Excelsior Special Correspondent
JAMMU, June 14: Even when there was no law of Right to Information, no Public Services Guarantee Act and there was no State Information Commission, State Accountability Commission and State Vigilance Commission, no concept of Public Interest Litigations, no Internet and no 24×7 private television news channels in Jammu and Kashmir, rulers would cringe at an ordinary reference to a flaw in governance. Notwithstanding politicians and bureaucrats getting themselves foisted on the subjects, there was a semblance of accountability in the high public offices. Taking cognizance and trying to address problems afflicting the masses had been established as a religious practice.
Chief Minister Ghulam Mohammad Sadiq’s regime was instrumental in launching Zoonadab—a 15-minute family soup that eventually became Radio Kashmir’s most popular morning programme. It ran six-days-a-week, without break, for over 15 days through 1960s and 1970s. Iconic broadcasters like Somnath Sadhu (Aga Sahab), Maryam Begam (Aga Baai), Pushkar Bhan (Mama, the family servant), Sharief-ud-din, as also then budding child artists, Bashir Arif (Nazir Lala) and Nayeema Ahmad Mehjoor (Nan Koor), became household names in every kitchen in Kashmir that was privileged to have a transistor.
Dramatis personate of Zoonadab, invariably at the daily morning tea session, would start with a routine household feature and shift soon to a particular developmental or governance problem. Politicians and officials would miss the broadcast only when they were not present in the State. They would be all on tenterhooks and would not take rest until the problem was solved.
Government later set up a special cell in its Department of Information that was tasked to provide clippings of the news item published in vernacular as well as national media to the concerned departments and organisation, making it mandatory for the officials to respond with detailed facts. It was because of this practice that newspapers became movers and shakers in the state’s not-so-vibrant democratic system. No less a dignitary than Prime Minister Indira Gandhi came all the way from New Delhi only to inaugurate a cartoon exhibition organized by publishers of then leading Urdu daily Srinagar Times in the summer capital.
Department of Information’s window of making the public servants accountable over the news items and editorials carried by media ceased to exist only a few years back. Ironically, proportional to media’s development as the real fourth estate and a veritable pillar of democracy, the tradition of taking cognizance of development and governance related issues became extinct in the current era of “transparency and accountability”.
Even until the beginning of the previous decade, the State had a robust system of taking cognizance in place. A routine news item, carried on page three of this newspaper, forced Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah rush all the way to Laharwalpora village of Bandipore, alongwith militant-turned-counterinsurgent-turned-MLC of the ruling National Conference, to enquire how the unbridled Ikhwanis had killed the wife of fisherman Ghulam Mohammad Peenchu by smashing her head with a stone. The Srinagar-datelined box in Daily Excelsior made Dr Abdullah walk a distance of three miles. As he interacted with the victim’s family and listened to the first-hand account, he didn’t lose a minute to order the Ikhwanis’ arrest and a judicial investigation. Years later, judge Khaleeq-uz-Zamaan submitted his report, recommending murder trail against the counterinsurgents.
Despite being on holiday with his family in London, Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah took quick cognizance of another Srinagar datelined item. Then Director of Food & Supplies and now Divisional Commissioner of Kashmir, Dr Asgar Hassan Samoon, had complained in Radio Kashmir’s Sheherbeen programme that money had played “a key role” in appointment of Heads of Departments in an administrative reshuffle. Even as Chief Secretary Ashok Jaitley struggled hard to protect the young IAS officer, Chief Minister’s no-nonsense orders from London forced the Government to place Mr Samoon under suspension for his “objectionable conduct”. An inquiry was instituted that confirmed that the story carried by Daily Excelsior was correct. Samoon’s reinstatement came after over six months.
Maharaja too had his own system of taking cognizance of the ills and evils afflicting his subjects, the society and the Government. It was due to the monarch Hari Singh’s cognizance, which he took of the legendary social reformist Subhan Nayid’s campaign from 1924 to 1934, that the legally sanctioned practice of prostitution got banned in Valley. Even the ritual of today’s public Durbar stems from an old monarchical tradition.
Chief Minister Omar Abdullah deserves credit for establishing a Grievance (Redressal) Cell, directly under his supervision, command and control. Authorities have been highlighting deluges of statistics to establish that sufferings were being mitigated and the ordinary citizen’s problems solved within a timeframe. Facts, though suggest otherwise, occasionally. This newspaper is in possession of evidences and examples when complaints were directed to the concerned officials who never bothered to respond back to the high office, let alone solving a problem. It appears that even the techno-savvy CM’s open social liaison through a microblogging domain has had very limited effect in making the not-responsive sections of bureaucracy, civil administration and Police accountable.
Questions have not been answered as to why ordinary citizens should be forced to file RTI applications, PILs and petitions before courts and commissions to activate the establishment in routine matters of governance like the dog menace and ecological vandalism in Valley and land grabbing and unauthorized structures in Jammu. The meteorically spiraling numbers of RTI and PSGA applications are, indeed, a proof of mass awareness and empowerment but at the same time these data serve a grim reminder of the non-seriousness and lack of sense of accountability among the public servants.
Of late, people have been asking why the administration did not come out of slumber with hundreds of media stories and public complaints in the stinking matters GB Pant Hospital until the threat of mass uprising came in from Hurriyat icons like Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Syed Ali Shah Geelani. Others have been struggling to know what the regime has done in the matter of unfair means allegedly used by a Minister’s kin in an examination.
The fact of certain Ministers and officials enjoying the temerity of silencing the peoples’ voices with defamation suits and other means of misuse of official position, while themselves raping their portfolios and building their own fortunes, is in itself a sad commentary on the functioning of a Government. It is not without reason that the Planning Commission of India has snubbed the state’s top bureaucrats for improper utilizations of huge funding provided for operation of the Central flagship progammes, particularly the Working Plan in Forestry sector, NRHM in Health sector and JNNURM in Urban Development sector.
A snub over decreasing female ratio in J&K is actually the highest official confirmation of the fact of existence of hundreds of unauthorized private nursing homes, clinics and diagnostic laboratories that indulge in pre-natal sex determination tests, forced miscarriages and foetal abortions. As a matter of common observation, such flourishing illegal businesses can not exist in absence of nexus between the operators and the highest authorities. According to the highest bureaucratic sources, Planning Commission has observed that hundreds of unauthorized Government Hospitals and health centres have come up in eight particular Assembly segments, four each in Kashmir and Jammu, in the last three years while as dozens of non-VIP segments have been craving for ordinary ambulances and X-Ray machines.
Being mute spectator to grave irregularities and turning the proverbial Nelson’s Eye to each violation of pro-people governance can never be a compulsion of the coalition dharma in any Indian State.
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