Author: Hari Om
Publication: The Statesman
Date: April 12, 2004
Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and his cabinet
colleagues, including senior Congress leader and deputy chief minister
Mangat Ram Sharma, consistently dismiss the charge by people of the Jammu
region that their government is more anti-Jammu than the earlier Valley-dominated
dispensations. They assert that their government has always acted with
impartiality and that they have consistently treated Kashmir and Jammu
alike in all matters and at all levels. In fact, they say that they have
all along been quite vigilant about the responsibilities that are devolved
upon them and that they have tried to be just to the people of Jammu. They
also accuse the opposition parties of making mountains out of molehills
so as to inflame regional feelings.
Dissatisfaction
It would be appropriate to refer
to a few instances of glaring discrimination against Jammu region in matters
relating to employment, irrigation and agriculture, agrarian community,
tourism promotion, development of lakes and other developmental activities,
leave alone the state's political institutions, including the cabinet and
civil secretariat, over which the Valley has established total domination.
This is necessary to lay bare the disparities between the actual position
as it exists in Kashmir and Jammu and the claim of the chief minister and
his colleagues and to put things in a perspective. A scrutiny of the charges
by the people of Jammu region has become all the more important in view
of the prevailing dissatisfaction among all, except within a limited circle
of the Congress, the National Panthers Party and the People's Democratic
Party supporters and sympathisers.
Take, for example, the rates of
unemployment in Kashmir and Jammu. There are nearly 140,000 registered
unemployed youth in the state. Over 95,499 belong to the Jammu region alone
as against 48,000 such youth in Kashmir. While the rate of unemployment
in Jammu region has gone up to nearly 69.5 per cent, it is about 30 per
cent in Kashmir. To be more precise, the number of registered unemployed
youth in Jammu, Udhampur, Kathua, Rajouri, Poonch and Doda districts is
45,934; 16,548; 7,461; 4959; 1,588; 6,544, respectively, and most of them
are post-graduates, graduates and degree and diploma Engineers. Compared
to this, the number of registered unemployed youth in Srinagar, Badgam,
Anantanag, Pulwama, Baramulla and Kupwara is 17,491; 6,614; 6,220; 4,908;
10,315; and 2,370, respectively. In Jammu district alone, the rate of unemployment
is 33.42 per cent as against the unemployment rate of 13 per cent in Srinagar
district.
Valley-centric
The fundamental reason behind such
a huge disparity between Kashmir and Jammu is that the people of the Valley
occupy over 99 per cent of the positions in the regional services of Kashmir.
Another factor responsible for this disparity is that the people of the
Valley control nearly 30 per cent of the official positions in the regional
services of Jammu and Ladakh provinces.
The Congress-NPP-PDP government
has formulated a comprehensive plan to irrigate Kandi and drought-prone
areas and also to augment irrigation facilities by improving the existing
canal system. This plan has also turned out to be Valley-centric. Under
this plan, the government sanctioned 28 schemes for the already highly
developed Kashmir involving an expenditure of Rs 38.98 crore. The highly
underdeveloped and extremely backward Jammu region, which has more land
area and more population , got only Rs 14.15 crores.
Earlier in 2003, the state government
had received from the BJP-led NDA government a special grant Rs 400 crores
for development of water resources in the Kandi areas (mostly in Jammu
region). The Union government had taken this step after considering the
complaint of the people of these areas that they were facing serious problems
owing to the acute shortage of drinking water and absence of irrigation
facilities. What did the government do? It earmarked Rs 399.10 crores for
Kashmir and a paltry sum of Rs 90 lakh for Jammu.
Not just this, the state government
benefited as many as 197,266 Kashmiri farmers by waving off their agricultural
loans to the tune of Rs 10,000 each. It may appear unbelievable but it
is fact that in Jammu region only 55,406 farmers were given such relief.
This, despite the fact that it was Jammu region which had suffered more
on account of serve drought conditions and that the number of farmers in
this region is more as compared to their counterparts in Kashmir.
There are several other similar
examples of discrimination against the people of Jammu region. For instance,
the state government sanctioned Rs 179 crores for the development of the
Kashmir's already rather developed Wullar lake as against nil for the Mansar
and Surinsar lakes in Jammu. It granted Rs 6.29 crore for the promotion
of tourism in Kashmir against Rs 94 lakh for Jammu. Similarly, it set apart
Rs 3 crores for the Srinagar Municipal Corporation against Rs 1 crore for
the Jammu Municipal Corporation and created 50 new MBBS seats for Kashmir
against nil for Jammu.
Fulfil promises
It is, indeed, impossible to avoid
the conclusion that the accusations of the people of Jammu region are well
founded. The Congress and the NPP in particular would do well to review
their whole approach to the policies being pursued by the Mufti-led government
as their core constituency, unlike the PDP, is Jammu region and not Kashmir.
The best thing for them would be to immediately fulfil their promises made
in 2002 - end of discrimination, regional council for Jammu, office of
chief minister for the region, due representation in the assembly and creation
of Reasi, Kishatwar and Samba districts. Any failure on their part to do
so would be to end the patience of the people of Jammu region and face
their wrath. They did succeed in averting a humiliating defeat at the hands
of the angry and humiliated Jammu electorate by forcing the Mufti to defer
indefinitely the already announced elections to the civic bodies, including
Jammu Municipal Corporation. But they simply cannot make the Chief Election
Commissioner of India play to their tunes and force him not to hold parliamentary
elections in the state.
