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| Jammu wants withdrawal of Agenda of Alliance | | | Early Times Report
JAMMU, Nov 1: A notion is being created that the upcoming visit of the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, to Jammu and Kashmir would give a fresh impetus to implementation of PDP-BJP "Agenda of Alliance" in the State, but Jammu people have been opposing it since the day it was announced.
What is this Agenda of Alliance all about? What does it contemplate? Do the people of Jammu province want it or do they want its withdrawal? Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh released the Peoples Democratic Party (BJP)-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Agenda of Alliance to the press immediately after forming the coalition government on March 1, 2015 in Jammu. Ever since then, prominent civil society members and political parties like National Panthers Party (NPP) and premier organisation of the internally-displaced Kashmiri Hindus, Panun Kashmir, have been criticising the Agenda of Alliance, saying, if implemented in its original form, it will seal the fate of the "nationalist" people of Jammu province, minorities and refugees for ever. They have been urging Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP high command and RSS to withdraw forthwith the Agenda of Alliance in the larger national interest and to allay the genuine fears of patriotic people of Jammu province.
In between, civil society groups, including Jammu Lawyers Forum (JLF) have organised three very largely participated in seminars in Jammu on the implications of the Agenda of Alliance. There is consensus among the prominent civil society members and people of the province as a whole that the Agenda of Alliance is a "dangerous document". It is designed to "further strengthen the Kashmiri hegemony over Jammu province and Ladakh region and help the aggressor Pakistan and its agents and communal forces in Kashmir to have an effective say in the affairs of this part of Jammu and Kashmir and create conditions conducive for the state's secession from India," they have been saying. In effect, they have been terming the Agenda of Alliance as "Agenda of Subversion", "Agenda of Abdication", "Architecture of Capitulation", "New Charter of Bondage for Jammu Province" and "Another Rivet in the Chain of Jammu's Slavery".
The Jammu-based civil society members held the view that the sharp reaction of Jammu province to the Agenda of Alliance and the fears as expressed by the people of the region from time to time after February would make the Prime Minister, BJP high command and RSS to review their stand on the Agenda of Alliance, but it has not happened. All the pleas of the Jammu civil society and the NPP and the Panun Kashmir have failed to move the "Sangh Parivar". The fact of the matter is that the Prime Minister, the BJP high command and their source of inspiration, the RSS, have rejected all the arguments the Jammu civil society advanced against the Agenda of Alliance. In fact, the Prime Minister on October 10 directed Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh to ensure that the Agenda of Alliance was implemented in its entirety at the earliest. A statement to this effect was made by the Deputy Chief Minister in Delhi after his 30-minute-long meeting with the Prime Minister.
"The Prime Minister Narendra Modi reviewed the functioning of the PDP-BJP coalition Government, including performance of the party Ministers, and called for speedy implementation of the 'Agenda of the Alliance', which was agreed upon between the two parties before entering into an Alliance. The Prime Minister called for implementation of the 'Agenda of Alliance' and also reviewed its implementation so far, the work done on the 'Agenda', the work in progress, the work initiated and the work yet to be taken up," Nirmal Singh was quoted as saying.
Significantly, Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh heads a Group of Ministers (GoMs) whose duty it is to work out modalities leading to the implementation of the Agenda of Alliance. It was constituted by Chief Minister Mufti Sayeed on April 21. The members of this crucial GoMs include Rural Development and Panchayati Raj Affairs Minister Abdul Haq Khan and Minister for Finance Dr Haseeb Drabu (both PDP) and Minister for PHE, Irrigation and Flood Control Sukhnandan Kumar Chaudhary and Minister of State for Cooperatives (independent charge) and Ladakh Affairs Cherring Dorjey (both BJP).
It is manifestly clear that the BJP is determined to implement the roundly criticised Agenda of Alliance to keep the PDP and its Kashmiri constituency on its right side. The statement of the deputy Chief Minister that the Prime Minister asked him to implement the Agenda of Alliance at the earliest has upset the people of Jammu region to the extent that they have started thinking in terms of floating a regional party to defend and promote their general civil, economic and political rights independent of Kashmir, which has been in the driving seat since October 1947 without a break.
It is pertinent to mention here that the Agenda of Alliance - apart from eroding the identity and personality of Jammu province and dividing it into three ethnic zones - (non-existent) Chenab Valley, (non-existent) Pir Panjal Valley and Plains of Jammu-and denying the people of Jammu province and refugees their legitimate due share in the governance of the state - maintains the existing political and constitutional status of the state and empowers the PDP-BJP coalition government to involve Pakistan and separatist Hurriyat leadership in the dialogue process aimed at resolving all the "political issues". By political issues, it simply means the so-called Kashmir issue. To be more precise, the Agenda of Alliance doesn't really consider Jammu and Kashmir an integral part of India. It considers the state as an unresolved issue between India and Pakistan and says in unequivocal terms that Pakistan and Hurriyat leadership are also the stakeholders in this part of Jammu and Kashmir.
The Agenda of Alliance, in addition, contemplates withdrawal of the Army from the state, revocation of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) and Disturbed Areas Act (DAA) and vacation of certain strategic areas in Kashmir as well as Jammu from where the Army have been launching anti-insurgency operations to defend the borders and maintain internal security in the state. It also asks the Government of India to handover the NHPC-managed and controlled power projects to the Jammu and Kashmir Government and provides for the merger of the displaced Kashmiri Hindus with the existing "Kashmiri milieu". To be more precise, the Agenda of Alliance seeks to reintegrate with the same forces that pushed them out and subjected them to "genocide". "BJP-RSS in pursuit of their perverted strategic vision have chosen to close their eyes to the fact that existing Kashmiri social milieu is a communal Jihadi milieu. Agreeing to send them back for reintegration and absorption into this milieu simply means agreeing to their conversion," said the Panun Kashmir.
The fears as expressed by the various political parties, civil society groups and organisations like Panun Kashmir are as genuine as they deserve appreciation. Indeed, the Agenda of Alliance has weakened the very vast nationalist constituency in the state and emboldened regressive forces in the Valley to give a fillip to activities calculated to undo all that the nation did during all these years to integrate Jammu and Kashmir with India politically, constitutionally and financially. It is hoped that the Prime Minister, BJP and RSS would take cognizance of the dangerous developments which unfolded in Kashmir after February and review their stand on the Agenda of Alliance taking into account the genuine fears of the people of Jammu province and the larger national interest. |
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