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| Omar's happiness over 8-point package misplaced | | | EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, Sept 27: Chief Minister Omar Abdullah appears quite jubilant these days. It is a different story that his party colleagues and MP Mehboob Beg has described the package as "too little, too late." Omar Abdullah says that New Delhi has given to him what he needed to tackle the situation in Kashmir. The case in point is the 8-point package the Union Home Minister announced last Saturday after the end of the Cabinet Committee on Security meet. What has he got? He has got only 100 crores of rupees for the development of infrastructure in the educational institutions and nothing else. This is so small an amount for New Delhi considering the fact it has pumped into Kashmir in the past billions and billions of rupees. Was he struggling for this petty amount?
The Chief Minister is happy because New Delhi has asked him to release those booked under the Public Safety Act (PSA) and those who threw stones on the paramilitary forces and the state police and burnt down police stations and other government buildings. He could have done so himself because it was his administration that had arrested persons and unruly elements. It was not at the behest of New Delhi that his government arrested nearly 250 people. Where was the need for him to obtain permission from New Delhi? Similarly, he could have reviewed the cases of those booked under the PSA because it is a state legislation. Where was the need for him to obtain permission from New Delhi to review the cases of those booked under the state legislation? It would be no exaggeration to say that the Chief Minister has surrendered to New Delhi even those powers that are the sole preserve of the state government. What a joke!
Chief Minister Omar Abdullah is happy because New Delhi has asked him to convene meeting of the Unified Headquarters to "review the deployment of security forces in Kashmir Valley, especially in Srinagar, with particular reference to de-scaling the number of bunkers, check-points etc, in Srinagar and other towns, and to review the notification of areas as disturbed areas." What is special about it? The Unified Headquarters meet at regular intervals under the chairmanship of none other than the Chief Minister himself, discuss the security scenario and take appropriate steps to meet the situation. The Chief Minister is a party to all the decisions taken by the Unified Headquarters. It is the Unified Headquarters that takes decision on the number of troops and paramilitary force personnel to be deployed or not to be deployed and where to deploy and where not to deploy. The Unified Headquarters is a functional institution and it takes decisions as per the need of the time or as the situation warrants. It consists of officials belonging to the Army, paramilitary forces, state police, intelligence agencies, including Intelligence Bureau, and so on. The Chief Minister knows all this, and yet he is feeling jubilant.
Who is he fooling? The Army and paramilitary forces and the intelligence agencies play the most crucial role in the Unified Headquarters meeting because they know the ground situation as they are the people on the spot. It's true that the Chief Minister presides over such meetings. But it's also true that whatever decisions are taken, these are taken in consultation with or at the behest of the Chief Minister. Hence, there is no cause that could make the beleaguered Chief Minister feel jubilant.
The Chief Minister is feeling very happy because New Delhi has agreed to appoint a few interlocutors to initiate dialogue with everyone in the state, including separatists, who have already rejected the decision, the mainstream leaders, members of the civil society and student organizations, for discussing ways and means that could restore peace in the state. What is new in it? New Delhi has been appointing interlocutors since long. The state has seen such interlocutors in the past in the persons of KC Pant, Arun Jaitley, NN Vohra and so on. What did they do? They didn't do anything because they couldn't do anything. They couldn't do anything because no one has the mandate to compromise the Indian position in Jammu and Kashmir; because no one can go against the basic structure of the Indian Constitution, which, among other things, says that Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India; because no one can accept the demands as put forth by the separatist and the so-called mainstream Kashmiri leaders; and because no one has the mandate to alter the borders of India.
The Chief Minister is happy because New Delhi has asked him to open educational institutions in the Kashmir Valley? New Delhi has done a right thing. It is the duty of the state government to cater to the educational needs of the people. The question is: Who closed down the educational institutions? The educational institutions were closed both by the state government by imposing curfew and by the militants who imposed civil curfew again and again; who enforced strikes and ordered the people to boycott the educational institutions for the sake of a larger goal: Pakistan or independence. The state government took the decision to open the schools today. The response of Geelani to the government decision is: Teachers and non-teaching staff should stay at home, people should observe civil curfew on Monday when schools and colleges would reopen. The government should have nipped the evil in the bud and ensured that its writ runs in Kashmir. But it acted otherwise, thus allowing Geelani and others of his ilk to rule the roost. Anyway, it is good that the government has opened educational institutions ignoring the Geelani's opposition. This is the way the government should function.
The truth, in short, is that the jubilance of the Chief Minister is misplaced and intriguing. He has hailed the package because he has no other option. He wants to retain control over the state power at whatever cost. To oppose the package would mean end of his rule, which has brought to the people of the state nothing but miseries. |
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