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| Set up provincial councils in J&K, BJP tells Jethmalani | | Political Bankruptcy -- I | | Rustam
EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, July 24: The state unit of the BJP has once again disappointed the people of Jammu province. Yesterday, the BJP delegation met the senior BJP leader and Kashmir Committee chairman Ram Jethmalani and urged him to suggest the establishment of two provincial councils, one each for Jammu province and Kashmir region, invested with administrative and financial powers. At the same time, it urged Jethmalani to recommend Union Territory status for Ladakh.
The BJP delegation also talked about Article 370, about the problems of the refugees, about delimitation and about the scourge of discrimination and termed the ongoing movement in Kashmir as a manifestation of the "communally-motivated…terrorism" and dismissed the "Kashmir-centric political system" as anti-democratic. Fair enough. All these are very crucial issues which need immediate consideration and a rational and national solution.
Article 370 has to go lock, stock and barrel if the state is to be fully integrated into India. Article 370 is the mother of all ills afflicting the people of the state. It has deprived them of even those normal civil and political rights which are available to all other Indians. It has virtually given unbridled legislative, administrative and financial powers to the Kashmiri ruling elite with the people having no say whatever in the governance of the state. Besides, it has not only promoted politics of separatism based on religious fanaticism but also created an impression the world over that Jammu and Kashmir is not an integral part of India to the same extent as other states and union territories. Article 370 has indeed queered the Indian pitch in Jammu and Kashmir and given a great fillip to fissiparous tendencies and communal politics. This Article is not an elixir to life. It is a curse and not a boon and, hence, it must be repealed in the interests of the people of the state, including the people of Kashmir whom the Kashmiri leadership has consistently emotionally blackmailed for vote-bank politics, and in the larger national interest.
De novo delimitation of constituencies on the basis of the raid down criterion is a must if the people of Jammu province are to get their due share of representation in the legislative assembly, which decides questions of supreme importance. The existing assembly is not based on a rational delimitation of constituencies. The gerrymandering of the constituencies is also highly flawed. We have constituencies consisting nearly two lakh voters in Jammu and we have constituencies consisting of say less than 50,000 voters in Kashmir. That the delimitation was faulty and irrational could be seen from the fact that while Kashmir, which has less number of voters and which is two times smaller geographically as compared to Kashmir, has been returning to the assembly more than 55 per cent legislators, Jammu province, which has more voters and an area two times that of Kashmir, only 37. And, this undemocratic and anti-Jammu practice is in vogue since 1951. It can also be seen from the fact that while Kashmir returns three members to the Lok Sabha, the people of Jammu return only two.
Delimitation of the assembly and Lok Sabha constituencies after every census is a constitutional requirement or de novo delimitation of constituencies after every ten years is mandatory and, hence, the BJP has done well to draw the attention of Jethmalani to this very important issue. It is, however, a different story that the BJP itself is a party to the unconstitutional, undemocratic and anti-Jammu February 2002 amendment that debarred the concerned authorities to constitute delimitation commission for at least three decades. Had the BJP and the Congress opposed the communally and politically-motivated amendment, things in Jammu province today would have been somewhat different. The people of Jammu province are paying a very heavy price for the crime the BJP and the Congress committed in 2002. However, to recall all this is not to undermine the stand of the BJP. It has done well to discuss this issue.
Elimination of the cult of terror in Kashmir is a must if democracy and secularism are to flourish in the Valley and Pakistan and Kashmiri separatists, autonomists and protagonists of self-rule are to be shown their rightful place. The BJP is absolutely right when it told Jethmalani that the problem in Kashmir is basically communal and that the anti-secular and anti-democratic forces have ganged up against India. Mercifully, however, the BJP-led NDA government had also promoted those vehemently opposed to the Indian Constitution and those responsible for the rise of separatism and communalism in Kashmir. The BJP shared power with the NC and thus gave legitimacy to the politics of blackmail, soft secessionism, autonomy and Kashmiri Muslim sub-nationalism. If the Congress is responsible for the mess in Kashmir, the role of the BJP is equally questionable, rather more questionable. (To be continued) |
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