The people of Kashmir are a different case. They have all along been emotionally exploited and instigated by the vested interests, including separatists. They have never allowed the common Kashmiris to join the national mainstream because they see in it their own destruction. The religious sentiments of the common Kashmiris are also exploited. The vested interests mislead them and arouse popular passions by telling them that their religion is in danger; their identity is under grave threat; communal elements are out to change the demographic profile in the Kashmir Valley and they have launched a cultural invasion on Kashmir. These vested interests have all through sought to deflect the attention of the people away from the real issues. These vested interests always survive and thrive on the blood and sweat of the poor and gullible Kashmiris.
The separatists exploit their religious sentiments and play with their emotions when they feel threatened; when they feel that their money-minting shops are on the verge of closure; when they feel that they have become irrelevant. They also instigate the gullible Kashmiris at the behest of Pakistan, which has destroyed their co-religionists in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan politically, economically, socially and culturally and changed the demographic profile of these occupied areas and where their co-religionists do not enjoy any freedom. These vested interests always tried to create an impression that they do everything in the name of their religion, humanity and human rights but actually they do everything for the worldly gains; to mint easy money, lead a luxurious life, to live in palatial houses and secure places, to enjoy all sorts of privileges and visit foreign countries. They have nothing to do with the common Kashmiris. They consider the common people as their personal property that they could misuse and exploit anytime. They do not mind the common Kashmiris sufferings on account of the enforced shutdowns and continuous strikes.
The ruling elite in the Kashmir Valley also takes recourse to the kind of means the vested interests as referred to be above consistently indulge in to promote their vested interests at the cost of the common Kashmiris, including their death and destruction. The present dispensation is a classical case. It's now almost 19-month-old, but has not taken off so far. It is not just dysfunctional. It is also invisible. The situation has reached a point where it has become extremely difficult to make even the civil secretariat functional. The ruler of the state has allowed himself to be surrounded by a coterie that is not accountable to the people. It's all corruption, mal-administration, anarchy, lawlessness, no rule of law, no respect for government institutions, breakdown of constitutional machinery and what not.
At the same time, the failed Kashmir-based ruling elite doesn't want to quit; it's lust for power and pelf is insatiable; it wants to retain control over the state power despite the fact that it has forfeited all of its moral, political and constitutional rights to remain in office; it doesn't mind enjoying the loaves of fishes and office for some more time even on the ruins of the Kashmir's premier political organization. Since the failed ruling elite is not prepared to accept its utter failure and since it can't do without state power, it, like the vested interests in Kashmir, including separatists, has thought it prudent to deflect the people's attention away from the real issues and, hence, the demand for the revocation of the AFSPA, withdrawal of the Army and paramilitary forces and so on. (To be continued) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
STOCK UPDATE |
|
|
 |
| BSE
Sensex |
 |
| NSE
Nifty |
|
|
| |
CRICKET UPDATE |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
