Mahesh Chander Sudan
We, the people of Jammu and Kashmir, are passing through an unacquainted political environment developing out of recent alterations made constitutionally and geographically not only due to shedding of special status but precisely out of prevalent uncertain pattern of governance dispensed for last six years both under political and non-political arrangements. At times, it raises a sense of helplessness when we look back and find a large number of inadequacies in terms of employment opportunities for youths, sheer neglect of real time development activities, long pending and deferred high value projects, absence of minimum health services, disregard to serious issues of farming community of rural areas, crippled and ill-equipped education infrastructure in terms of schools and teachers and predesigned neglect of public participation in the present system of governance. The root cause of the present crisis lies in the deceptive acquisition of mandate from the people of Jammu Province by BJP on false promises that strengthened them to forge short lived alliance with PDP to form government merely for meeting aspirations of the involved leaders of the party and not general welfare of the state. The political void created with dissolution of this government and subsequent imposition of constitutional alternative for such a long time enabled union government to authoritatively turn situation for carrying out alteration of constitutional provisions with regard to then state of Jammu and Kashmir.
Pragmatic analysis conveys that local leaders and the hapless voters succumbed to a political design moved by BJP to weaken the existing local leadership of different ideologies and achieve considerable mandate to form government or forge alliance with any other party on mutually agreed conditions in the year 2014. The colorful political landscape of then state of J&K commenced developing regional imbalances thereafter that understandably resulted in present day political inactivation. The mainstream regional political parties like PDP and NC remained headless for quite long time post abrogation of Article 370 and 35A and the junior cadre of the parties choose to stay indoor to escape preventive custody imposed by local administration to control law and order across the state. Third active political party since accession of state of Jammu and Kashmir, Indian National Congress, also suffered absence of senior leadership like other political outfits. We, the people of JK, have been left voiceless politically in that scenario which created a wide gap between ordinary citizens and the leaders. Initially, the local populace especially in Jammu province developed some confidence and awaited promised package meant to relieve unemployed youths and also a likely change in the security scenario across valley. The ground reality however negates the government claims in all respect except for issue of Domicile Certificate with utter official apathy and unprecedented delay even in case of Permanent Residential Certificate (PRC) holders. There is hardly any change on ground for local citizens.
It is evident from the shrilling silence across regions of the UT of JK that commoners have stopped voicing their concerns for lack of appropriate and effective response from the concerned officials and the same is evident from the ongoing Back to Village programs where in some cases people have refused to participate or just shown a cold shoulder response. Another likely initiative of My Town My Pride expectedly may help in breaking the visible silence on the part of commoners. The role of local political leaders especially from the ruling BJP (BhartiyaJanta Party) could have helped government machinery on ground to achieve desired results. Local cadre of BJP could have used available political space more effectively in the present scenario where all other local political parties are still rejuvenating their cadre and realigning their moves to cope up changed environment. It appears that BJP cadre of the UT is a broken house and it is functioning under the control of many self-styled local bosses rather than elected incumbent President of BJP of JK UT who at times appears helpless. We, the people of JK, have hardly forgotten 2014 when a large mandate extended to the cadre got wasted. The central leadership of the party is expected to be wiser in this regard and handle situation diligently.
The recent release of Ms. Mufti from long arrest of almost 14 months has brought all main stream valley centric political outfits together to form an alliance for launching joint struggle against abrogation of Article 370 and reorganization of the state of J&K into two Union Territories basically to reclaim political ground in the valley and generate wave in their favor for forthcoming elections. The alliance has formally been formed by six valley based political outfits. Except for National Conference (NC) and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), rest all are either recently formed or do not enjoy much public support in valley. National Conference and Peoples Democratic Party have considerable public support across two regions of the Union Territory in comparison with other young political outfits. Study of recent past history of Jammu and Kashmir indicates that PDP has suffered heavily both in terms of infrastructure and ideology. Senior leaders of the party are required to reestablish their cadre and its ideological acceptance by people at large. There is no charismatic leader who has the capacity to mould public support in their favor and it therefore become easy to assimilate that PDP may not be able to affect future politics of the Union Territory. As regard National Conference, the party remained on political landscape of the state since its formation in the year 1932 and it continued enjoying mandate of the people across three regions of the State of J&K (now UT) for quite long time. The party is also blessed with prominent political leaders who enjoyed support of the masses across the regions. Senior leaders of the party may have to restructure their cadre across the UT for matching changed environment, infusing human factor especially at Province Level leadership by replacing existing cadre with leaders of mass acceptance who have risen from the cadre and are well versed with party ideology rather than prominent rich business persons. This is especially applicable for Jammu Province where party needs a charismatic leadership at Province Level for energizing its cadre across the province to influence people and convince them ideologically to erase recently created image of discrimination before they fall prey to other political claimants like Congress, BJP and other recently formed/prevailed political outfits like Apni Party or AAP.
The present state of political landscape of the Union Territory appears grey in absence of active involvement of the people of JK and their local representatives probably out of long drawn absence of governance amidst bifurcation of the state into two Union Territories and stripping of special status granted by Indian Constitution with unprecedented speed and secrecy hurting their solemn faith in the system so established in a federal democratic structure of Indian Republic as enshrined in the supreme law of land i.e Constitution of India. Onus of Responsibility to reenergize political activation now lies with Union of India.
The author is wing Commander (Retd )
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