Imran Nabi Dar
When the now deceased Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Muzaffar Wani started his sojourn, not many knew about him but over the last couple of years, he had become an internet sensation. With his novel ways of putting across a viewpoint, many youngsters that I observe or interact with saw in him a ‘hero’.
Whether one likes it or not, Burhan had become a rallying point for many. This is a fact and it will be good for everyone if GoI acknowledged it. The sweeping generalisation of labelling everybody a paid agent will do no good in this scenario. Considering the swelling number of young Kashmiris attending the funeral prayers of deceased militants, and more and more women coming out in open to condone the trend, Burhan had established a strong constituency in the valley, a constituency in the young psyche.
Following the sudden news of his killing, past five months in Kashmir have been deadly. After 2008, 2010, Valley witnessed another deadly cycle of protests this year resulting in death of almost 100 people, injuries to over 10,000, blinding of around 1100 people followed by arbitrary arrests. This year however saw south Kashmir taking the hit. A number of developments on the political and social front have led to the dramatic resurgence of violent protests throughout the valley particularly the rural south. The reasons are many; some are internal, confined to local politics whereas many are associated with politics at national level.
Politics of Perception
Kashmir has been witnessing the Politics of Perception for a long period now. Currently there is a perception that ‘Harm’ has been institutionalised in Kashmir. The way state has dealt with the protests has strengthened the belief that the government knows only one way to silence protestors in Kashmir and that is by inflicting harm. Over the years this perception is steadily growing and strengthening.
Never before have so many people been jailed, slapped with PSAs and despite the so called improvement in situation, elderly, youngsters and those with the remotest association with public angst are locked up.
In 2010, the then Opposition, PDP created a ruckus and tried every trick on earth to paint the ruling coalition led by Omar Abdullah the villain. It pledged to ban the pellet guns that had been freshly introduced with the intent of stopping the mobs and put a halt on the spiral of killings that had unfortunately taken place.
When the PDP came to power in 2015, the clamour for banning pellet guns was conveniently forgotten. As a result, these guns continue to be misused and have maimed and in extreme cases killed people. As per the statistics available 11 people died after shot with pellets. The perception of harm is therefore proving to be true. The state’s regressive and oppressive policies, ignorant or oblivious to the fallouts of such regimes, are being implemented in Kashmir.
Hinterlands Changing
The valley simultaneously is witnessing a major repositioning of militancy particularly in south. And as a reminder to those who thought only those from economically challenged sections of society are joining militant ranks, the recent killings of two militants in Bijbehara and Arwani who come from well to do families will make them think otherwise. The new age armed militants are not confined to class anymore.
In 2010 the protests and killings were mostly based around the city and towns but in 2016 it was far off Kashmir villages which became the epicentre of anti-government protests.
Damhal Hanji Pora, a constituency in Kulgam district is one case that has baffled many. In the past two decades, this area had always given protests a miss no matter what the situation or issue would be, and even if whole of Kashmir had erupted over it. Immediately after the Kokernag encounter, three people including a woman died in police firing, the first casualties of the spiral of deaths that took place in 2016. Subsequently police station at DH Pora was torched.
Like DH Pora, Chawalgam, the place which has been a hot bed of mainstream politics, also witnessed an uproar and so did many other places, that had never known protests before.
The trend of virgin spots enrobing themselves into the fatigues of rebellion is a result of a long buried angst. There, no doubt, is a massive shift of ideological orientation and it is youth that are spearheading this. I am sure many would have taken note of it but as a keen observer of people’s mood, I think this shift is much greater than what it appears on the face value.
Role of media
As a child I would often see the grown-ups in the neighbourhood tune-in to BBC Radio Evening News, considered to be most credible news source then. The next day I would see the last evening’s news getting discussed outside the shops, where young and ‘rebellious’ men would gather for a smoke, or outside the mosques where elderly and ‘disillusioned’ men would congregate after the prayers, or even in the schools.
Talks would resonate elation if Kashmir’s ‘agonies’ had found a mention in news, fury if there had been no mention of what was perceived as the most important event of the day, and greater fury if the radio version did not match with the widespread local version.
A replica of that can be seen today. With most of Indian broadcast media (Hindi as well as English) adding fuel to the fire, sides are well defined and outlined. Instead of empathizing with the families whose loved ones have been killed or maimed for life, TV channels in a bid to garner more TRPs by appeasing the masses, started demonizing the victims.
Rather than presenting a balanced report where the views of both sides get due space, their reportage is such that it would make any sane Kashmiri, no matter what the political ideology he or she professes, hurl choicest of abuses on the news package.
A dangerous cocktail of anger and resentment among the young continues to brew and has spread like fire in Kashmir. Violence is but a manifestation of this frustration.
Over the years, genuine grievances and dissatisfactions of people have often been rubbished by the New Delhi leadership. It has resulted in brewing up a perception that the only effective way to register a point is by creating a noise about it. The noise sometimes gets too noisy due to the policies that are devised far from Kashmir, far from its people and their representatives.
Political baggage
Governments in New Delhi, over the past 70 years have resorted to a policy of gagging dissent. It is this context that needs to be addressed. But unfortunately policy makers in New Delhi have failed to convince PM Modi and his coterie on this. Instead they have gone into the mode of flaunting their jackboots only.
