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| Crucial Census Exercise: Jammu needs to imitate Kashmir | | | RUSTAM
EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, May 24:It is pertinent to mention here that the Kashmiri leadership, ably backed by the bureaucracy and New Delhi, consistently took keen interest in all the census operations conducted in and after 1951 because it knew its significance and meaning. The story of its attitude, as also the attitude of the Kashmiri civil society, black-coated community of lawyers, students, teachers, bureaucrats, and even the Kashmiri-based media persons to the ongoing census operation in the Valley is no different. Each one of these sections is trying its level best to motivate the government employees to work with zeal during the ongoing census exercise. Besides, each one of these sections is doing its best to induce common Kashmiri Muslims to not only cooperate with the enumerators and supervisors but also to get them selves registered.
The fact is that the Kashmiri leadership and all other sections of Kashmiri society all along ensured the registration of each and every Kashmiri. Their basic objective was to tell New Delhi that Kashmir's population was more as compared to the Jammu's population. The reasons are not far to seek. One of the reasons was the determination of the Kashmiri leadership to establish the Valley domination over Jammu and Ladakh and enrich and develop Kashmir at the cost of the state's two other regions. It's no wonder then that a number of Jammu-based leaders have consistently accused the Kashmiri leadership of fudging the census figures with a view to harming the interests of Jammu province and sending maximum legislators to the assembly so that they could form the government and establish the hegemony of Kashmiri over other regions of the state.
It needs to be underlined that composition and complexion of legislature determines its very nature and character. It is an established fact. It is also an established fact that the composition of the legislature influences the functioning and policies of the government, which discusses and decides questions of supreme importance to the happiness and well-being of people. The Valley-based leaders, which got political power transferred from Jammu to Kashmir in October 1947 with the help of undemocratic intervention of New Delhi, knew the significance of numbers in the assembly. Hence, they consistently "manipulated" census figures with a view to returning to the assembly from Kashmir more than 50 per cent legislators.
The story of the 2001 census was also a story of fudged figures. According to this census, the population of Kashmir was 54,76,970 and that of Jammu 44,30,191. As for Kashmir, the break-up is like this: Srinagar - 12,02,447, Budgam - 6,29,309, Anantnag - 11,72,434, Pulwama --- 6,52,607, Baramulla - 11,69,780 and Kupwara --- 6,50,393. As for Jammu province, the break up is: Jammu - 15,88,772, Udhampur - 7,43,509, Kathua - 5,50,084, Poonch - 3,72,613, Rajouri - 4,83,284 and Doda --- 6,91,929. This shows that population between Kashmir and Jammu is 10,46,779. It was a huge, huge difference and it was as disturbing as it was intriguing and totally unacceptable.
The population of Jammu province is equal to Kashmir, if not more. Kashmiri leaders may say that Kashmir with a land area of 15,948 sq km is superior to Jammu in terms of population and, hence, it returned to the assembly 46 legislators in 2002 and in 2008 as against 37 elected by the people of Jammu, which has a land area of 26,293 sq km. It is important to note that while Kashmir elected 46 legislators at the rate of one per 62,685 voters on an average, Jammu returned 37 at the rate of one per 82,702 voters on an average. Similarly, Jammu elected three members to the Lok Sabha at the rate of one per 9,61,183 voters on an average, Jammu elected two members at the rate of one per 15,29,993 voters on an average.
It is universally acknowledged that more the population more the voters. In 2002, the number of voters in Kashmir was 28,83,550, which also included approximately 1.5 lakh Kashmiri Hindu and Kashmiri Sikh voters, who have been exercising their franchise in exile since 1990, when their communities were forced to quit Kashmir by fanatics. In Jammu, the number of voters was 30,59,986. That means Jammu had 1,76,436 more voters as compared to Kashmir.
In 2008, Kashmir had, according to the State's Chief Electoral Officer, 32,60,663 voters. As for Jammu, the number of voters was 30,84,417. In other words, while the number of voters in Kashmir increased by 1,00,867, the number of voters in Jammu increased by only 24,431 votes. This was nothing but a fraud committed on Jammu by those at the helm. (To be continued)
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