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| Communalism, not unemployment, the reason behind Kashmir's turmoil | | | EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, July 18: The beleaguered Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah, met the Prime Minister, the UPA chairperson and the Home Minister on Saturday in Delhi. He discussed with them the current political situation in Kashmir and suggested that if the lasting peace is to return to Kashmir, it is imperative to address two major issues - Kashmir and unemployment. He also, according to reports, handed over to the Prime Minister the copy of the July 12 All-Party meet resolution and urged him to consider it.
While the Omar Abdullah's first suggestion suggests that he, like the Kashmiri separatists and PDP leaders, doesn't consider Jammu and Kashmir a settled issue in the real sense of the term, his second suggestion suggests that one of the two major causes behind the ongoing violence in Kashmir Valley is the unemployment problem. According to one report, Omar Abdullah has told the Central leaders that "about 6 lakh youth are unemployed in the state and, thus, for them taking to streets and joining protests and showdown with police has been a recurring phenomenon faced by the authorities." It is important to note that the unemployed youth in Jammu and Ladakh have never resorted to stone pelting. They do protest sometime, but in a constitutional and peaceful manner and, hence, to bracket them with the stone pelting unruly mobs would a great injustice to the unemployed youth of these twp provinces.
It appears that the state government is not prepared to accept the ground reality in Kashmir and the ground reality in Kashmir, according to none other than the former Governor of Jammu and Kashmir, Lt Gen (retd) S K Sinha, is that it is politics of communalism being indulged in the Kashmiri leadership that is responsible for all the troubles in Kashmir. The Chief Minister knows it very well, but he would not acknowledge it for obvious reasons. The PDP is there. The separatists are there in Kashmir. They would pounce upon Omar Abdullah the moment he says that the fundamental reason behind the Kashmir turmoil is communalism; the reason behind the unrest in Kashmir is the urge of communalists for their merger with Pakistan. The second ground reality is that it is Jammu, and not Kashmir, which has been suffering the most on account of acute unemployment problem.
It would not be out of place to mention here that while the rate of unemployment in Jammu province is over 69 per cent, it is less than 30 per cent in Kashmir. These are official figures and can be easily verified from the J&K Assembly records. It should also be noted that there are nearly 3.5 lakh positions in the government and semi-government establishments, located in Kashmir, and all of them are manned by the people of Kashmir, barring Kashmiri Hindus. The number of employees hailing from Jammu and working in Kashmir may not be even one thousand. It is also important to note that the people of Kashmir also occupy a substantial number of positions in the official and semi-official establishments, located in Jammu province.
The fact of the matter is that Kashmir is the only region in the whole of the country where the rate of employment is highest; more than 7 for every hundred persons, as against perhaps less then two in Jammu province. The number of employees in Jammu province is not even 1.5 lakh.
It is time for everyone in the state to call a spade and spade and cure the Kashmir's ailment. Only the willingness of the Kashmiri people to join the liberal, secular and democratic mainstream would help them lead a peaceful life. It is high time that they called the militants' and separatists' bluff. They are not their well-wishers. They are only exploiting their innocence for promoting their own vested interests and the interests of Pakistan that has made the life of their co-religionists in PoK and Gilgit-Baltistan a veritable hell on earth. The Kashmir-based political leaders would also do well to eschew the ideas of self-rule, autonomy, merger with Pakistan and azadi because these are unrealizable goals. No government in New Delhi would ever accept any of these demands because it knows that acceptance of any of these demands would provoke widespread protests in Jammu and Ladakh.
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