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| Angry Ladakhis on warpath, denounces interlocutors, demands Central University | | STARK REALITY | | RUSTAM
EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, Oct 30: Jammu has become a hub of all pro-India activities. It has also been converted into a hub of activities by those who have suffered persecution from time to time at the hands of Kashmiri rulers and fanatics and by those who have been ignored and badly let down by the Kashmir-dominated and Valley-centric successive governments in the state and New Delhi. It would not be out of place to mention here that Jammu houses the persecuted and discriminated against people, original inhabitants Dogras and refugees from West Pakistan, Pakistan-occupied-Jammu and Kashmir and the Kashmir Valley and border migrants and the virtually forgotten Ladakhis included.
Yesterday, Jammu witnessed the angry Ladakhi students organizing an impressing protest rally. It was participated in y hundreds of students. They organized the rally to draw the attention of the indifferent and biased authorities to their miserable plight and the miserable plight of the region to which they belong, the trans-Himalayan Cold-Desert Ladakh. They raised slogans against the authorities, denounced the interlocutors on Jammu and Kashmir on the ground that they ignored the people of Ladakh and demanded not only Central University for their neglected region, but also a special treatment to Ladakh saying theirs' is the most backward region educationally and otherwise. They were absolutely right. The Ladakhis, like the people of Jammu province, have been suffering huge, huge political, economic and social losses due to the indifferent attitude of the authorities towards them.
The extent of their neglect can be gauged from the fact that the number of Ladakhis employees working in the state's civil secretariat in 2007 was not even twenty out of a total of more than 1,700 hundred employees. The situation is no different even today. The Ladakhis are conspicuous by their absence in the civil secretariat. They are, like the people of Jammu, also conspicuous by their absence in Kashmir Valley. It can also be measured from the fact that the bulk of Ladakhi youth have to come to Jammu and go to Chandigarh and Delhi to acquire education. The truth is that the Ladakhis have been consistently discriminated against since 1947. It's no wonder then that they have been demanding Union Territory status since November 1947 saying this is the only panacea available to end their night of discontent and despair and achieve freedom from the Kashmiri domination and exploitation.
The yesterday's Ladakhi students' very strong and impressive protest needs to be viewed in this context. What did these angry Ladakhi students say while addressing the protest rally? Addressing the large gathering of the Ladakhi students, one of their leaders Tsering Namgyal said, "with lack of proper education facilities in Ladakh, youths have been compelled to become educational refugees"; that "they are losing their unique identity because they have to go out of Ladakh to acquire education"; and that "this has adversely affected their culture leading to unrest among them." His grouse was that while New Delhi sanctioned two Central Universities for the state, one each for Jammu province and Kashmir region, it ignored Ladakh which is educationally very backward and where the existing college is in a shambles and under-staffed. He said, "Such discrimination is utterly unacceptable to the people of Ladakh." Besides declaring in no uncertain terms that the people of Ladakh are nationalists to the core and ardent believers in the Indian Constitution, Namgyal said it is disgusting that New Delhi only cares for those who are vocal and who are in full command.
Namgyal was not the only one who took on New Delhi and the vindictive and discriminatory state Government. Dorjay Angchuk, another Ladakhi student leade, also lamented that the "interlocutors should not have ignored them, as they also belong to the state." He said, and rightly so, that the "people of Ladakh, too, are facing hardships like the people of other regions."
The crux of the speeches made by Namgyal, Angchuk and other protesting Ladakhi students was that the people of the trans-Himalayan region have been suffering ever since 1947 owing to the discriminatory policies being pursued by the state government and New Delhi. "Only Kashmir gets due attention and share from the Central Government but both Jammu and Ladakh region have always remained neglected," was the upshot of their whole argument. Their demands ranged from adequate educational infrastructure in the degree colleges in Ladakh region to inclusion of Ladakhi language in 8th Schedule to opening of Chadhar Road and Zojila tunnel and so on.
The fact is that everyone in Jammu and Ladakh is unhappy with the governments in the state and at the Centre. There are potent reasons to believe that the inter-regional relations in the state would become more and more bitter in the coming days. Reasons are obvious. There is but only one way in which the relations between Jammu and Kashmir and between the latter and Ladakh could be harmonized and that is by reorganizing the state on a regional basis. The Jammu-based Congress leaders were right when they told the visiting interlocutors that the State Constitutions needed to be amended in order to federalize the state polity. They belong to a national party. They are also part of the state government. They should see to it that the State Constitution is amended in the next assembly session. It is the need of the time. |
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