Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Mar 21:Great visionary Pt. Prem Nath Dogra was having unflinching faith in the unity and integrity of the country. He was opposed to any kind of differential treatment to any region or the people on the basis of religion as he felt that if obnoxious approach is accepted then there would remain no country of the name of India as this great country is having numerous faiths to worship God.
Remembering Pt Dogra on eve of his 46th anniversary, the former Union Minister, Prof. Chaman Lal Gupta said that painful partition of India on the basis of two nation theory and the emergence of theocratic Pakistan resulting in the loss of lakhs of innocent people and crores getting destitute and ill will amongst those human beings who were living together like brothers for centuries. Dogra was of the firm view that the religion is the way to worship God. One can do so in a mosque or in a temple. Also religion is the way to seek solace or mental peace but cannot be the base for any kind of division or differential treatment.
Pt. Dogra took up the gauntlet in 1949 when the Indian Constitution was being framed and there was a move to give a separate status to J&K under Article 370. This opposition of Pandit Prem Nath Dogra was not taken well by the new rulers of Kashmir. They arrested him and detained in Srinagar jail in severe cold to face the vagaries of the weather. There was no light even not to say of any heating arrangement or other facility. Prof. Gupta also recalled that there was wide spread resentment in Jammu areas and also amongst the nationalists of the country against this inhuman behavior of the new rulers of Kashmir who were operating like despotic rulers ignoring all the norms of humanity.
Now after about half a century the Article 370 has been repealed and new era in Jammu and Kashmir has dawned. Hence the people would like to have a new atmosphere of progress and prosperity by leaving behind all wrongs and unfair treatment under communal and regional considerations, he added. In this regard he particularly referred to the appointment of Delimitation Commission and hoped that various sections of the people would get due representation in the Assembly and also other spheres of life which were denied over the decades resulting in regional and other tensions.
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