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| Interlocutors' 5-point agenda & 5 sessions | | Futile Exercise -- I | | Neha
EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, July 11: Selected delegates to the Round Table Conference (RTC), organized by the interlocutors for Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), met today at the PWD Guest House, Gandhi Nagar, Jammu, to express their views on the 5-point agenda circulated by the interlocutors. They would meet on Tuesday as well. The interlocutors have planned five sessions and the focus in each session would be on one particular issue. The issues are simple and everyone is fully aware of them. In fact, these are some of the issues that have been irritating the marginalized and persecuted sections. Even the interlocutors are aware of the issues enumerated in their agenda. In other words, the 2-day RTC would be a futile exercise in the sense that it is extremely doubtful if the interlocutors would recognize the ground realities while working out a solution.
What are the issues and what are the answers? Issue number one: Plurality in J&K ("Traditionally, J&K was famous for its ethnic and religious diversity and the syncretic beliefs and practices that grew out of interactions between different faiths and customs. While kashmiriyat was known as a culture of tolerance and integration, Jammu was the 'Gulistan' of diverse communities and faiths living together, and Ladakh's civility and peacefulness was legendary.")
A brief reflection on the issue number one. Kashmir: Unfortunately, Kashmir was never famous for what the interlocutors call its "ethnic and religious diversity and the syncretic beliefs and practices that grew out of interactions between different faiths and customs." The story is just the opposite. Kashmir was a hundred per cent Hindu some 8 centuries ago. Hindus are conspicuous by their absence in today's Kashmir. The Dogras and Ladakhis are also conspicuous by the absence in Kashmir. Today's Kashmir is essentially one community's Kashmir and everyone knows which community I am hinting at. The Hindus had been migrating from Kashmir since the 11th and 12th centuries and the process of migration completed in April 1990. All, barring a couple of thousands Kashmiri Hindus, fled from the Valley in early 1990 for three reasons - escape their physical liquidation at the hands of the extremists and "freedom fighters", save their religion and culture and reiterate their faith in the unity, integrity and sovereignty of India. Some of the Sikhs also migrated from the Valley for the same reasons. As for the term "Kashmiriyat, it was coined after 1975 by one Jammu-based commentator and follower of Sheikh Abdullah for reasons not difficult to fathom. One of the reasons was to create an impression that the votary of plebiscite was secular, democrat and tolerant.
Jammu: It is Jammu that was, and continues to be, famous for what the interlocutors call "ethnic and religious diversity and the syncretic beliefs and practices that grew out of interactions between different faiths and customs." Jammu has never witnessed any inter-communal trouble in the real sense of the term during all these years of independence. Jammu has been accommodating refugees since 1947 and their number is to the tune of 15 lakh. The situation has climaxed to the point that Jammu city has become Dogra minority and, yet, the locals and refugees live peacefully. Jammu has been accommodating not just Hindu and Sikh refugees, but it has also been accommodating even Muslims of Kashmir. During the past two decades, thousands of Kashmiri Muslims have constructed residential houses in Jammu, some of them palatial, and set up business establishments here in this region. Notwithstanding all the pressures and losses, the Dogras of Jammu have received everyone very warmly. There is no rancour. Jammu was an oasis of peace and communal harmony and it continues to remain so. Jammu is indeed a "gulistan."
It is, however, a different story that there are elements in the New Delhi's corridors of power, in the Delhi-based media, in Kashmir and even in Jammu who term Kashmir and Kashmiri leaders, both separatist and the so-called mainstream, as tolerant, compassionate and all-inclusive, notwithstanding their insistence on a separate dispensation or a dispensation outside the Indian constitutional framework, and term Jammu as communal, parochial, regional, intolerant, backward-looking, and even anti-national when the people of Jammu province demand a system of governance, coupled with a solution, that is state (as opposed to Kashmir) centric, that treats them at par with the people of Kashmir at all levels and in all spheres and that brings the state and New Delhi closer.
The story of the Ladakh is no different. Ladakh is known for "civility and peacefulness."
Reflection on issue number two. "Challenges to Pluralism in the State (Decades of conflict have strained the syncretic culture that characterized J&K. The rise of identity tensions and communal polarization over the past few years has challenged the state's diversity. How deep and/or strong are these challenges - has the culture been eroded or is it still present beneath the surface? Is the popular aspiration in different regions still one of coexistence, or do the regions want separation from each other, as some allege?)
The answer to the issue number two lies in the reflection on the issue number one. The culprit is known and the crimes it has committed are also too well-known. The most unfortunate aspect of the whole situation has been the unwillingness on the part of New Delhi, commentators and trouble-shooters to recognize the ground realities in Kashmir as well as Jammu and Ladakh. All the problems that the nation faces today in the state are due to this unwillingness. The problems would continue to dominate the state's socio-religious and political scene till the time these realities are not recognized and corrective measures undertaken to surmount the problem in Kashmir that has led to all other problems in the state. |
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