Author: Arvind Lavakare
Publication: Rediff
on Net
Date: September 12,
2000
There is an old belief
that from evil comes good. Well, the diabolical J&K autonomy
report certainly seems to have reawakened the yearning of Jammu and Ladakh
regions to free themselves from what they have long perceived as the tyranny
of the Valley-based Kashmiris who occupy just six per cent of the state's
territory but live off the resources of the whole.
A talk the other day
with a Srinagar-based Sangh Parivar functionary visiting Mumbai indicated
that a movement for Jammu and Ladakh's separation from the Valley is now
taking shape and gaining strength. It is slow as yet but come October,
there may well be some sort of a convention that will signal the action
for a divorce suit.
If that happens, it will
only be a revival of what was started half a century ago by Nehru's ministerial
colleague, Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee. The Bengal tiger had staked
his life to (i) secure the integration of J&K with the rest of India
and ii save the Dogras of Jammu from Sheikh Abdullah's actions that were
reportedly described by a former central intelligence chief as a bid at
ethnic cleansing.
In a speech at Kanpur
on December 29, 1952, Dr Mookerjee had made the grave charge that, "Mr
Nehru and Sheikh Abdullah have jointly decided to carry on a ruthless policy
of repression in Jammu." He had referred to "an impression gaining ground
that with our blood and money we are carving out a virtually autonomous
state for Sheikh Abdullah." Therefore, he proclaimed, "Jammu and Ladakh
must be fully integrated with India according to the wishes of their people."
Dr Mookerjee categorically
stated that while he did not want the partition of J&K, it had become
a matter of Hobson's Choice: Kashmir Valley could be made a separate state
with all necessary subventions desired by the Sheikh and his advisers,
but Jammu and Ladakh must not be sacrificed.
Dr Mookerjee died on
June 23, 1953, under suspicious circumstances while under house arrest
in an abandoned cottage on a hill outside Srinagar, with no telephone or
medical facility within miles, without Nehru meeting him there even once
during his 40-day detention. His soul must surely be astir now with
talk gaining ground about the revived call for a separate Jammu and a separate
Ladakh.
Contrary to "secular"
allegations, this separatist drive is not based on the Hindu-Muslim divide.
Instead, it is entirely based on the economic deprivation and political
despotism exercised by the Abdullah clan, kith and kin from Srinagar.
The charges against the
Kashmiri clique are many. Writing in the May 2000 issue of Voice
of Jammu Kashmir magazine, J N Bhat, retired judge of the J&K high
court, alleged that: 1.Thousands of plots carved out in the suburbs of
Jammu have been allotted to Kashmiris, all the beneficiaries belonging
to one particular community.
2. In some localities
of Jammu city, water is supplied after a gap of three to four days, and
not even enough of it to quench the thirst of the people. Obviously,
funds got for development get misused.
3. In the Jammu
region, the Hindu minorities of Doda and Poonch districts have been tortured
and many of them have found, according to sources, conversion the only
option, though they prefer death to forced conversion.
Another eminent person
who has made more serious accusations is Hari Om, professor of history
in Jammu University, and a member of the Indian Council of Historical Research
(ICHR). In a recent newspaper article, the professor complains that:
1.Though Kashmiris constitute
roughly 22 per cent of the state's total population, the mechanism cleverly
devised by Sheikh Abdullah's National Conference Party in 1951 enables
it to capture nearly half of the total assembly and Lok Sabha seats.
The trick lies in 46 assembly segments having been created in the small
Valley as against 41 segments combined in Jammu and Ladakh regions that
are far bigger and more populated than the Valley. This mechanism
is apparently contrary to the rules framed under the Indian Parliament's
Representation of People's Act and those under the relevant State Act of
1957.
2. Kashmiris hold
over 2,30,000 positions out of a nearly 2,40,000 positions in government
and semi-government organisations in the Valley. In addition, they
corner nearly 25 per cent of the jobs in the regional services of Jammu
and Ladakh.
3. All the professional
and technical institutions, universities and all the big public sector
industrial units like HMT, the television, telephone and cement factories
located in the Valley are the sole preserve of the Kashmiris. Besides,
they manipulate for themselves more than 50 per cent of the seats in Jammu's
ill-equipped and under-staffed medical and engineering college and in the
Agricultural University in R S Pura. No such institution exists in
Ladakh.
4.The Kashmiris control
trade, commerce, transport and industry, and own big orchards as well as
landed estates. None of them is without a house. Likewise,
the per capita expenditure on woollen clothes in Kashmir is perhaps the
highest in the world. Till date, no one in Kashmir has, unlike in
UP, Bihar and Orissa, died either of hunger or cold.
5. Interestingly,
yet not surprisingly, a vast majority of the Kashmiris don't pay even a
single penny to the state in the form of revenue due to it. It is
Jammu and Ladakh that contribute over 90 per cent to the state exchequer,
but a major part of this money is spent not in the extremely backward and
underdeveloped Jammu and Ladakh but in the highly prosperous and developed
Kashmir Valley.
As a result of the above,
professor Hari Om says, "It is Kashmiris and Kashmiris everywhere and all
others in the state exist nowhere."
The dismal scenario above
has apparently prevailed for so long that even editors of our national
daily newspapers refer most casually to J&K merely as "Kashmir", forgetting
the fundamental fact that "J&K" is not Kashmir and that "Kashmir" is
not J&K.
Sheikh Abdullah and his
National Conference cabal created that scenario with the connivance of
Nehru and his Congress dynasty. Today, it has all become perpetuated
because Pakistan's cross border terrorism has struck New Delhi with cowardice,
denying them the courage to fight against the Kashmiriyat clan for the
rights of the meek and the oppressed.
The coming months will
show whether the humble folks -- the Jammuites, the Ladakhis, the Shiite
Muslims, the Gujjar and Bakerwal Muslims, the Darad and Balti Muslims,
the Kashmiri Hindus, the Christians and the Sikhs -- have finally mustered
the willpower to take on the might of the Abdullahs, the Yasins, the Geelanis,
the Bhats, the Shahs, the Lones, the Dars, the Salahuddins, the Qureshis,
the Omar Farooqs, the Muftis and others of their ilk.
If Jammu's old political
outfit, the Praja Parishad Party, can take re-birth as it were and join
hands with the Ladakhis, Buddhists and all; if the Sangh Parivar can for
once play its cards soberly; if the trinity can employ widespread factual
communication and peaceful, sustained agitation as their brahmastra, the
nation could soon witness a David Vs Goliath armageddon close enough yet
far away from General Musharraf's mad jihadis.
