Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, July 8: Jammu and Kashmir National Conference senior leader and Member of Parliament from Baramulla Muhammad Akbar Lone today expressed deep concern over the manner in which candidates for Assistant Professorship in Kashmiri language are being discriminated against, saying the measure is against the interests of the major linguistic group in the State.
While criticizing the disregard of the incumbent administration for the Kashmiri language, the MP said, “The JKPSC had announced 49 posts each for Kashmiri and Dogri, and 25 for Punjabi language. The cut off for the interview was fixed at 55 percent in case of Open merit candidates and 45 percent for reserved category. The interview for the said posts was conducted in 2019. Surprisingly the candidates for Dogri and Punjabi languages were awarded full marks in viva voice. In a sharp contrast, Kashmir language candidates were given less scores in vice viva. Subsequently less number of Kashmiri candidates was absorbed in and 23 posts out of 49 posts again remained vacant. While as all the advertised posts for Dogri and Punjabi were filled. The whole process is fraught with discrepancy and should be thoroughly investigated upon. The Dogri and Punjabi candidates were interviewed before decreasing the cut off, while as Kashmiri language candidates were interviewed after the decrease in cut off.”
He demanded that the incumbent administration should immediately lower the cut off for Kashmiri candidates as well, as was done for the aspirants in case of Punjabi and Dogri languages.
Lone claimed that as per the 2011 census, 5327 persons out of 10,000 people speak Kashmir in the State of Jammu and Kashmir while rest of the languages spoken in J&K does not even cross the half way mark. “The number of posts should have been equally proportional to the number of speakers. 25 posts had been advertised by the JKPSC in 2017 for Punjabi language, whose speakers are just around two lakh. This I believe is a colossal discrimination against Kashmiri language. I am not against induction filling of teaching posts in other language, if the situation demands it should be done but not at the cost of Kashmiri speakers,” he said.
Follow our WhatsApp channel