Excelsior Special Correspondent
JAMMU, Apr 27: There is no denying the fact that Jammu & Kashmir is an essentially political problem. Sixty-five years after the Partition of the British India, this Princely state is continuously suffering the pain of the divide caused by the Two-Nation theory. More than half of the population is under India’s sovereignty but less than half of the land under this country’s control and administration. But education, knowledge, awareness and transparency—all enshrined in the democratic set up—have made it difficult over the years for politicians and propagandists to pass sweeping judgments and attribute each and every trouble to the state’s “political problem”.
With due regards to the leaders who play that Kashmir was neither an economic problem nor a governance issue, the state’s—particularly the Valley’s—history is replete with the situations of contrast. Even in the recent times, key questions have remained unanswered: Why did the Valley erupt with the anti-Indian sentiment in the summer of 2008 but the same population thronged the polling booths en masse in the autumn of same turbulent year? Why a more ferocious turbulence consumed over a hundred civilian protestors and arsonists in 2010 but the State broke all previous records of tourist inflow in 2009 and 2011? Is this odd-and-even cycle a threat to peace in 2012?
Separatist, as well as pseudo-separatist, protagonists have been dismissing current situation of peace and normality as “silence of the graveyard”. According to them, the semblance of peace is the result of the Police and security forces “unleashing terror” and “silencing the population” with the barrel of their gun. The counter-argument is that with the guns and draconian laws you can bring someone under your boots but not make him smile and bring sheen on his face.
Highest echelons of power in New Delhi, including the most important Cabinet Committee on Security Affairs, has acknowledged more than once that governance-related issues needed to be addressed and resolved. They have suggested that corruption in public offices, nepotism and favouritism in everything from recruitment of officials in government services to issuance of licences and allotments of government contracts, preparation of below poverty line ration cards and sanctioning of IAY units and educational scholarships, have grown more potential threats to stability than political unrest. Recent surveys, conducted by the country’s academic and research institutes, have also established that the loss of faith of the new generation in the Indian individuals and institutions in Kashmir and Jammu, was not without the mundane reason.
Notwithstanding the statements made on oath by public men and public servants, hundreds of thousands of Kanals of the State land of various categories continues to be under the illegal occupation of powerful individuals who have succeeded in undermining the institutions in a brazen manner. Land grabbing, particularly in the central districts of Jammu and Samba in Jammu zone and the central districts of Srinagar and Budgam in Kashmir zone, is enjoying the dubious distinction of being the most profitable business of powerful people. They include public servants, particularly officers in Police and civil administration, besides businessmen, politicians, lawyers and journalists.
Government’s replies given to questions of legislators in each session of the state legislature are viewed as the most authentic confirmation to allegations of large scale land grabbing. The lands encroached upon and grabbed by powerful people include thousands of square miles of forest estates, nazool, kahcharai and khuds and banjars in ‘gair mumkina’ category of Revenue Department as well as the lands acquired by the Government departments out of propriety chunks.
According to an official reply, Department of Evacuees Property has around 14.70 Lakh Kanals of custodian land in J&K. Out of this 1.72 lakh Kanals, according to Government’s admission, is continuing under illegal occupation of land grabbers including Government agencies like security forces.
Matters under consideration of different courts and RTI applications have exposed how attempts of politicians, holding high public offices, are continuing under the nose of the successive State Governments to grab vast chunks of the state lands.
Sidhra, Sujwan, Sainik Colony, Bhathindi, besides a vast agriculture-horticulture belt from Roop Nagar to Akhnoor, are naked examples of land grabbing and encroachment in Jammu. Obviously out of ill-gotten money, many of the land grabbers, with brazen misuse of official position, have built luxury farmhouses. Some of them have set up high-yield schools and banquet halls while as others have laid high-pollution brick kilns on these lands, particularly on either side of Jammu-Akhnoor patch of the highway, in gross violation of rules. Once a matter is raked up in courts, media or legislature, official shielding the land grabbers serve a notice of eviction. There is seldom an action that reaches its logical conclusion of eviction and restoration of the property to the State. People at large have been haplessly watching this drama over the years.
Jammuites have been additionally witness to how even a mediaperson acquired a huge chunk of land through benami formula behind University of Jammu during PDP-Congress coalition Government. When a Vice Chairman of Jammu Development Authority (JDA), who was an IAS officer, refused to pay the asking price of Rs 20 to 60 Lakh a Kanal to the front occupants, he was humiliated by then Housing Minister and removed within minutes.
In the summer capital too, land grabbing has now emerged as a major menace. Reports indicate that thousands of Kanals of forest and revenue land has been grabbed, not only in the brazenly denuded areas of Shopian on Mughal Road but also in the heart and periphery of Srinagar. According to a complaint under investigation of J&K Police, a group of highly connected businessmen, politicians and lawyers, has spent huge amount of money among stone pelters of uptown to ensure turbulence and resultant curfew for a full month in July-August of 2010.
Under the cover of turmoil and curfew, this group succeeded in acquisition of over 10 Kanals of land, reportedly belonging to a minority religious trust, demolished a small temple which finds mention even in Rajtirangni and uprooted four massive and green Chinar trees during curfew days to clear the chunk of land for construction of a Rs 100 Crore commercial complex. Only Deputy Commissioner is competent to issue permission of felling a falling Chinar tree.
This entire drama, according to the complaint, occurred in the backyard of the office of SP East and Kothibagh Police Station and Directorate of Information. The umpire, in which some separatist leaders have also a stake, is coming up fast with full knowledge of the Government, including Ministers, top Police officers and bureaucrats.
Yet another classical example of the state’s helplessness or collusion comes from Humhama area. One of the powerful Ministers has allegedly grabbed land measuring over 10 Kanals of notified land outside the entrance of the most sensitive Srinagar Airport and built a palatial house. Over 300 Kanals of state land have been grabbed at Sheikhpora village and more than 1,000 Kanals in the nearby Narkara Numbal. Rather than initiating any action towards recovery, Government officials have regularised the occupation fraudulently under so-called Roshni Act.
A voluminous complaint, reportedly submitted last year to Chief Justice of Supreme Court, contains details as to how even a former High Court judge allegedly manipulated land grabbing and encroachment in a posh colony in Humhama area and raised a cluster of residential and commercial structures on it in gross violation of laws.
Mercifully, whenever someone gets up against this public and social injustice with an RTI application or Public Interest Litigation (PIL), all the unscrupulous elements join hands to break his resolve and silence him into submission.
Among the four organs of the democratic system, judiciary is still enjoying the distinction of being an institution that has let the people retain their faith in it. With negligible exceptions, judges of the state’s judicial forums have refined administration of justice. Legislature, being subservient and dovetailed to Executive in many matters in conflict zones, has only partially discharged its duty.
Media’s credibility and efficacy has suffered a dent, first due to getting sandwiched between conflicting actors of violence and anarchy for a decade and later due to falling dependent on advertisement support and security—both coming from the Executive. Notwithstanding these reverses, sections of media in J&K have discharged their duty towards the public interest at grave risk to their life and properties.
All eyes are now focused on how the social good Samaritans and RTI activists prove their cases against land grabbing, corruption, nepotism, favouritism and government’s inaction in the judicial forums and how the presiding officers of these institutions, currently enjoying a lot of peoples’ faith and respect, deliver justice in such matters. Public at large have the right of scrutiny as justice is not a cloistered virtue in any democracy.
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