The refusal to acknowledge Kashmiri separatists as stakeholders is proving to be major policy failure of this government. This too after the present coalition of PDP and BJP had principally agreed to hold talks with separatists in their now forgotten ‘Agenda of Alliance’.
Following the dramatic political developments in the state when PDP aligned with the right wing BJP, people particularly from the south which happened to be the major constituency of PDP felt betrayed. The feeling of this betrayal got compounded when Late Mufti Sayeed and now Mehbooba Mufti silently gave in to the arm pulling of its coalition partner on numerous occasions.
The state flag controversy and the infamous beef ban all played their parts in building up anger among Kashmiris. This anger reached to its crescendo when an innocent truck driver from Bijbehara was hacked to death by right wing goons in Udhampur and the state apparatus failed to provide justice by letting them go scot free.
In Handwara when six young people including a promising cricketer was killed by police firing after an alleged molestation bid on a minor girl by forces, no cabinet meeting was held in New Delhi. Instead government blamed people for pivoting riots. During 2016 Yatra, government felt the need of conducting a meeting, making it amply clear that PM and his office is concerned more about Yatra than the ones who are getting killed by government forces.
Such double standards by New Delhi have accentuated the trust deficit here in Kashmir. Yatris have always been cared for by locals no matter what the situation is and will always be welcomed by Kashmir.
GoI’s blatant advocacy of moves that were essentially seen as a threat to the mass interests in Kashmir by most sections of people, have accentuated the feeling of alienation, deprivation and deceit. Be it separate colonies for retired army men, townships for Pandits or the New Industrial Policy, the matters could have been handled better.
This sense of defeat particularly among Kashmiris has been building up. The killing of Burhan acted as a natural vent to all such frustrations.
The ‘Healing Touch’ of PDP proved to be a Harming Touch. People in south Kashmir are just shaking the sensation of an uncomfortable touch away. And this shaking is convulsive.
The author is Provincial Spokesperson JK National Conference
Imran Nabi Dar
After passing out of the worst political stalemate in its history, the state of J&K is facing a never before existential crisis following a purported attack on Art 370 and Art 35 (A). The recent SC judgement on SARFAESI Act and the subsequent government decision to issue domicile certificates to West Pakistan Refugees has put a serious question mark on the intentions of both state government as well as GoI.
These new developments have put the spotlight back on GoIs handling of state-centre relationship thereby raising more apprehensions among state subjects on its policy towards J&K. Earlier similar attempts like the proposed pandit township, sainik colonies, new industrial policy have resulted in large scale misgivings and anger among people.
Whence, the SC overturned the High Court judgement wherein the latter had ruled out implementation of the Securitisation and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest Act in JK. This Act that the Parliament had passed in 2002 was deemed beyond capacity to dictate property laws in J&K due to its special status under Art 370.
In an interaction with then RBI Governor Raghu Ram Ranjan in September 2015, Finance Minister Haseeb Drabu had expressed serious reservations on the implementation of SARFAESI Act in JK in its current form. He had said, “The SARFAESI ACT cannot be implemented in the state due to its special position so we are drafting states own equivalent act that will suffice the need of banks operating in the state.” That never happened.
Taking an absolute u-turn now, State Law Minister Abdul Haq Khan welcomed the SC judgement on SARFAESI and even went to the extent of calling it an “achievement for the state” thereby exposing the inherent contradictions within the PDP itself, if there are any. Later he did try to undo the damage by saying ‘only permanent residents of the state would be permitted to bid for and own such assets’. I would leave this to legal fraternity to see if the SC judgement guarantees any such provision. I, in my readings of the 60-page judgement, failed to spot this golden announcement.
As if SARFAESI was not enough, politically sensitive Kashmiris are being forced to think that this government has only one agenda and that is to usurp states special status. Questions are being raised on how this government can issue domicile certificates to West Pakistani Refuges (WPR) who have taken refuge in Jammu region since the partition of Indian subcontinent. Earlier too such attempts were made wherein the PRC (Permanent Resident Certificates) were issued to non state subjects. After a lot of hue-and-cry, the order was withdrawn by the previous Mufti led govt. This time around the government has taken a clear stand on domicile certificates. Government spokesperson Naeem Akhtar tried to play this issue down by comparing these certificates with Ids but failed to answer how its coalition partner calls it a first step towards realising its commitment towards granting PRCs to WPRs. Clearly the two are not on same page on this and this is where the script gets dangerous.
With winter session of legislatures just a few days away, the WPR issue could have been discussed with the opposition as well. But the governments’ solo shots are proving that Jammu & Kashmir stands at a precarious point where only might is right.
But as has been the precedence with this government and its officials, this too seems to be fixed in favour of establishing the writ of right wing forces in JK. A year back all hell broke loose when Jammu & Kashmir, a Muslim majority state, woke up one fine morning to find beef banned. However, what was more shocking than the beef Ban was that it was states own Additional Advocate general who had filed the petition in Jammu HC seeking implementation of Beef Ban in state.
There is an atmosphere of mistrust in Kashmir for its elected government. It’s every move and policy is being seen as a covert attempt to rob J&K of its special status, a step towards “merging” the state that acceded conditionally to the Union of India in 1947.
