Pof. Virender Gupta
The address of Lieutenant Governor of UT of Jammu and Kashmir, Manoj Sinha on the eve of the Independence ushered a hope of positivity among the masses of UT State. His remark that the Government is committed to provide a better alternative that stands for development, welfare and social transformation of the people and his statement defining the five guiding principles for his administration that- to put in place a just and transparent system of governance, a thriving grass roots democracy; maximizing the reach of the Government welfare schemes; accelerating economic development and creation of employment, have inspired the people to look forward for a better future for the UT of Jammu and Kashmir. There is a general feeling that there would be a change in environment, the bureaucracy shall become more active and responsive. The development activities may get boost and there would be a speedy implementations of the Government orders and of the various projects undertaken and perceived. No doubt under the regime of the previous Lt. Governor many new and daring initiatives were taken, most of the projects languishing for their completion for many years were finished and the work on the remaining is under progress. Steps were taken to book and punish the corrupt officers, retrieve the thousands of acre of Government land under the illegal possession of the offenders. Many central laws were extended to the UT. Most of the medical colleges sanctioned have started their functioning. Construction work on All India Medical Institute has also begun.
To bring the Union Territory on its normal track of functioning, there are many challenges before the present Government, these include: bringing the people, particularly of the Valley that too the youth in the national mainstream, to recognize and heal the wounds of the people who faced enormous sufferings during the past period of more than three decades because of the Pakistan sponsored terrorism, secessionist activities, and the wrong policies pursued by the previous governments, bring peace and harmonious atmosphere by defeating the secessionist elements in the UT, to take steps to open new venture of employment, ensure speedy and balanced development of both the regions of the UT and equitable development of all the sections of the society, to address the genuine grievances and aspirations of the people of both the regions and all the sections of the society, to meet the challenge of the political leadership that may try to put many hurdles in the functioning of the government and last but not the least to create an atmosphere for the smooth conduct of fresh delimitation and assembly elections in the UT.
It has to be understood that the J&K UT is amalgamation of people of different cultures with different linguistic recognition, different political, cultural and social aspirations. There are contradictions between Jammu region and Kashmir Valley about their political aspirations and social ethos. The demography of both the regions and representations of different ethnic groups in these regions need to be analyzed before reaching out at any important decision on the future administrative or political structure of the J&K UT.
The serious problem in the Valley and some parts of Jammu region is the radicalisation of the youth that has been sustaining the militancy in Jammu and Kashmir. Construction of new mosques and opening of madrasa stared back in 1942 and the governments in that period of time remained complacent to it. These were being funded by Pakistan and by outside Islamic world. The mosques and madrasa network was preaching the philosophy of Wahabism and Salafism those believe in puritan Islamic cult which is intolerant to the existence of other religions and consider other religious groups as enemy. The hard-line Islamic preachers from UP and Bihar and other parts of the country and the world poisoned the youth and cultivated them as fanatic Muslim Jihadi. Later on the schools, colleges and universities have also become the instrument in radicalising the youth of the Valley. In the light of this Government has to remain vigilant and plug the sources of fundamentalism. The first step is to take over the madrasa and convert them into Kendriya Vidalayas or SainiK Schools, take punitive actions against those motivating the youth to Jihadi cult. Students should be engaged in extracurricular activities, in NCC and NSS. Anti India elements among the religious preachers, teachers, lawyers, doctors, civil servants and members of the civil society, who preach and support secessionism needs to be identified and booked as per the law. Corrective measures need to be taken to check the spread of rumours, misinformation campaign and publication of anti- India literature and distorted reporting in the media. There has to be a check on the cable operators who give biased and motivated news on their channels and hook to selected channels including those of Pakistan.
No doubt that number of development activities was initiated in the regime of previous Governor and Lt. Governor. However, there was a general complaint of lack of coordination between the different departments, public interaction on the part of those who matter was at low level. There was no middle link between the people and administration so that the grievances of the people can be addressed, up to their satisfaction; common masses were finding themselves in hapless situation because of the indifferent and arrogant behaviour of bureaucrats. The cases at the Civil Secretariat, division or district level pending for the years, waiting for their resolution. As such this has created dissatisfaction among the common masses. The discontent may be attributed to the COVID-19 spread to some extent, as it affected the pace of development activities and administrative activism of properly addressing the issues concerning general public. This resentment of the people is providing opportunity to some of the political groups having their own vested interests to attack on the new political and administrative set up.
