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| J&K: Does Chidambaram know what he says? | | STARK REALITY | | RUSTAM
EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, Aug 26: New Delhi is confused and ambivalent. It knows very little about statecraft. It behaves as if it is not a state at all. It seldom care for the national sentiment and undertake steps which only weaken its own position in the eyes of the people who otherwise want it to assert, act and protect and promote its larger geo-political interests. It generally behaves as the banana republics behave and allow enemy states to dictate terms and permit its own enemies within to play havoc and question not only its very institutions and constitutional framework but also the very idea of India. The Indian State doesn't take action when action ought to be taken to strengthen the institution of the state. It allows things to deteriorated and when it acts, it finds itself neither here not there. It finds itself in a deep sea. In fact, New Delhi never applies its mind to grasp the nature of things or to diagnose what ails it and its integral part like Jammu and Kashmir.
I am not exaggerating thins. I am only making a statement of fact. Everyone knows that the problem in Kashmir is neither political nor economic; everyone knows that Kashmir, which is almost 100 per cent Muslim, is highly prosperous in every respect and which is the only region in the country that exercises residuary powers, including the power of taxation. It enjoys a very special status within the Union under the controversial and essentially anti-people and anti-democratic Article 370. (Article 370 gives absolute executive powers to the President of India. Using power under this Article, the Union President can keep the people of the state under his/her rule for any number of years without taking the Parliament into confidence.) No Central is automatically applicable to the state as happens in case of other states. It is also not a secret that Kashmir gets highest per capita Central assistance after Nagaland. Similarly, everyone knows that meat consumption in Kashmir is highest in the world and that no Kashmiri Muslim is without a roof and no Kashmiri Muslim till date has died of cold and hunger.
But more than that, everyone is aware of the fact that it is Kashmir and Kashmiri Muslims who have been ruling the state since October 1947 (Ghulam Nabi Azad, who ruled the state for about two years, is also ethnically Kashmiri Muslim) and that they have been exploiting the people of Jammu and Ladakh to enrich themselves at the cost of those who contribute more revenue and who occupy almost 90 per cent of the geographical area of the state. The problem in Kashmir is communal and everyone in Kashmir freely recognizes that. All the Kashmiri leaders, without any exception, in fact, almost all in Kashmir publicly say that they derive their inspiration from their religion, that they cannot have any truck with Hindu India and that their bottom-line is secessionism, based on fanaticism.
They have no doubt about what they say about India. And, still, our Prime Minister, Home Minister and who not in New Delhi go on making ridiculous statements with a view to convincing the concerned nation that the problem in Kashmir is "political" and not communal. Take, for example, what Home Minister P Chidambaram told Directors General of Police and Inspectors General of Police in New Delhi on Wednesday. What he told them clearly established that he would never ever try to understand or study the nature of the problem in Kashmir and that he continues to grope in the dark as before. He is living in splendid isolation.
What did he tell the Directors Generals of Police about Kashmir? He, among several other ludicrous things, said: "…it is my hope that, in the next few days, we would be able to find that elusive 'starting point' from where we could reach out to the protestors (in Kashmir), reassure them of their rights and dignity, restore peace and order, redeem the promises made, and re-start the process of dialogue that will lead to a solution." Besides, he told them that the problem in Kashmir is political and it has to be tackled politically. In other words, he spoke the language of the beleaguered Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and similar other Kashmiri leaders, including Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and his extremist, communal and separatist rabble-rouser daughter Mehbooba Mufti, thus conveying an impression that he is not prepared to recognize the ground realities in the state.
His statement regarding the "rights and dignity" of the protestors and his commitment to "redeem the promises made" do suggest that he is out to give credibility to the unruly elements in Kashmir completely overlooking the stark realities in the state. The stark realities in the state are that the people of Jammu and Ladakh and displaced Kashmiri Hindus, besides various other religious and ethnic minorities in the state, including Sikhs and Gujjar Muslims, have nothing to do with the Kashmiri separatists, whose constituency is rather limited and communal. The Home Minister cannot afford to ignore these realities in his desperate bid to further appease the Kashmiri fanatics and separatists. If he goes ahead with what he told the Directors General of Police, he would face more trouble. He would, instead of reducing the area of conflict to the very small and over-fed Kashmir Valley, set on fire even the otherwise peaceful Jammu and Ladakh.
However, he has one option available if he committed to pursue the dangerous path he has charted for himself and New Delhi. He should first trifurcate the state and then proceed further. The trifurcation of the state alone can enable him to do what he wants to do in Kashmir subject to the condition that he will not agree to any suggestion that negates the Indian Constitution and jeopardize the country's sovereign interests. He doesn't have the mandate to allow anyone in Kashmir to tinker with the Indian sovereignty. India is a nation state. It is not a congregation of various nationalities. This is the bottom-line and he cannot ignore it. |
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