Kashmir has seen the worst of its time over the past three decades but the growing suspicion is driving sanity out of the daily discourse. Governments need to address that first, restore the faith in people that their identity is as safe as they claim their interests to be.
Imran Nabi Dar
The recent photo-ops of CM Mehbooba Mufti singing and swinging with children on train and lakes belies the venom she has spewed on these children over the past five months.
Notwithstanding the rage emanating from the terrible tragedies Kashmir had to witness in the tumultuous 155 days that went by, Mehbooba Mufti has stood out the most with her outrageous and shocking comments. Whenever she spoke in the past, she has reeked as a CM devoid of compassion, her claims far from facts and her arguments dangerously provocative.
A speedy ride through her ‘outreach’:
For almost a month, the CM was in hiding, when one after another, youth were killed. On her August 15 speech, she besieged parents to ‘stop kids from participating in protests’ and claimed that these kids were close to her heart but ended the sentence with ‘what can we do?’ If not CM, then who could? Just a week back she went on to the extent of blaming the killed for getting killed and shamelessly trying to exonerate herself.
On August 25, in her first press conference after protests broke out all over Kashmir following Burhan Wani’s killing, she proved that there was very little she could do. She ridiculed journalists for asking questions about killings and justified the barbaric acts.
“Was the boy who was killed in DH Pora going to buy toffee or milk from the army camp?” she jeered.
A month earlier, on July 29, she had tried absolving herself by claiming that she would have prevented killing of Burhan wani for the sake of ‘improving situation, booming tourism’. In the same breath she had called the deaths of youth a ‘sacrifice’.
Her double speak however was brazenly out when she started comparing and differentiating the killings from those of 2010. The insensitive remarks were not just provocative but utterly wrong. Her office had not perhaps told her that not a boy but a girl, Yasmeena Akhtar 21, was killed in DH Pora. And that she had gone out looking for her 12 year old brother.
As was expected from a CM who had come to speak after a long hiatus, and with people wanting to know her stand on the current impasse she came out with an unbelievable theory of 5 percent ‘trouble maker’ Vs 95 percent ‘peace mongers’ .
Rather than giving them a holistic perspective on the situation and her action vis-a-vis her pro-protest outbursts in 2010, she proved she had completely metamorphosed into a confused and confusing entity.
In a recorded video message that was broadcasted again and again on the government owned Doordarshan, she shed a few tears, with her late father’s picture in the frame as prop. She invoked her motherhood, brought in the existence of her two daughters and asserted that she understood the pain of mothers who had lost their children.
On July 12, just after three days after killing of Wani, 32 people had lost their lives in forces’ action, Ms Mufti sounded confident about ‘parents’ letting their children ‘out’ to die. The excessive use of force was relegated under the carpet, as is being done today.
And as expected she did it again. During police commemorative day speech on October 21, she talked about the civilian killings, not all of them but three of them and promised to bring culprits to book.
The script was perfect as she was speaking in a tone that many would have wanted her to speak for all those days. However her speech soon started to sound erringly similar to the ones we hear quiet often from a Hindu right wing fascist group.
She tried washing her hands off responsibility, moral and intellectual, and put the blame of every action on police forces in J&K. “If there is a Kashmiri militant, don’t kill him,” she said hinting that she never knew of the plan to kill Burhan Wani or else, he being a Kashmiri, she would have ordered otherwise. Few days back, two local Kashmiri militants were charred to death after forces claimed to have killed them in An encounter in Arwani, Kulgam thereby mocking what CM had earlier said.
She asked forces to ‘bear the stone attacks and not retaliate’, thus absolving herself of the thousands of pellet injuries and bullets that killed almost a hundred. Is this, one wonders, how and where policies and plan of action is devised and discussed when people’s seething anger is still waiting for just a little crack to blast?
Her remarks crossed all limits of insensitivity and bordered on brutality when she recently commented that Junaid Ahmed, the 12 year old Srinagar boy who was killed by a spray of pellets on 08 Oct ‘was pelting stones’ and was therefore fired upon. “Did she just justify the killing?” a hard-core Indian nationalist acquaintance of mine commented when we were together listening to her rhetoric on TV.
Madam Mufti has not addressed the nation even once as a mother that she claims to be. She has not even proved that she is a daughter of the soil by doing the kind of harm to Kashmir that is impossible to be undone – by selling CM chair to Nagpur.
Empathy, the very basis of her political outreach that she advertised as her USP throughout her political career has been mercilessly dumped by her.
Can she for once cry some real tears for the thousands trampled upon families who have lost their loved ones to bullets, pellets and beatings instead of invoking her father at every public address and weeping for him for some tear jerk photo-ops?
The author is Provincial Spokesperson JKNC and can be contacted at imrannabidar@gmail.com
Imran Nabi Dar
Haseeb Drabu has failed to live up to the expectations surrounding him.
When he presented the general budget, those waiting desperately, particularly the flood hit, had great hopes of some reprieve from their miseries.
The affected, especially the ones whose houses had been rendered unlivable, and those who had lost their cultivable lands to the raging floods of September 2014, had pinned all their hopes in the little brown briefcase that Drabu had carried.
Drabu had called the previous government’s calculations on rehab of flood victims ‘adhoc and arbitrary for comfort’. Making everyone almost believe that some miracle is about to happen, the Chief Minister too ridiculed the proposal of Rs 44000 cr package submitted earlier by Omar led government.
