Early Times Report
Jammu, July 30: Things in Kashmir have changed and not changed for the better. Things have changed to the extent that it has become extremely difficult to distinguish between mainstream Kashmiri leaders and separatists. During the last couple of days, the so-called mainstream parties - PDP, NC, Congress and CPPI(M), separatists of all varieties, religious leaders and who not in Kashmir have behaved in an identical manner and also spoken the same language.
The issue is Article 35-A, which the Supreme Court will hear on August 6. If the separatists like Geelani, Mirwaiz and Yasin Malik warned that there will be mass agitation in Kashmir in case Article 35-A was fiddled with, the PDP, the Congress and the NC leaders, like many religious leaders in Kashmir, including Deputy Mufti of Hazratbal shrine, threatened that there will be revolt in Kashmir if the RSS-BJP tinkered with Article 35-A or the state subject laws. From Saif-ud-Din Soz to Tariq Hamid Karra, who joined Congress only recently, Mehbooba Mufti, Farooq Abdullah and Omar Abdullah, besides Kashmir Bar Association and a number of Kashmir University teachers, including Gul Mohammad Wani and Noor Baba and business leaders, spoke one language and urged the people of Kashmir to get ready for an agitation in case there was a move to repeal or dilute Article 35-A, saying the RSS-BJP were out to change the demography of the state and undermine the disputed character of Jammu & Kashmir.
What they said was clearly a contempt of court as the case was sub-judice. The manner in which Kashmiri leaders or the so-called freedom fighters in Kashmir have been conducting themselves only proves that their case is very weak and it can't withstand an objective legal scrutiny. They know it and that's the reason they are trying to influence the justice system by administering threats and proposing to organize a two-day bandh in Kashmir on August 5 and 6.
Two things are very clear from what the Kashmiri leaders of all hues and all shades of opinion are saying and doing. One is that they have come to believe that Supreme Court may declare Article 35-A null and void or unconstitutional on the ground that it doesn't have the sanction of the Parliament, which is the supreme law-making body of the country. Article 35-A was inserted in one of the appendixes in a surreptitious manner and it is not part of the main body of the constitution. Moreover, it negates the very preamble of the Indian Constitution, which vouches for equality among all and across the nation.
The other is that the Kashmiri leaders do not enjoy any support of the people of Jammu and Ladakh. In Jammu and Ladakh, the people consider both Article 35-A and Article 370 a rivet in the chain of their slavery and the root cause of all their socio-cultural and politico-economic woes. They have all through sought abrogation of these two Articles and their merger into India for better, for worse.
By saying and doing what these Kashmiri leaders are saying and doing, they are only further widening the already rather wide gulf between Kashmir and Jammu and between the former and Ladakh, thus facilitating the ongoing process of the state's disintegration. They must remember that they represent only 7 per cent of the state's territories and they can't impose their will and decisions on the unwilling people of Jammu and Ladakh. |
