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| Secessionist movement in Kashmir and Jammu's response | | Widening Gulf | | Neha
Jammu, Nov 18: One of the fall-outs of the ongoing secessionist movement in the Kashmir Valley is the growing demand in Jammu for a separate state/reorganisation of the state on regional basis. The demand unambiguously points to the consciousness of the danger of being submerged under the rising clamour in Kashmir for "azadi", plebiscite, restoration of pre-1953 position and self-rule. It also points to their dwindling faith in the Congress-led UPA Government. The reason: The Union Government seems determined to unsettle things in Kashmir in its desperate bid to buy peace in the Valley and throw in the lot of the people of Jammu with Kashmir.
The people of Jammu have been told, and are still being told, by anti-Jammu elements that Kashmir is within India because Jammu and Ladakh are attached to it, and that if Kashmir is to be retained, Jammu and Ladakh have to sacrifice their legitimate politico-economic interests in favour of the Valley. The 1952 parleys between Jawaharlal Nehru and Sheikh Abdullah, the 1975 Indira-Sheikh Abdullah Accord, and the 1987 Rajiv Gandhi-Farooq Abdullah Accord prove this point. All these agreements were made to strike a deal with the Kashmiri leadership over the heads of the people of Jammu and Ladakh.
The nationalists as they were and are, the people of Jammu have so far accepted this argument and have suffered happily and silently in the hope that Kashmir would one day join the national mainstream. But this arrangement has been rendered ineffective by their failure to secure even fundamental concessions like proper delimitation of the assembly constituencies, adequate representation of the Jammu youth in the employment sector and technical and professional institutions and so on.
The political domination of the Kashmir Valley over Jammu is evident from the fact that the Chief Minister is always from the Kashmir Valley and so is the leadership of the major political parties like the Congress. Jammu is also poorly represented in the Civil Secretariat. While about 25 per cent officials in Jammu province are from the Valley, employees from Jammu province do not constitute even 2 per cent of the total in Kashmir. Such under-representation is evident in other spheres also. Jammu province returns two members to the Lok Sabha and Kashmir three despite the fact that Kashmir is inferior to Jammu province both in terms of land area and voters. Similarly, Kashmir returns 42 members to the assembly and Jammu only 37.
No attention is paid to develop tourism in Jammu province. About 90 per cent of the state's tourism budget is spent in the Valley every year, even though tourists who come to Jammu are 25 times more than those going to Kashmir. Power generation, too, is grossly neglected in Jammu province. Chenani in Jammu is the only (state) power plant producing a paltry 22 MW. The rest of the state power plants; namely Upper Jhelum, Lower Jhelum, Sindh. Mohra and Ganderwal, etc, are in the Valley, producing more than 300 MW. While only Rs 10 crore were spent on the Chenani project years ago, Rs 500 crores were spent on the Kashmir plants during the same period. The same story of neglect is true of roads also.
The net result is widespread discontent, frustration and dissatisfaction in Jammu. The sacrifices of the people of Jammu have gone down the drain. The grim situation prevailing in Kashmir at present eloquently proves this point. The anti-Jammu and separatist psyche of the Kashmiri leadership, coupled with the Congress' policy of appeasement, has denied the people of Jammu province their due share in the state's political processes. Consequently, they have suffered on all the four fronts - political, administrative, social and economic.
But now, when the political future of Jammu is at stake; when the Congress-led UPA is hinting at the possibility of negotiating with the subversives without ascertaining the views of the people of Jammu and Ladakh; and when certain human rights associations and their leaders have almost joined the secessionists in denouncing the policy of New Delhi, the people of Jammu province can hardly be expected to view such developments like silent spectators.
The discrimination against Jammu has assumed alarming proportions, threatening the region's very identity. Nearly all those who matter seem determined to ignore Jammu and Ladakh yet again in their desperate bid to placate the Kashmiri leadership and militants, forgetting the fate of the earlier agreements when the principle of protection of minorities, which include the Hindus, the Sikhs, the Gujjars and the Punjabi Muslims, was applied in the wrong way and when anti-national and pro-Pakistan elements are trying to disturb the communal amity in the Jammu province in the name of religion.
The people of Jammu province have the right to express their opinion on the kind of political set-up they want. They are within their rights to oppose any plebiscite and the restoration of the pre-1953 political arrangement. It is in this context that the demand for a separate Jammu State/reorganization of the state should be viewed.
It cannot be denied that Jammu's political aspirations are different from those of Kashmir. Jammu wants full integration with India. It not only welcomes but also advocates the extension of central laws to the state. On the contrary, the protagonists of pre-1953 political set-up and self-rule and the Kashmir-based NC, PDP and Congress leadership regard all such changes as an erosion of Article 370. Such a sharp difference in approach and attitude unambiguously reflects one of the fundamental contradictions between Jammu and Kashmir. |
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