The Finance Minister had asserted that ‘relief and rehabilitation’ of flood victims would be a priority for the incumbent ruling regime. But, nine months after the floods and three months after the government announced its formation, flood ravaged people of Kashmir have not received anything but assurances from the super-economist powered government. Every time, the question of ‘packages’ comes up, BJP-PDP camaraderie hides behind the veil of ‘inadequacies’ in the proposal.
The State Government has sought revised package of Rs 1500 crores for flood rehabilitation in Jammu and Kashmir from the Centre. It has proposed one-third share, Rs 500 crores, as contribution from the State in the package.
On the first day of the Civil Secretariat opening in Srinagar, the traders of Srinagar observed shut-down. But nothing came from the government on what had happened to their announcement of special slew of efforts to get flood devastated businesses running. Drabu had made a very chummy remark when he presented the budget, “jab dukan chal padey gee, makaan tou ban hi jaye ga (when the business get running, the houses will be re-constructed)”. But he proved to be no friend of businessmen and traders.
On the new budgeting system, Drabu said: “Another benefit …that I am introducing is that the large number of government servants who would have to wait for months together to get their salaries under plan head, will not have to wait any longer”. The Rehbar-e-Taleem teachers have not been paid yet, assured of course. The contractual lecturers are clueless about their salaries. Health Department paramedics are also looking skywards for some part of their little salaries to arrive in their accounts.
It was expected from the present budget to mitigate the sufferings of the educated youth who are craving for jobs and most of them being at the verge of age bar. What followed instead was a mockery. Thousands of educated unemployed youth registered with Voluntary Service Allowance (VSA) scheme getting financial assistance found to their horror that no money is coming their way, thanks to the visionary economist.
Handicrafts sector which is considered as traditional source of employment is shrinking and the people associated with the business are sure to be dismayed as their aspirations have not been reflected. The ‘special attention’ to improving agricultural practices will perhaps find its way into the MBA curriculum that Drabu has planned, but farming season began with deep grief and no hope this year.
The miseries are compounding with each passing day. But the great dream merchant does not seem to be moved. It is difficult to brush aside how Drabu summed up the Budget 2015 as: “In common parlance, I am asserting that I shall not go with a begging bowl to New Delhi. This, despite the fact that we not only have a friendly government at the Centre, we also have an exceptionally sensitive and accommodating Union Finance Minister.”
People who had voted for PDP had reposed some faith in their ‘good offices’ with the BJP led government at the Centre. And when these friendly relations were tied in an alliance to form J&K government, the ‘unholy’ nature of this relation was gulped down the throat by the people of Kashmir with a hope that their problems will be mitigated by the love these two parties.
But how and what explains Drabu’s statements. Centre-State relations are not that of a beggar and a giver. The accession of Kashmir with India puts some onus on India to secure welfare of its people, financial at least. And Kashmir has just witnessed one of the worst disasters in the recent history.
The unending complaining of Drabu about the ‘huge liabilities’ that he seems to have discovered, and discovered for the first time, is hilarious. No government leaves behind a treasure in our context. PDP-Congress government, when it collapsed, had also left liabilities in tune of over Rs 2000 crores. The Omar Abdullah government did not starve the employees but rather paid their salaries after implementing the sixth pay commission along with arrears.
The masses in Kashmir will not forgive the present government for its inefficiency in utilising the Rs 950 cr funds that lapsed due its inaction.
The ace card of Mufti has failed to deliver, in short. It has just been three months, yes. But for all practical purposes, a financial year has gone down the drain, and thus sinking hopes of a well thought of and well executed financial planning while this regime lasts.
Imran Nabi Dar
We live in strange times. Once upon a time, some structures were constructed on ‘our land’ en route to Amarnath. How Kashmir boiled with anger after that is known to everybody.
Never had I imagined that the same people, the same generation, will watch in stupor as the green pen and ink flag will share the space with the lotus motif saffron flag.
As Mufti put it unabashedly, it is the union of North Pole and South Pole. Poles? That is an understatement. The vehement defence of regional and religious sentiment that has swallowed many a life in the Valley seems to be muddled and distilled.
The Muslim United Front (MUF) happened to be an amalgam of religious parties with political ambitions (Jamaat-e Islami, Ummat–e-Islami, Jamaat-e-Tulba, Jamiat-Ahl-e-Hadis, Ittihad-ul-Muslimeen, Anjuman-Tahfaz-ul-Islam, and some others). The green flag with pen and ink was the fervent declaration of its ideology.
When PDP came into being in 1999, just around Kargil war it adopted the same flag. Irrespective of the allegations of PDP being a creation of agencies, people had a certain sentiment attached to MUF, what it stood for and its flag. This sentiment percolated and resurrected in PDP. And PDP had a moral obligation to respect that sentiment, if not adhere to it.
The constitution of PDP, although very placid and sallow, does talk about the spirit of tolerance and promotion of liberal values. Since when has tolerance started to mean that the utterly intolerant and aggressive principles, policies and acts be tolerated?
The Ram Madhav, who has become the alter ego of the Muftis, is the RSS man ‘deputed’ to BJP in 2014. Please note the word ‘deputed’.
