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| Jammu and Ladakhi youth also have a say | | Lop-sided Approach | | Neha
JAMMU, Jan 29: Union Home Minister P Chidambaram in January 2011 engaged the Institute of Research on India and International Studies (IRIIS), New Delhi, to conduct survey on the media impact on Kashmiri youth. What had prompted his ministry to conduct such a survey was the rise of cult of stone pelting in the Valley in the summer of 2010 that had led to death of over 100 Kashmiri youth. The survey team was led by Navnita Chadha Behera of the IRIIS and it interviewed as many as 1300 Kashmiri youth to ascertain their views on the impact of media on them, as also to ascertain their political views.
It was a lop-sided or Kashmir-centric survey. It once again established that the powers-that-be in New Delhi have no place whatsoever for Jammu and Ladakh and that it continues to accord a preferential treatment to the state's one region, Kashmir and its people, including the Kashmiri youth. In other words, it established that the youth of Jammu and the trans-Himalayan Ladakh have no say whatever, which is a wrong approach that needs to be opposed by one and all. The youth of Jammu and Ladakh have a say and it has to be considered and duly appreciated.
The IRIIS made the survey report public at the India International Centre (IIC), New Delhi, on January 27. Those present on the occasion included Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, former interlocutor on Jammu and Kashmir Dileep Padgaonkar, NIdhi Razdan of NDTV, Ahmad Ali Fayaz (Early Times), Vehera and others. Omar Abdullah presided over the function and expressed his views on the survey and its implications.
It may appear unbelievable but it is a fact that Omar Abdullah questioned the exclusion of Jammu and Ladakh from the exercise and suggested that it would have been appropriate had the survey also covered Jammu and Ladakh. The attitude of Padgaonkar and Nidhi Razdan was also identically. Both of them reportedly disapproved of the Union Home Minister's approach and underlined the need for a comprehensive survey covering all the three regions of the state. The upshot of their argument was that only such a survey could present an accurate picture of facts.
Besides the Chief Minister, Padgaonkar and Razdan, some displaced Kashmiri Hindus, who were also present on the occasion, also criticized the authorities for ignoring the views of the Kashmiri Hindus living in exile since early 1990 in Jammu and elsewhere in the country. They pointed that it was the Kashmiri Hindus who had suffered at the hands of the Kashmiri extremists and the political class. In other words, they suggested that the surveyors met with those responsible for the miserable plight of the displaced Hindu community. They even took on Nidhi Razdan and entered into an argument with the Chief Minister.
It is strange that the authorities in New Delhi have not refashioned their approach towards Jammu province and Ladakh region. It is this approach that has not allowed New Delhi to reach anywhere or end the unrest in the state. New Delhi needs to adopt a holistic approach towards the people of all the three regions of the state. If the authorities believe that they can impose the will of Kashmir and Kashmiri leadership on the people of Jammu and Ladakh, then it can be safely said that they have not learned any lesson from the past mistakes.
Jammu and Ladakh are part of the problem and their needs, compulsions and aspirations just could not be overlooked while finding ways and means which could conciliate the so-called alienated people of Kashmir. To ignore them or to continue to pursue the same old-fashioned and out-dated approach would be only to create more problems than resolving the existing ones facing Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh. When will the authorities in New Delhi recognize the ground realities in the state and act in a fashion that not only tackles the issues facing Kashmir but also fully satisfies Jammu and Ladakh? |
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