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| Nothing for Jammu in Agenda of Alliance -- I | | Amit Shah's interview | | Early Times Report
jammu, Mar 27: In an interview to a leading national daily, BJP national president Amit Shah has asserted that "it is for the first time that Jammu and Kashmir got a government which is based on the mandate the people of Jammu region gave in the Assembly elections". "Hitherto, Jammu was always ignored. The people of the region were considered second class citizens. It is for the first time that Jammu got its due share in the government. Point out what is lacking in the Common Minimum Programme (CMP)," has said. He also claimed that "95% of the party workers in Bulandshehr agreed with him after hearing him".
Amit Shah, it seems, was not aware of the prevailing sense of alienation in Jammu region. It also appears that the BJP national president had not been briefed properly by those who look after the party affairs in Jammu and Kashmir. Had they told him the true story of facts, Amit Shah would not have claimed what he claimed during his interaction with party workers. "Amit Shah has been misled by them," his critics in Jammu region say.
There is nothing whatever in the CMP for the people of Jammu region. It is all Kashmir-oriented as far as the political issues in the state are concerned. "The purpose of this (PDP-BJP) alliance is to form a coalition Government that will be empowered to catalyze reconciliation and confidence building within and across the Line of Control (LoC) in J&K thereby ensuring peace in the state," the CMP says, adding that "while recognizing the different positions and appreciating the perceptions BJP and PDP have on the constitutional status of J&K considering the political and legislative realities, the present position will be maintained on all the constitutional provisions pertaining to J&K including the special status in the Constitution of India".
The people of Jammu region had given mandate to the BJP hoping that it would bridge the political and constitutional gulf between Jammu and Kashmir and New Delhi to enable its people to exercise all rights which are available to all other Indians. The CMP instead of fulfilling its pledge only talked about reconciliation, which means that the BJP broke the decades-old status quo in Jammu and Kashmir and provided an opportunity to those who did not consider Jammu and Kashmir a settled issue to accommodate the anti-India viewpoint of Pakistan, Kashmiri separatists and other hostile forces operating from across the Line of Control in this part of the state. The people of Jammu region have all through opposed the reconciliation formulation on the ground that it was fraught with dangerous ramifications and it had the potential of emboldening anti-national forces in the Valley and sealing the fate of the nationalist people of Jammu region, Ladakh region and religious and ethnic minorities such as the internally displaced Kashmiri Pandits.
The CMP talks about political initiatives the people of Jammu region have all along opposed. They had consistently urged the authorities in New Delhi to reverse its policy towards Pakistan and teach Islamabad a lesson so that it stopped exporting terrorism into the state and playing nefarious games using the services of its Kashmir-based agents. The CMP provides for just the opposite. It has said: "The Union Government has recently initiated several steps to normalize the relationship with Pakistan. The coalition government will seek to support and strengthen the approach and initiatives taken by the government to create a reconciliatory environment and build stakes for all in the peace and development within the sub-continent. The same will be pursued by taking confidence building measures such as, enhancing people to people contact on both sides of the LoC encouraging civil society exchanges, taking travel, commerce, trade and business across the LoC to the next level and opening new routes across all three regions to enhancing connectivity. The earlier NDA government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee had initiated a dialogue process with all political groups, including the Hurriyat Conference, in the spirit of 'Insaaniyat, Kashmiriyat aur Jamhooriyat'. Following the same principles, the coalition government will facilitate and help initiate a sustained and meaningful dialogue with all internal stakeholders, which will include all political groups irrespective of their ideological views and predilections. This dialogue will seek to build a broad based consensus on resolution of all outstanding issues of J&K".
All these suggested initiatives only negate what the people of Jammu region stood and fought for. They, unlike Pakistan, Hurriyat leaders and many others in Kashmir, were always of the view that India was the only stakeholder in the state and those who were questioning the political status of Jammu and Kashmir and calling Kashmiri separatists and Islamabad also stakeholders were the "enemies of India". Besides, they never endorsed Atal Bihari Vajpayee's "Insaaniyat, Kashmiriyat aur Jamhooriyat" line on Jammu and Kashmir, as they termed it "dangerous for the unity and integrity of India". The general view in Jammu always was that "Vajpayee damaged the national interest in Jammu and Kashmir more as compared to the Congress party" and that "he was bartering national interest only to win Noble peace price at the cost of the country". "Had Vajpayee ruled over the country for some more time, he would have accommodated the Pakistani interests in Jammu and Kashmir and negated all that the people of India and the Indian army had done in the state". (To be continued) |
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