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| For them nonissues are issues | | | The proposed bill providing for proprietary rights to the slum dwellers in Jammu and Kashmir has started gener ating a new controversy even when the bill is yet to be tabled in the state legislature.Under the proposed bill,which has been cleared by the state cabinet,slum dwellers were to be given proprietary rights of the land on which they have been living for the last several years.Once they became the owners of the Government land their rehabilitation is to be facilitated with the central financial assistance that would be made available for construction of suitable residential houses.In fact rehablitation of slum dwellers is a scheme that has been taken in hand throughout the country.In the union capital and its immediate adjoining areas the Delhi Government and the centre plan to spend several hundred crores of rupees on the settlement and rehabilitation of the slum dwellers.It is a human problem that has received attention not only in India but in other developing nations.
Though the number of slum dwellers in Jammu and Kashmir is quite small when compared to other states,including UP,Bihar,Delhi,Punjab,Haryana,the initiative taken by the Government in rehabilitating these slum dwellers is laudable.It is amazing to find the hardliners among the separatists up in arms against the settlement of the slum dwellers.The reason being political more than social or human.The arguments dished out against the plan on settling the dwellers by the separatists,belonging to the camp headed by Syed Ali Shah Geelani, are similar to the one they had stated during the Amarnath land row in 2008.This time too the Geelani camp has stated that since there were no permanent residents of Jammu and Kashmir who were slum dwellers the new policy will simply settle non-state subjects in the state which could alter the demographic character of the state.
The Geelani camp argues that settling the slum dwellers would violate the spirit of Article 370 under which no non-state subject can be given proprietary rights of the land on which he lives in Jammu and Kashmir.It seems that the separatists do not wish to see human sufferings,problems and issues beyond the spectrum of Article 370.They do not willingly wish to abandon imaginary fears on changing the demographic character of the state.When the state cabinet diverted about 800 kanals of land to the Amarnath Shrine Board at and around Baltal for building basic infrastructure for the pilgrims the separatists and the Kashmir centric political leaders cried foul accusing the Government of establishing an Amarnath Nagar for settling non-muslims for the only purpose of altering the demographic character of the state.Is it possible for people from the plains to live in a place that remains buried under snow for over five months ? Certainly not.But the separatists deliberately did not think on these lines.There should be not more than 3000 to 5,000 slum dwellers in the state,most of them in the Jammu region.Will their settlement alter the demographic character of the state ?It is unbelievable and that too when the plan is to grant proprietary rights only to those slum dwellers who are permanent residents of the state.Let the separatists give up their habit of converting nonissues into issues
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