During the closing days of its tenure in office, the Congress-NC Coalition Government had tabled a bill asking for reservation of 5 per cent vacancies for Pahari speaking peoples of Jammu and Kashmir. Paharis are the people who live on mountain ranges that have become the watershed between the two parts of Kashmir after 1947. The Pahari dialect is a mixture of Punjabi, Pothwari, Kashmiri and other dialects spoken in these mountainous regions. The Paharis want to be distinguished from Gujjar and Bakerwals even though some of them are also herdsmen by profession.
After the Legislative Assembly passed the bill, it went to the Governor for ultimate nod to become an Act. Five per cent reservation for the Pahari speaking people bill could not receive the nod of the Governor who sent it back to the Government after making some observations and asking the Government for reconsidering the bill. The essential objection raised by the Governor is that reservation in service etc. cannot be made merely on the basis of using Pahari as the medium of speech. The point is that philosophy of making reservations for a particular class of people has to be essentially on economic basis. That is the right approach of tackling the issue linked to linguistic dimension. It is easy for a person to pick up a language and then perfect it in due course of time and then stake claim under reservation clause. That would tantamount to misuse of concession given to the Pahari speaking people.
We would suggest that the Government reconsiders the bill in its present form and makes necessary amendments that will satisfy the constitutional and administrative pre-requisites. Bills on contentious issues cannot be handled in haste and excitement. These are important administrative matters and need to be dealt with great deal of vision and calmness. Who does not want to the weaker sections of society to change and come up as equal partners in national development?
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