Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Apr 24: MJR-47, Movement for Justice for Refugees of 1947 from PoJK strongly condemned the discriminatory notification dated April 20, 2020 providing 4% reservation to only a select Pahari speaking community.
The recent notification providing a 4% reservation for jobs for Pahari speaking people in the UT of J&K is misconstrued and based on the incorrect incomplete and restricted definition of word Pahari.
A spokesman of the MJR-47 said that in the first go, the Pahari community has been considered from a group of people living in the mountains and speaking in a style of pronunciation which varies from one section to another of the habitations. The language is not a complete language but is only one of the variants in the sub-dialects of mother tongue Punjabi. This is a fact which is obvious and doesn’t need to be clarified here.
In 2010, a circular issued by State Advisory Board for Development of Pahari speaking people of J&K clearly stated that Sikhs of Kashmir, Rajouri and Poonch belong to Pahari speaking community of J&K State. And in fact, also the DPs of 1947 from Muzaffarabad, Poonch, Mirpur and other areas now under the illegal occupancy of Pakistan are also covered in the definition. They all had a distinct Pahari culture, language and customs, social as well as religious which have only suffered during these 70 years of exile from their original homes.
These people cannot be denied the status of Pahari speaking people and doing so will be open discrimination and gross injustice to them. On one hand, Govt of India claims to take back the illegally occupied areas of J&K from Pakistan and send these DPs back to their homes (refer Sixty-Third report of Rajya Sabha petition committee of 1980), and on the other hand the Govt is denying the status of Pahari speaking people merely on the basis of the incomplete definition of Pahari people.
This notification is strongly condemned by MJR-47 which is fighting for justice to a large section of Pahari’s community of DPs of 1947 from PoJK and demands an immediate modification redefining the scope of this reservation to include the DPs of 1947 from PoJK also. Further, the formation of the Delimitation Commission to undo the injustice done by the previous govts. is welcome by MJR-47 and it is demanded that reference be also kept in the mandate to the commission for de-freezing a suitable number of seats out of the seats kept reserved for the PoJK areas.
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