Sunil R P Sethi
Year 1990 saw what can be termed as shame with concept of India as all inclusive territory and bouquet of all religions . Mass and forced exodus of Hindu Population took place from the Valley and some part of Jammu region in furtherance of designs of militants, separatists and their masters sitting across border to ensure ethnic cleansing of Hindu minorities from Valley and making it religiously exclusive region . Nowhere in world a situation like it had ever happened when huge population was forced to migrate within their own country only because of their religious beliefs.
With migration of huge chunk of population from Kashmir to predominantly the areas of Jammu , it was perceivable that population in Kashmir would get reduced and correspondingly there would be increase in population in Jammu Province . But did it happen that way ?NO . Rather what happened was reverse , even after migration the population of Kashmir increased and population of Jammu decreased. Last census of 2011 stands testimony to it .
How did it happen is not difficult to understand. Because the political power was in the hands of political elites from Kashmir and their political henchmen of Jammu region , the population was artificially increased or atleast shown like that by large scale bunglings during census operations particularly in Kashmir. This led to creating political imbalance and regional disparities. Jammu never got what it deserved on the basis of its population and area because by political deceit the population of Kashmir was shown to much more than Jammu . This could happen because of large scale fake and fictitious Permanent Residence Certificates . It could happen because of control on Administration by Kashmir based political forces.
This led to situation of ensuing continuation of more seats in Parliament and State Assembly to Kashmir and thereby ensuring that power center will always remain in Srinagar. Fractured leadership of Jammu was too weak to respond and were mostly interested in having their share in Political Power Cake .
With development of dismantling of regimes of Separatism created by Art 370 and Art 35 A , the Govt had to take decision to have fresh Delimitation which was otherwise seized upto 2032 atleast as it could have taken place after census of 2031 . Govt gave additional 7 seats to newly created Union Territory of Jammu Kashmir to give effective representation to all regions . Distribution of these seats needed fresh Delimitation and now required a true picture of population and not artificial inflated numbers to perpetuate injustice to Jammu .
Luckily as Concept of Permanent Residence died with application of Constitution of India in Jammu Kashmir in toto with all amendments, there was need to have clear definition of persons who will have rights over land , jobs , education etc in Union Territory. Domiciliary status was important to ensure complete amalgamation of Jammu Kashmir with mainstream of India. DOMOCILLAY Definition added certain categories in the definition to include hitherto victims of injustice like West Pak Refugees, Gorkhas , Valmikis, Left out POJK REFUGEES and Migrants, children of female state subjects married to non state subjects, husbands of such females residing in Jammu for long time , such persons who have resided in Jammu Kashmir for more than 15 years and desired to settle permanently in Jammu Kashmir, Central Govt employees desirious of settlement in Jammu Kashmir after having served here for more than 10 years etc .
Fresh Delimitation which has been ordered and Commission has also been constituted headed by Retired Judge of Supreme Court of India to decide on number and location of Constituencies it will now be on the basis of Domocillay Status and not on the basis of PRC which was sole consideration henceforth.
Fresh Delimitation in the basis of Domiciliary Status will have two features
* It will give voting rights to all newly added population forming definition of Domiciles who were not voters earlier.
* Domocillay Rules provides that PRC holders will have to apply for Domiciliary Certifiacte and have to attach copy of PRC with application. By this process all fake and fictitious Permanent Residence Certificate will get filtered as they will be cross checked with record which is prepared with govt. It will remove those people who were either non existent in Kashmir or were having fake or fictitious Permanent Residence Certificate and as such Voting Rights
There have been demand particularly from Kashmir Centric Political Parties that PRC itself should be taken to be at par with Domicile Certificate and there should be no need to get Domiciliary Certificate by PRC holders . It exposes their misdeeds as they don’t want these fake and fictitious voters to be deleted . In fact these provisions have ensured Census indirectly before census of 2021 so as to remove injustice and give to population what it deserved, justice unadulterated and even.
Some political persons are raising questions on Delimitation on basis of 2011 census without understanding ground position . Deferring Delimitation for two more years to wait for census of 2021 would have resulted in complicated political repercussions in International forums and also led to constitutional complications, rather noble way is in place to ensure the same and may be with much better results. Jammu finally have hope of getting justice denied to it all along.
(The author is Senior Adovcate)
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