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Not just Kashmir, Jammu Burns
Sach Kanwal Singh
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Burns
Aggressive Hindu consciousness in Jammu and Muslim uprising in
Kashmir Valley has plunged the situation to its worst low point
in decades. As secularism claims lie in shreds and the RSS-BJP
lobby rubs its hands in glee, peace prospects hurtle downhill.
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 Jammu
has been burning for over a month now. India's disturbed state of
Jammu and Kashmir stands divided, and not just notionally, but on
the basis of competing religiosity and thanks to a strong uprising
of hindutva forces in Jammu. After Kashmiris protests ensured that
the state government cancelled the transfer of a few acres of forest
land to a Hindu shrine, Jammu has exploded in anger, violence and
communal frenzy. After one person committed suicide and then three
more died on Monday as police repeatedly clashed with protesters
across the state, UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi reached out to BJP
President Rajnath Singh -- a rare line of communication in Indian
politics -- a central team led by Union Home Secretary Madhukar
Gupta and Defence Secretary Vijay Singh rushed to the state as
situation worsened.
Deaths occurred on both sides of the communal divide. As mobs
protested to demand that the cancelled land allotment to the Sri
Amarnath Shrine Board be restored, two protesters were killed when
police fired in Samba, 40 km south west of
Jammu. In Srinagar, 400 km away, another youth, hit directly by a
teargas shell died, protesting against the alleged assault on
Muslims in
Jammu.
So bad is the situation that Major General Goverdhan Singh Jamwal (retd)
called it "the worst communal situation I've seen since 1947." The
deaths in police action inflamed passions further and many more
people came out into the streets to oppose the police.
Pitched battles were the order of the day. Monday saw residents of
the
Kashmir
valley observing a general shutdown. In response,
Jammu
protesters extended their bandh by 5 more days. On Friday, hundreds
of protesters laid siege to the airport here, leaving NC patron
Farooq Abdullah and PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti stranded.
Jammu agitation in favour of transfer of land is now being backed by
many sections of society. The traders are supporting the bandh, the
government doctors have joined it. The Jammu Bar Association of
lawyers is also backing it.
 The police are simply clueless. SSP Jammu, S D Singh Jamwal, said,
"What can the police do when such a large number of people are
involved." Government offices are non-functional, commuter services
are off the roads, banks and educational institutions are closed,
but the agitators seem to be in no mood to stop. The land row is now
becoming a sort of pent up reaction to
India's Kashmir-centric mindset. Land was given to the shrine board
for raising temporary structures when PDP's Mufti Mohammad Sayeed
was heading the coalition government. Later, after protests, the
government cancelled its order on July 1, sparking off protests in
Jammu.
It
seems the Congress and the NC have become increasingly irrelevant.
Jammu
people now see the PDP as a Kashmir-centric party; all its 16 MLAs
were elected from the Valley during the 2002 polls. In 2002 Assembly
polls, the Congress had emerged as the single largest party in
Jammu
with 15 seats while the NC got nine seats in
Jammu.
Both Congress and the NC are now being viewed as parties which have
chosen to follow the PDP and thus make the state a totally
Kashmir centric one. During the last budget session of both the
Houses of the state Legislature, there were unruly scenes in both
the treasury and opposition benches over the issue of lower wages
being paid to daily workers of the Public Health Engineering
Department working in
Jammu,
as compared to those in the Valley. Similarly, during the recent
shortlisting of candidates for the posts of clerks by the state's
Subordinate Services Recruitment Board, there were less than half-adozen
candidates selected from Jammu, as against 250 from the Valley.
Jammu
sees these instances as mere tip of the iceberg of the
discrimination. It alleges that in order to maintain hegemony of one
community over state politics, the Government deferred delimitation
of Assembly constituencies, due to be held this year, following
opposition from the PDP and NC at an all-party meeting convened by
Azad last year. The previous government of Farooq Abdullah had
enacted a legislation against increasing the present number of
Assembly seats till 2026, as fresh delimitation would have increased
the number of Assembly seats in Jammu region in view of the increase
in its population following migration by three lakh Kashmiri
Pandits and thousands of Muslims from the Valley during the two
decade-long turmoil.
While Mufti described the agitation as a "rhetoric of hatred", the
chairman of
Jammu and Kashmir People's Conference, Sajad Gani Lone, termed the
agitation as "an expression of venom against the Kashmiris". Omar
Abdullah's recent speech in Parliament also raked up passions when
he said that the land belongs to them (Kashmiris). The suicide by a
local resident, Kuldeep Dogra the next day in protest against Omar's
statement turned the agitation into an uprising against Kashmiri
politicians.
6 August, 2008
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