The association and camaradie of Ram Madhav and Haseeb Drabu was put as the proverbial ‘Ram-Laxman jodi’ by Mehbooba Mufti.
The RSS needs no introduction. Right now, it is being accused of attack on Churches. The Subramaniam Swami, an RSS-BJP prodigy has called for a movement against Masjids and Churches. Modi’s hand and face in Gujrat riots cannot be forgotten. BJP could not hide its venom when Masarat Alam walked as free man. The utterly anti-Muslim attitude of BJP-RSS is clear, ever growing, and coming home, to us.
I am not against political alliance with a party. Let us forget for a moment, the basic difference in the constitution and the mandate of the two parties too. But I am surprised by the silence of PDP against the ever growing aggression of BJP ideologue RSS.
However, what is more appalling is the silence of the people who once stood for and with MUF. Today, when the BJP ruled states are witnessing undeniable religious aggression, sometimes as statements that call Muslims ‘outsiders’, sometimes as acts of embargo on beef, sometimes as a threat to religious establishments, the MUF lets its flag wave alongside the saffron flag.
Can it be said once more that the war of ideologies is over? It seems like the PDP is being given a free hand to exercise and exploit the religious sentiment of people at the time of asking for votes by the use of very revered green flag. PDP, whether or not it puts it into words, does appear like having some association with what the green flag stands for. How then, is it possible, that right now, when the same green flag is being trampled upon as the Muftis share the dais with BJP, everyone, including the custodians of the religious sentiment, prefer to look the other way. Perhaps, in addition to sharing the dais, PDP has come to share the ideology of the RSS too. Perhaps.
Just before the government took shape (let us believe it was March 2015 only, not before), Mehbooba Mufti spoke on NDTV.
She passionately talked about the efforts that she planned to keep ‘kids of militants’ out of the Madrasas. “What else will they become therein (the madrasas) but terrorists?” she reasoned.
‘Who stands for what’ is a tricky question right now. No moral judgements on who stands for what, but we, as people have a right to know who stands for what.
These, no doubt are very strange times. I am reminded of the masterpiece of George Orwell, The Animal Farm, and its last line:
“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again: but already it was impossible to say which was which.”
That was a different world scenario though.
The author is Senior Vice President Youth National Conference and can be mailed at imrannabidar@gmail.com
Imran Nabi Dar
Kashmir is going through a lot of ups and downs these days, thanks to newly crowned Chief Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed. The act of ‘freeing’ a man from the hands of the police took every man on the streets and in front of the TV sets into frenzy. Mufti got himself hailed as the defiant hero of Kashmir, reminiscent of those movies where the villain is just posing to be the villain to defeat the real villain. Mufti posed as the hero who had just sided with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to get Kashmiris the ‘justice’.
But alas! The bubble burst with a dirty splutter. After much yelling, discussions and quack-quack, it came to fore that the ‘free man’s’ saviour was the governor. Our ‘knight’ turned out to be the famous Cervantes novel’s Don Quixote. Oops.
The bruised pride of Kashmir was once more given a ‘healing touch’ when the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), ‘in-spite’ of the BJP alliance, declared a first step towards ‘do pradhan, do vidhan and do nishan’. An order was issued to furl J&K State Flag along with the Indian flag. Claps ringed in every heart. And just a day later, another order was issued. The new order ‘cancelled’ the old order. Implying, that two flags need not (or does it mean ‘cannot’) be hoisted together. As has been the practice, the state flag prior to this government would be hoisted at every official function and at every constitutional authority. So what was this drama aimed at? Another Quixotic adventure?
Forgive my saying this, but does it not seem like an insult to the constitution of the state, its people, its flag and its pride? Does it not seem like a deliberate step to weaken our ‘special status’?
I fail to understand what makes the Deputy Chief Minister say that ‘invisible forces are working hard to destabilize the government. Who he was referring to and who was this alleged un-stabilizer? This politics of intrigue, confusion and chaos has so far worked well with BJP at the national stage but Kashmir is different.
Just a little while ago, I wrote about the Islamic University of Science and Technology (IUST), and the fate it met after its grand foundation stone laying ceremony by Mufti, the senior. Now that the man is back in power, I thought (and secretly hoped), that I would be proven wrong, that the University will get its due. For long, educationists, planners and critics have been univocally crying for the narrow educational opportunities in the state for the state subjects. But shockingly, an announcement was made about IUST that commanded that the doors of this university along with Baba Ghulam Shah Badshah University (BGSBU) be thrown open for students from other states. Why? ‘Because our students are studying in other states too,’ the logic of the CM spoke.
It is beyond my comprehension that how a state with narrow avenues can be pushed on the path of philanthropy. It is like announcing jobs for Americans in the state just because many Kashmiris work in USA!
And let us not forget the immense difficulties and discrimination that Kashmiri students have to face in India for just being Kashmiris. The Indian police and intelligence on a witch hunt, the nosy and non-accommodative landlords refusing to let their premises to Kashmiris, the humourless and numerous institutions that expel their Kashmiri students just for cheering for Pakistan in a cricket match, the endless list…
All of these and much more could have been addressed by the very powerful Mufti-Modi friendship. But alas! Indian students came first in the list of our Don Quixote. And as a result, the few rich kids who were getting education at IUST and BGSBU would become fewer.
