B L Razdan
I am overwhelmed by the response of the readers to my write-up “Jammu’s Crisis of Identity” that was published in these columns on April, 19, 2021. While I am still in the process of receiving messages, I want to share the last sentence of one particular one, which read: “Thank you for your concern for us even though you know we hate KPs (not you personally).” I just want to tell the gentleman that we will talk of our love-hate relationship later; this, however, being the moment of reckoning for Jammu, we should single-mindedly focus on it so as not to allow it to pass just like that and bring upon ourselves the same fate as suffered by KPs.
It is rather amusing, if not surprising, to see that Jammu leadership has joined the valley bandwagon of statehood demand unmindful of the consequences that once back in power, the valley leadership will be back to their old ways and this time, Ladakh being out of their clutches, Jammu may have to bear a greater brunt of their onslaught, which could even be with vengeance.
After the plunder by the Afghans, Mughals may have given beautiful gardens to Kashmiris, but these were basically meant for their own enjoyment. In contrast, Dogra rulers gave to Kashmiris, S P College, Amar Singh College, State Hospital and free and compulsory universal education to boost, well before independence. And after independence, the vast swathe of land area of Naseem Bagh that now houses the enviable Kashmir University campus and the REC, was also given free to them by their successors. And what did the valley give Jammu in return? Only plunder and exploitation. For every school they opened or upgraded in the valley, they issued a liquor license in Jammu, which served the twin purpose of shutting the mouth of Jammu leadership and at the same time installing a revenue raising machine for running these institutions in the valley.
Can you beat it? Even after the removal of Article 370, only recently there was the announcement of a new Medical College at Handwara, Kashmir, having been approved by the Govt. of India at a whopping cost of Rs. 325 crores. Were Udhampur or Kathua, each catering to huge areas in comparison to the small town of Handawara, not the deserving places for this huge facility? And this is the BJP Government to bring which to power, I recall, half the Jammu rushing to their native places to cast their votes. It is really sad to note that even the present dispensation has begun appeasement of the valley at Jammu’s expense.
In the case of Triloki N Tiku & Anr vs State Of J&K, the Supreme Court of India had made these observations:
“What is placed before us is a general assertion, unsupported by any acceptable data, that all the Muslims of both the Provinces of the State are backward and the majority of the Hindus of the Jammu Province are likewise backward. During the course of the argument, two statements showing the population figures communitywise (1961 census) and the population figures community-wise (1941 census) with literacy figures and their percentage are placed before us. Apart from the fact that the petitioners have no opportunity to test the correctness of the figures, the 1941 census figures may not afford any workable guide, as a quarter of a century has passed by since then and there must have been revolutionary changes during this period.”
Though the judgment was given in the context of discrimination meted out to KPs, it showed that the state Government had taken care of all Muslims including those belonging to Jammu province by declaring them all as backwards. In just two years following this verdict came the report of Gajendragadkar Committee in 1968 wherein the step-motherly and discriminatory treatment met out to Jammu province post- independence was confirmed and very well documented. It is baffling to see how in just two decades the valley leadership had made its intentions of dominating Jammu very clear, yet the Jammu leadership could not either see through the game plan or intentionally chose to look the other way for personal pelf and gain. That Jammu was getting step-motherly treatment from the state government was clearly admitted in the report and the state administration even promised to implement its recommendations honestly and in their true spirit. What happened? The perfunctory and wishy-washy implementation of some of the recommendations was just cosmetic, far from the spirit in which the Commission had expected these to be implemented. Just see the enviable Kashmir University campus and look at the tiny Jammu University campus; see the REC Srinagar and look at the REC, Jammu; see the SAIMS at Srinagar and look at the state hospitals in Jammu. It is really sad that even these glaring disparities in the wake of the Commission recommendations did not open the eyes of Jammu leadership.
Money makes the mare go. The importance of holding control over the purse strings should have come naturally to Jammu leadership being adept in running business and even contributing to the state exchequer. The examples of bifurcation of Punjab to carve out the state of Himachal Pradesh and Haryana at a later stage should have awakened Jammuites to the ground realities. Before partitioning these areas, the revenue would mostly be spent in the Punjab and a sprinkling only in the areas now compromising H.P. and Haryana. But for their separate identity these areas would continue to be almost as backward as these were earlier. With financial autonomy, these areas could not be treated as colonies of the Punjab and we see for ourselves the results thereof. No blame could be imputed to anyone because the areas already developed have a tendency to guzzle and devour most of the available revenue in their maintenance only and leaving the undeveloped and underdeveloped areas in the lurch. Just as the proposed hospital in Handwara, as and when it comes up, will drain the state resources towards its maintenance and no one could refuse that. Having created such guzzling developed entities in the valley it is but natural to service them and place the burden on Jammu people. Even if the burden is divided equally, it is inequitable for the simple reason that the valley will be exclusively reaping the benefits of the investment and Jammu will receive a fair share of the burden only. Incidentally, Srinagar is a hugely big guzzler.
Jammu leadership seems to be satisfied with renaming of KAS as JKAS; forgetting that there is not much in the change of mere name. A rose with a different name would smell as sweet. It is time that Jammu leadership loses no time in asserting itself while the situation is still fluid when the valley leadership is somewhat down but certainly not out; still they have extracted the huge grant for a very big hospital in the valley. The bureaucracy comprising the officers of UT cadre are objective in their outlook and decision making, with no vested interest hemmed by religion, fellow-feeling and anti-India sentiment. If they let this defining moment pass, they will have only themselves to blame.
It is also time that Jammu leadership reminds the Union Home Minister, his promise when he had said, “For 60 years the people of the Jammu region have been facing injustice. The BJP government will help get justice for Jammu, as the various governments have meted out step-motherly treatment to the region”.
While personally I do not have much faith in the present political leadership in Jammu – I know them all – but where is the intelligentsia of Jammu? Where are the people who held the highest judicial and bureaucratic offices in the central government? Don’t they owe anything to Jammu, when it gave them everything that enabled their rise to the highest echelons, apart from their birth from its holy soil?
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