The people with political motives and vested interests are creating doubts and apprehensions in the mind of general public about the Domicile Law that has replaced the State PRC. The present Domicile Law is almost replica of the State Subject rules as proposed in 1927 by then Maharaja Hari Singh, with the exception of classification of citizens of the state in different categories. It is being propagated that Jammu region would be mostly affected by the demography change, but it would be minor to that it faced during the previous elected governments. Instead, Jammu region would be mostly benefited after the making Article 370 as an ineffective statute. Infact, the new domicile law would be blessing for the people of Jammu region because of its climatic conditions, undisturbed, peaceful atmosphere and better connectivity with rest of India throughout the year. Thus it provides suitable conditions of working in whole the year which are necessary for the industrialization and for starting new projects. The window has been opened for outside investment in the State which would lead to opening of new ventures and industries. More jobs and opportunities are going to be created for the absorption of the youth and removing unemployment among them. With the development of upcoming infrastructure and start of new initiatives in the field of development the J&K UT would come out as one of the leading states. Further, now it has become easier to get Domicile Certificate for the wards of people who were holding PRC of the state. The previous governments have adopted very cumbersome procedure to issue the PRC to the genuine resident of the State; the process was taking years in certain cases for want of documents, obtaining of which was a tedious job. However, the Government needs to speed up the process of issuing Domicile Certificate, remove corruption and to give instructions for also attending the online applications which are waiting their disposal since long time.
The ganging up of Kashmir based political parties and some of the elements in Jammu region to restore Statehood to Jammu and Kashmir UT and also demanding pre 5th August, 2019, status, need to be keenly watched. In their heart they also feel that going back is not an achievable proposition but the attempt is to keep situation boiling and restore their credibility among the Kashmiri masses. Common men are not concerned about the fate of Article 370, they want resolution of their problems, jobs and development. It is not out of place to mention that these so called the main stream parties are responsible for misguiding the people and injecting them with anti India feelings. They directly or indirectly connived with the separatists and anti-India forces in the Valley for their vested political interests. They hobnobbed with the extreme Islamic elements to encourage the Jihadi culture and radicalise the youth of the Valley. They were responsible for the present situation in the state. During the regime of the previous elected governments the Government machinery was exceptionally corrupt; drenched in frauds, nepotism and favouritism. Above all the governments were extremely prejudicial and discriminatory against the people of Jammu region. To deal with these political parties and groups requires a great political acumen and maturity, while keeping the general public in good confidence and humour and also by maintaining good connectivity with them and efficiently and promptly addressing their grievances.
The primary task of the Government is to strengthen the Government system at the gross root level. Allowing the implementation of 73rd and 74th amendments to the constitution in the state and empowering the municipal corporations and municipal committees have paved the way to flourish the democracy at the grass root level. Administrative push is required to involve these basic pillars of democracy, i.e. local self governments in the development of infrastructure. There is a need to hold by-elections for currently vacant posts of about 12600 Panch and Sarpanch out of nearly 40000 posts. The attention has also to be given to the handling of Corona pandemic, particular in Jammu region. The test facility required to be enhanced and the arrangements in the hospitals, in other health centres need to be scrutinized, and to provide requisite facilities including the health care staff, appropriately. There is an immediate need to overhaul the present administrative setup. Honest, efficient and responsive officers should be appointed replacing the corrupt and inefficient officers in the UT bureaucracy. The measures to approach and establish communication with the common masses need to be explored. Citizen committees representing the cross-sections of the people in Jammu as well as in the Valley should be separately set up and their regular meetings be ensured to have the appraisal of genuine grievances of the public. The separatists and antinational elements should be stringently dealt with.
The present Union Territory status for Jammu and Kashmir needs to be continued in the prevailing situation till the militancy and terrorism is logically wiped out. The delimitation of assembly and Lok Sabha constituencies should follow after the completion of census, as is general practice. Once again a great injustice would be done with the people of Jammu region, if the delimitation is done on the basis of 2012 census. Previous census conducted, particularly in 2002 and 2012 were farce, in which the population of Kashmir Valley was manipulated and intentionally enhanced from the actual ground value in order to increase the strength of its representation in the State Assembly and Lok Sabha. This fact was acknowledged by Sh. Lal Krishan Adwani in case of 2002 census when he was Home Minister of the country on the representation made by Sh. Vaid Vishnu Dutt as a member of parliament. It should also be ensured that the people of Jammu region who always stood with the national cause being true nationalists, were subjected to worst kind of discrimination at the hands of respective governments at the state as well as at the centre. The Kashmiri leaders also discriminated the people on the basis of religion there by creating a communal polarization in the state. Because of the policies of the Kashmiri leaders mistrust among the people of both Jammu and Kashmir regions was created and this resulted into the alienation of people Jammu region from the Kashmir Valley. Attempts were made to change the demography of Jammu province, to finish its culture and geographical identity. In the light of this it is paramount for the new administration to give special attention to its development and its people. In state government departments including state police and J&K Bank the people of Jammu region are ill represented; in the civil secretariat their strength is merely 15-20 percent, whereas in other state services their contribution is only about 30%. Therefore, Jammu people are apprehensive of situation when popular government is established. They feel that they may face the same plight as they used to confront earlier. Therefore, it is suggested that two autonomous councils be constituted, one for Jammu province and one for Kashmir with financial, administrative and appropriate legislative powers, at par with those existing in Ladakh. Elections for these should be conducted before the election for UT assembly. This shall meet the aspirations of the people of both the regions to some extent and remove the mistrust among them.
(The author is a political observer )
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