The path that the PDP seems to have chosen towards fame and legitimacy seems to wrought with miscalculations. The people of Kashmir do not know how to feel. A sun rises to bolster their pride, and the same sun sets sinking their very right to existence with it.
There have been rumours of Mufti ‘signing’ on a paper that says no more prisoners will be released. Till now, whosoever the Chief Minister was, he was powerful enough to decide the fate of a prisoner (in case the courts had no objection). But now, our every movement is being watched, discussed, and a panel documents how to doctor it.
Thank you Mufti for bringing the ‘doctors of India’, thrusting the obvious poison down our throats, and then you take pride in it. But please, from now on, do calculate your next ‘announcement’, for people need some good governance, badly. Stop being the Quixotic hero.
The idea that a person cannot be branded a criminal for harbouring an ideology is more than welcome. Thank you PDP for saying this and taking the ‘fresh start’ by releasing Masarat Alam. But is this idea of the party a selective one, or all encompassing?
A very euphoric Mehbooba Mufti spoke on a Delhi based news channel some days back about the way people have suffered during the past 25 years. ‘Militants’ families were targeted’ she said almost empathetically. These 25 years also saw politicians being targeted. Most of these from National Conference. Most of the times allegedly on the basis of political rivalry. Most of the targeted killings were by unknown gunmen easily and comfortably labelled militants.
The last time Mufti came to power, he declared, “Militants don’t need guns anymore because their representatives are now in the assembly.” As he assumes the charge of CM once more holding the hands of BJP, he still must be the representative of militants, of India, and of people who voted for him.
To say the clichéd; ‘with great power come great responsibility’; Mufti seems to be in the same shoes right now. He demonstrated great power by releasing Masarat Alam, in spite of a rabidly rightwing political alliance. This ‘Healing Touch’ should not be one sided. Hundreds of families whose loved ones were snatched from them in violent targeted attacks need a ‘healing’ too.
Time seems to be opportune to open up cases against those accused of hatching political conspiracies, ending in killings. This must include legislators, present and ex. Take the veil off the ‘not-so-secret’ bonds of friendship between those wielding the gun and those wielding the power.
The list is a long one. Let me start with home:
In 2006, just as an ecstatic Kulgam marched on to celebrate the conferment of district status to it, an attack killed five innocent civilians including the two-time MLA Kulgam Ghulam Nabi Dar. Just a day after, police claimed to have closed the case with the killing of a man who they said was the attacker. Who benefited from the vacuum created by his death? No prizes for guessing.
Earlier, at the same place, in the early 1990s, another legislator representing Muslim United Front (MUF), Abdul Razzaq Mir, was brutally killed. The way he was attacked will put any thinking man’s conscience to shame. Who did it? Those called ‘renegades’ were blamed. But renegades had masters, and they sure must have had names. In a similar manner in 2002, Abdul Aziz Mir, a PDP legislator from Pampore, was killed by an ambiguous and little known outfit called, ‘Save Kashmir Movement’.
The courage of Mufti cannot be undermined. He resides at the infamous mansion that once chilled the spine of everyone. The ‘Papa 2’ was a dreaded torture house. Hundreds of Kashmiris, many of them not even known by names, disappeared in its darkness. Operation ‘catch and kill’ cannot be forgotten by those whose eyes still wait for the ones Army picked up. Nor by those who have been maimed for life if they were lucky enough to breathe out of it. Will these people, who do not know what and who was responsible for their loss, be served justice?
This is a unique time in the history of Kashmir. For the first time, a party that vehemently opposed the aspirations and ideologies of Kashmiris, the BJP, is in power along with a party that previously has been claiming to represent the ‘soft-separatist’ ideology.
The warfare of ideologies seems to be theoretically over. Therefore, an ideology no more commands the position of a motive for a grudge based killing. Now that a spade can be called a spade, and a killing, no matter who did it, needs to be treated as a killing. It is imperative that killers be brought to book, whether they are in a uniform, in a house of assembly or roaming out gleefully.
Imran Nabi
The first budget post the PDP-BJP ‘accord’ has a hospital titled AIIMS for the disgruntled Kashmir. Aimed at inviting a big round of applause, the announcement by Arun Jaitley, Indian Finance Minister sounds déjà vu.
There is no paediatric hospital in the Valley. The one that was announced by the then Union Health Minister in 2010 with much fan-fare and a promise to have a capacity of 300 beds, is nowhere in sight. No funds were released post Ghulam Nabi Azad enjoyed the applause.
The place where the AIIMS is proposed to be constructed falls in the Pulwama constituency. It is apparent that the PDP leadership, particularly Haseeb Drabu, the day old Cabinet Minister, must have batted for it.
On the face of it, it does sound like a move that will change the very way patients are treated in the Valley. But there are many questions that need answers. When the state is still foraging its way to restore what was lost in the September floods by the hospitals, a new hospital sounds like the common man’s ‘ek aur kharcha’.
Not just those located in the city but the ones in district headquarters, the villages, the far off mountains, every healthcare institute craves for a fillip. The PHCs need doctors, the doctors need living quarters, the sub-district hospitals need more specialists, the district hospitals need more equipment, the equipment needs more infrastructure and more consumables. Everything was waiting for a new government, close enough to the center to shrink the distance between cup and the lip. But the cup chose another lip.
