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| PM Modi disappoints Jammu, Ladakh | | Kashmir, Kashmir and Kashmir | |  Early Times Report
Jammu, Nov 7: Prime Minister Narendra Modi's today's visit to the state has disappointed the people of Jammu region. Though he made a couple of references to Jammu, his whole speech remained focussed on Kashmir, Kashmir and only Kashmir. Jammuites expected him to announce a political and financial package for the region but it did not happen.
"I want to build Naya Kashmir, strong Kashmir and prosperous Kashmir. Indian exchequer is the Kashmir's exchequer. I announce Rs 80,000-crore package and it's just a beginning. My heart bleeds and beats for Kashmir. India is incomplete without Kashmiriyat. The Kashmiri youth are highly intelligent. Employment is the solution. Sher-I-Kashmir Stadium should be further developed so that cricket matches of international level could be played there. Two generations of Kashmiris have suffered. My mother gifted me Rs 5000 on September 17, 2014, on my birthday. She asked me to use this money for the flood victims in Kashmir. Earlier, she used to pay me Rs 5 or 11. I will work with the state government to restore Kashmir's pristine glory," he, among other good things for Kashmir, said.
PM Modi didn't say a word on the problems, aspirations and needs of the people of Jammu province and it seemed as if he had come only to please the Valleyites and the Valley politicians.
The just aspirations on the part of the people of Jammu province, for which they depended the most on the Prime Minister, included a radical change in the existing 58-year-old politico-administrative and constitutional structure that "ends the Kashmiri domination and hegemony" over them and empowers them to manage their own affairs themselves in a manner they wish within the Indian constitutional framework. They had been saying that the existing political system in the state is "unitary in character" and it has "utterly" failed to produce the desired results. They had been saying that it was fundamentally Kashmir-centric and it is also negation of those federal principles which unite the people and, at the same time, appreciate the needs and aspirations of different regions housing different people.
The J&K National Panthers Party (NPP), which had become very active after it suffered a massive defeat in the 2014 Assembly elections, had even gone to extent of writing a lengthy letter to the Prime Minister. It's not really a letter; it's, in fact, a white paper on the issues facing different social groups in Jammu province. Besides urging the Prime Minister to separate Jammu province from the colonial Kashmir, the letter had drawn his attention to the problems facing refugees from West Pakistan, displaced persons from Pakistan-occupied-J&K, internally-displaced Kashmiri Hindus, Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs) and Other Backward Classes (OBCs).
There are more than one lakh refugees from Pakistan, including members of the SC community. They have been leading a wretched life in different parts of Jammu province since 1947, as the State Subject laws of 1927 and 1932 and Article 35-A of the Indian Constitution deprive them of all those citizenship rights which are available to the "original" inhabitants of the state. They are Indian nationals but not "State Subjects". That their life is not one of social, economic and political aspirations and that it is just pathetic could be seen from the fact that they do not have the right to own immovable property in the state, obtain state government jobs, participate in the Assembly and local-bodies' elections, avail bank loan facilities and study in the state-owned and state-funded technical and professional institutions and state universities.
Then, there are approximately 1.5 million refugees from PoJK and Kashmir Valley. The nearly 1.2 million displaced persons from PoJK have been demanding compensation since 1947-1948 for the properties they left behind in the wake of the Pakistani invasion on J&K. Besides, they had been struggling since decades to get the Evacuee Properties Act repealed, saying J&K was the solitary state in the country where such atrocious Act formed part of the state's statute book.
As for the over three lakh internally-displaced Kashmiri Hindus, they had been demanding bifurcation of the Valley so that they could get a separate homeland within Kashmir invested with Union Territory status, where the "Indian Constitution flows freely". Most of the displaced Kashmiri Hindus have been putting up at different refugee camps and colonies in different parts of Jammu since 1990. They had reiterated again and again that they will not return to the "radicalised Kashmir". They had also been consistently struggling to obtain the status of internally-displaced persons, asserting that their plight would remain unchanged till they got the status they deserve according to the UN guidelines.
The problems facing SCs, STs and OBCs also deserved special attention. They constitute more than half of the Jammu province's population, but they do not enjoy the rights which their counterparts exercise in rest of the country under the Indian Constitution. The position of the OBCs was all the more precarious. For, no state government ever conceded their demand to identify them and treat them accordingly. They, like the refugees from Pakistan, internally-displaced Kashmiri Hindus and displaced persons from PoJK, accuse the Kashmiri leadership of denying them their general civil and political rights and want the Prime Minister to intervene on their behalf so that they are brought at par with their counterparts in rest of the country.
The Prime Minister did not address any of the issues facing these abandoned social groups. Nor did he announce any political package to end injustice with the people of the region. He also didn't announce AIIMS for Jammu. He only said AIIMS will be established and it will benefit the people of Kashmir and the people of Jammu. He also didn't announce Smart City status for Jammu city.
The fact of the matter is that the Prime Minister visited the state only to leave the people of Jammu province high and dry.
What about the people of Ladakh? They are also unhappy. Fed up as they were with the Kashmiri domination over the state's political and administrative apparatuses and financial and social institutions, they had been demanding segregation of their region from Kashmir since decades. They say "we will not accept anything short of Union Territory status" for their region, asserting their association with Kashmir has not only jeopardised their political and economic rights but also eroded their distinct identity and personality. Moves are afoot to change the demographic profile of this Buddhist-majority region. It's no wonder then that they voted en-block for the BJP in the just-held elections to the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council (LAHDC), Leh. The BJP contested the election on the Union Territory plank and it won 18 of the 25 seats contested in the 30-member council.
The Prime Minister also disappointed them. He didn't say a word about the demand in Ladakh for UT status. |
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