Mahesh Chander Sudan
We, the people of JK, have celebrated 74th Independence Day of India along with other states and UTs of Indian Union in a low key celebration due to ongoing pandemic. We do acknowledge and appreciate the priceless efforts of freedom fighters who sacrificed their present for our future and assigned us a sacred duty to nurture the democracy to flourish like a blooming bud so that we handover it to our future generations as a fully bloomed flower. Essence of democracy enriches with every passing day unless we fail to perform our duty towards its functionality and maturity. While highlighting the commitment of his administration and the intent of Union dispensation, our Lieutenant Governor, Manoj Sinha spoke, on the occasion of Independence Day, about five targets which will be guiding principles for him and declared that development, peace, progress and social harmony will be the integral part of the narrative of the UT. A mature and seasoned politician is suitably tasked to settle most complicated and confused political and constitutional arrangement of governance in the youngest formed Union Territory. No doubt his journey is full of challenges on all fronts, we expect a smooth transformation of ideology to win the heart of people of erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir who have been subjected to unparalleled hardship due to lack of governance since December 2014 when the people of Jammu Province extended large mandate in favor of 25 BJP candidates who formed alliance with PDP, a party with vertically opposite ideology, merely to stay in power and could not provide any visible governance and the alliance fell apart in Jun 2018.
We were, thereafter, devoid of constitutional right to elect our representatives to form government on one or the other pretext possibly to realign political set up of the state and it consequently kept then state and the UT (after 31 Oct 2019) under temporary constitutional arrangement of Governor/President rule, an exception granted in the constitution of India to enable holding of fresh elections within six months normally. This absence of governance has affected development of the state/UT causing serious concerns in terms of economy, employment, infrastructural growth, development of school infrastructure and quality education in Government run schools, core economic activities like tourism, horticulture, floriculture and above all farming sector. Recent reorganization of the state and abrogation of Article 370 and 35A, though undertaken with good intentions, are yet to bear the fruit. These political corrections were said to have been initiated for attaining peace and prosperity in the newly formed Union Territory. It is however evident that adequate focus in this direction is still awaited. There are abundant natural resources lying unexploited and the presence of industry in the UT is negligible, employment opportunities are limited to Government jobs, research and development of core economic sectors like agriculture, horticulture, floriculture, tourism and local handicraft industry is minimal in terms of dedicated specialized knowledge centers, condition of public health care infrastructure and specialization is nowhere comparable with neighboring states/UT like Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh. To quote an example, all COVID affected serving civil servants and senior political leaders failed to believe in the quality of treatment available in Government Medical College Hospitals and preferred SMVD Hospital Katra run by Shrine Board which is beyond the reach of normal citizens.
Absence of good governance despite tall promises by union dispensation in this regard drifted ordinary citizen away from the Government and rampant corruption with excessive bureaucracy left common people especially the rural population to suffer despite cosmetic efforts like back to villages. There is dire need to fix accountability of public servants of revenue department who conveniently ignore Government orders and their time bound implementation. A classic case for study is issue of Domicile Certificate to the residents of JK post formation of Union Territory, the time limit so fixed is 15 days on papers but implemented with exception for few blessed Civil Servants solely for media gains and not for common citizens who are holding PRC even.
In the given situation, reference to Insaniyat, Jahmuriyat and Kashmiriyat by Manoj Sinha, LG, does reminds us of Late Atal Bihari Vajpayee and his empathetic approach towards people of J&K only in historical perspective contrary to the present day short term and short sighted approach of ruling dispensation with no vision and clarity. No democracy in the world would have afforded to deny most common modern day mode of communication like internet to its citizens including students and medicos who are expected to keep pace with their fraternity across the globe for such a long time. We urge and expect honorable Lieutenant Governor to clearly define his vision and plan for UT of JK and its residents who expect interactive and participative governance for achieving corruption free environment in disbursing public utility services without any geographical, theological and ideological discrimination in the interest of century old brotherhood of the people of Jammu and Kashmir. Jai Hind, Jai Bharat.
The author is Wg Cdr (Retd)
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