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| Trifurcation: Criticism of Health Minister Sham unjustifiable | | | RUSTAM
EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, Dec 10: One may or may not agree with the Health Minister and Congress leader Sham Lal Sharma's trifurcation proposal or his suggestion that J&K needs to be trifurcated in order to end the night of discontent and despair in Jammu and Ladakh and enable the people of these two discriminated against regions to shape, mould and control fully their own political and economic future within India and under the Indian Constitution. But to dub the Health Minister as a communalist, regionalist and chauvinist and demand his arrest is as unjustifiable as it is against Article 1 of the Indian Constitution that says that the number of states can be increased or decreased as per the needs of the people and requirements of the time.
The Constitution is for the people and not otherwise. When the people feel that the existing arrangement has utterly failed to cater to their basic needs and that they are being discriminated against by the political class belonging to a particular region, they have every right to demand segregation and have a separate dispensation. Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Chhatissgarh, Jharkhand and Uttranchal became separate states when the people of these areas protested against the discriminatory policies and demanded the status of statehood. Representatives of all the political parties in the Parliament supported their demands and the result was the formation of new states.
Similar struggles are going on in the Telengana region of Andhra Pradesh and Vidharba and Konkan regions of Maharashtra and there are reasons to believe that they would become full-fledged states sooner then later. Similarly, Ladakh has been witnessing a very strong movement aimed at obtaining for the region the status of Union Territory. They have already obtained Autonomous Hill Development Council and one can say with full confidence that they would obtain the status of Union Territory also. The people of this region, irrespective of their political affiliation and religious denomination, are one as far as the demand for Union Territory status is concerned. Jammu province, too, has been witnessing a movement since 1947 and its stated objective is to obtain for the people of this province a political system that not only caters to their socio-economic and administrative needs but also fulfills their political aspirations. Their political aspirations are, everyone knows, complete merger with India, national unity and integrity and action against those in Kashmir who have been demanding greater autonomy, self-rule, merger with Pakistan, freedom for the state, India-Pakistan joint-control over the state, joint-management, intra-state measures or shared sovereignty, economic independence, dual currency, irrelevant or porous Line of Control, return to and rehabilitation of terrorists in Kashmir and so on, on the basis of religion.
It is indeed ironical that those who have been supporting these demands of the Kashmiri leaders and working overtime in order to persuade the authorities in New Delhi to concede these highly unsettling and communal demands have unleashed a no-holds-barred propaganda campaign against Sham Lal. So much so, a section of the Press, which has all along identified itself with the Kashmiri separatists and extremists, has talked of a "political collusion of the Congress and sangh parivar" and asserted that the "collusion is complete." It has even gone to the extent of asserting that "a number of senior Congress leaders of Jammu have been speaking the language of the sangh parivar, obliterating the line which divided them ideologically."
This pro-separatist press has, in addition, said: "Sham Lal's cry of discrimination against Jammu, his tirade against Kashmir and Kashmiris and his communal and chauvinistic outburst are in style with the Congress policy and strategy to retain or win back its vote bank in the Hindu-majority areas in Jammu. For this purpose the Congress leaders of different hues and belonging to different factions have been trying to outdo the BJP in raising communal and chauvinistic slogans and demands. Their tone and tenor and style of speaking may differ but what Sham Lal says now has already been said by the Congressmen of Jammu ranging from Mangat Ram Sharma to Lal Singh. The perfidious and highly communal role of the Congress during the Amarnath land row-related agitation in Jammu spearheaded by the Hindutva brigade is too well known to expose the nefarious role and ugly communal face of the Congress in Jammu. Most of the Congress leaders, including the ministers in the Congress-PDP coalition then headed by Ghulam Nabi Azad, spared no efforts in expressing their solidarity with the RSS-sponsored sangarsh samiti leading the agitation in Jammu and even tried to beat the sangh parivar in raising communal and chauvinistic slogans. Instead of countering the communal politics of the sangh parivar, the Congressmen of various sizes echoed the parivar voice on almost every issue, whether it was about the alleged discrimination against Jammu or for the vivisection of the State on communal lines. The Congress in the State in general and Jammu in particular has ceased to be a party committed to secularism, federalism and democracy having a politically committed leadership and cadre but has become a refuge for all kinds of opportunists, careerists, corrupt politicians, communalists and even criminals.
It is for the suffering people of Jammu province to expose those who accord legitimacy to the politics of communalism and separatism being indulged in by the Kashmiri leaders of all hues and strengthen the hands of those in Jammu, including the likes of Sham Lal Sharma and his brother and Congress MP Madan Lal Sharma, who has also come out openly in defence of his brother, and achieve their most cherished goal: Political empowerment within India. Those in the BJP who have been demanding the arrest of Sham Lal Sharma are only outraging the Jammu's sensitivities and strengthening the anti-Jammu forces in Kashmir. Those in the BJP who are demanding the head of Sham Lal Sharma would do well to remember that the BJP-led NDA had as early as in 1999 decided to accept Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf's anti-India proposals on J&K.
Sham Lal Sharma has committed no crime. He has only spoken the truth and clarified that he never recommended freedom for Kashmir. That's it. |
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