Healthcare infrastructure in the valley is in a dismal state and the orientation of the year old BJP government’s new found love PDP, should have been linear and not haphazard. There was a time when SKIMS was considered an institute par excellence, comparable, if not better than AIIMS New Delhi or PGI Chandigarh. Today, the buildings tell the tale of politics inside and outside the institution.
Keeping politics apart, it would have been statesmanlike if Mufti had asked his masters for the augmentation of infrastructure and services at SKIMS, or a special package for the under-staffed peripheral healthcare system. That would have been a service to the rural masses and the soaring lot of unemployed and underemployed youth.
Alas he failed to do so and as has been the precedence he chose politics over sense. In his earlier stint as the state’s CM, Islamic University of Science and Technology came into being at Awantipore the same way. Originally to be constructed around KU, Mufti thought otherwise and got it shifted. He climbed onto an inaccessible hill, dotted its eco-fragile serenity with a little concrete, got down the hill and forgot everything about it. The university was on the brink of collapsing as it had no blue-print vis-a-vis its funding and running costs. Thanks to the little charity from here and there, it held the fort.
No doubt it has and is catering to a vast section of our society today but at what cost? IUST has been forced to become a money minting institute where only the privileged have access to. It would not need a statistician to tell that more than 80 percent of the students are from the ‘well to do’ families. Economically challenged sections of the society find it hard to get their wards admitted there.
And that is how, every year the basic essence of providing quality and accessible education falls flat onto its face. This essentially should have been pro-people, pro-masses, pro-poor government’s prerogative. It is high time Mufti understands that scoring points and sufficing people’s needs are two separate subjects.
The GoI has had a policy of starve and rule towards the state. Every ‘gift’ comes wrapped in the bill that we have to pay. The NDRF came and saved men in uniform from the angry waters, the bill was sent to a common Kashmiri. The BJP decided to take time with the courtship of its love, the cost was paid by Kashmiris as no civil bill and no essential supplies bill was paid.
How can it be a good news then that Kashmir is going to have an AIIMS? It is like opening a Starbucks Cafe instead of a UN Food Program in a South Sudan village.
Last year, five medical colleges were announced in Delhi by the UPA for the state of J&K. They are still no more than an announcement. Coming back to the paediatric hospital, it is not a luxury but an essential, life saving requirement. However, it seems that the new and proud victors of the CM chair will trample on the announcements made by someone else earlier. Projects, old and incomplete are not step children. They need to be nurtured, taken to a logical conclusion. Because for people, woes, worries and problems do not change when the governments change. They remain sick, hungry, unemployed and poor after every election.
Governments need to prioritise people’s needs against the uncontrollable, insatiable urge to say ‘check-mate’ to their political opponents.
Imran Nabi
I remember the conversation I had with a young man from the ‘rebellious belts’ of the Valley just before the Assembly elections. He was a ‘usual’ guy in every sense of the word. But when I asked him whether he would vote in the upcoming elections, his answer was an emphatic ‘Yes’.
J&K has long been witnessing a quagmire of ideological debate, narrowing down to the question – to vote or not to vote. Before 2014 most people would sway the ‘No’ side. But 2014 was different.
Modi and Amit Shah’s politics of polarization and communities gloating and determined to trespass, being made to fear ‘other’ religions worked. And as this scenario became the order of the day, people in Kashmir had a new nemesis to deal with. The aggressive radical right-wing BJP had their masts high with election results in other states, and thus, with simple calculations they did put their hopes high. Their leaders would almost believingly harp on accomplishing 44+ seats.
This to me and everyone with or without political affiliation was a horrifying preposition. The street talk preceding the elections was just the million nightmares of BJPs electoral strategy viz-a-viz Kashmir. Almost naturally, many, I would say a majority of Kashmiris, were of the firm belief that Internally Displaced Persons particularly Pandit community of Kashmir would en masse vote for BJP. That, however, didn’t happen. They did vote for BJP candidates but not on expected lines. Besides others, this was a primary fear that ruled the roost in 2014 elections.
But the strongest was yet to come. Before elections, many wanted to vote for a ‘change’. And by change people had positive hopes of seeing a ‘brighter future’ for themselves and their loved ones. The results did reflect a change. Of the 87 elected there were a whooping 52 new candidates opening their account in the 2014 assembly elections. On its face value, it is change for sure but a deeper digging unravels a status quo.
Many voters, commonly known as swing voters, voted keeping in view the parliamentary election results. After the results were declared, many, including these swing voters were left dejected. One such swing voter had his story of sobs to share. Expecting to see Mufti as the ‘obvious’ CM, he had unknowingly fallen in to the trap of make-believe world. This world had no problems, no miseries. It was a ‘healed’, ‘dignified’, ‘AFSPA free’ and ‘changed’ world woven by propagandists, wherein every problem would vanish with a swoosh of Mufti’s ‘magic wand’.
Many people feared to be left out of this magical scenario. They voted to follow the fashion. I would disagree with the psephologists whose mathematics had PDP sweeping the results, at least in K-part of J&K. If that would have been the case, PDP was poised to win atleast 40 seats. But the scare of consequences, of being the political ‘outcasts’, a subjugative, repressive mind game, made people vote differently.
The unfathomable distance between many politicians and the people who vote them and the resulting helplessness and hopelessness is an un-rubbishable fear. A vast majority of Kashmiris are of the opinion that politics and politicians are not going to fetch them much, especially if they are not from the privileged classes of clergy, rich or the powerful.
This disgruntled, distanced class of people often stays away from the process of voting. But, many fears together, made them walk up to the EVM and cast their vote, for immediate gains. The role of freebies and doling out of little favours cannot be ruled out.
But such things are done silently, smartly, without leaving a trace. It is a no commitments, no strings attached relationship. This worked out best for the candidates who had no acceptable ideology to share. The era of rhetoric of communism, socialism and secularism long been over, many one-man armies had just immediate monetary gains to make people come their way. The fear of not being able to get ‘even that’ worked well for politically ‘non-affiliated’.
Post elections, in the melodrama of putting the numbers together, a savagely violent scenario is being predicted if the regional parties keep the BJP out of the ruling circle. The prognosticated ‘imminent fund starvation’, and its result on the needy – the flood affected, the poverty stricken, the unemployed, and many more, is monster in waiting.
For those, who would benefit from the numbing of senses to a proposition that to most is unacceptable, time can very well be the elixir. The ‘monster’ out there if Kashmiris refuse to go the BJP way is waiting to pounce on them. It is being projected as the choice between a frying pan and fire. And no other option is being presented as viable, discoverable.
Will the fear of powerlessness, take the political parties of the state for the same ride as many politicians took the people of Kashmir? Only time can reveal the interplay and interpositions of these fears. Till then, it is the Governor’s rule, the span of introspection.
Imran Nabi
Most fascinating piece of content in newspapers these days are statements issued by MLA elects. They, in the melee of out-smarting others, raise issues which they in their earlier tenures failed to touch, leave alone solve them. Their dramatized chest-beating and crocodile tears about pain and anguish of the people they represent seems almost real. But, if everything is the fault of the government, then what are they there for? Taking credit for things that go right?
Some of these MLAs have been representing their constituencies for more than one term. They are the ‘one man armies’ of their respective ideologies. When they go vote seeking, they seem to have an answer for all the problems of their people. In their spare time, they also seem to have a solution for ‘World Issues’ and issue statements in this regard.
A four time MLA gets spurts of anger over the ‘continuous power outages’, and this has puzzled me. He in his usual banter goes all guns blazing against the administration and government for their ‘ineptness’ in ensuring continuous power supply, forgetting that it was he who was responsible for making efforts at minimizing power cuts by allocating necessary funds.
If an MLA is not able to get the basic amenities of life, the essentials of a decent living, and safeguard the dignity of his people, then he has no right to get elected. Blaming it on ‘government’, escaping in the shifting of responsibility and the feigned act of innocence is criminal on his part.
All MLAs with their respective CDFs at disposal are supposed to ensure that the power scenario in their constituencies is made better if not the best. It is they who out of their allotted Rs 1.5 crore per year CDF have to see that enough funds are released for up gradation, installation, repairing of transformers.
Last year saw the highest number of power outages in far off constituencies. And it was not only because of snow but other factors contributed too. As I said earlier it is the prerogative of the MLA to make sure that a particular mohalla has been allotted with a requisite transformer in terms of its KV power.
The place I come from, Kulgam, has seen the worse last winter. This is not to say that this year and earlier years were any better. They were equally worse. The point I am trying to make is that if the MLA had done his homework better, people like me would not have suffered. Right now there are places in my constituency where power requirements of 100 households are met by a meager 75 KV transformer installed way back in the 1980s. As per the standard requirement, such population would require a transformer not below than 250 KV. PDD department which was supposed to work on such imperfections feign helplessness for want of funds and instead put the onus on the concerned MLA.
Anyone whether literate or illiterate has no option but to ask the MLA for providing funds for transformer installation. In return, not so lucky are being asked to fetch documents from one office to another. This is in unending cycle which usually ends when either MLA or PDD formally give up citing reasons contrary to their jobs. MLA simply shrieks away citing reasons like; ‘you are not a party worker’ ‘first swear allegiance to me’ ‘go and ask those for whom you voted’. For the official, it is mostly a one word refusal, ‘Give me the feasibility first’.
Alas, they in their rule of so many years fail to do justice with the very people for whom they are duty bound. Now when the government formation is still underway, they come out with statements blaming earlier governments for these travesties.
In Kashmir words like accountability and responsibility are getting archaic. The blame games of those in power and those in oppositions are acceptable. That, at least, does make it clear what the problem is and where the blame can be put. However, the ‘one-man armies’ know for sure that they can always be able to evade blame, for they claim to be powerful when it suits them and powerless when it helps them get away with inefficiency.
People need to wake up and seek answers from their representatives, the ones they have been electing again and again. Ask them why they are not able to put two and two together and give them a decent infrastructure for a decent living. Or else they should ask the MLA whether it is better to vote for a candidate who atleast would not have the excuse of ‘not my government’. People need to see through the actors who escape in playing the underdog and throw their people to the dogs.
Am reminded of a popular song of 2013:
As life goes on I’m starting to learn more and more about responsibility
And I realize everything I do is affecting the people around me
So I want to take this time out to apologize for things that I’ve done
And things that haven’t occurred yet
And the things they don’t want to take responsibility for
Wish they say this sometime.
imrannabidar 