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Why Is Jammu Burning?

By Zafar Choudhary

08 August, 2008
Countercurrents.org

Jammu is burning in a fire of seething anger and the situation is apparently at a point of no return. A religious issue at the heart of protests when the state is preparing for next round of elections has made the environment a potential substance for triggering unforeseen communal violence.


Curfew is been imposed in four of the eight districts and the winter capital city has been turned into a fortress. Amidst strict civilian movement restrictions, army had to be deployed along 170 kilometer stretch of the 300 Kilometer long Jammu-Srinagar National Highway to ensure supply of essential commodities to Kashmir Valley after a weeklong of economic blockade from Jammu. Local cable television networks had to be taken off the air for a day and under strict orders from administration all telecom providers have withdrawn SMS services of their subscribers. Despite a thick canopy of troops from Army and Paramilitary Forces dotting the streets there is no end to violent protests and demonstrations across the region. Protests had erupted in the region after government rolled back its decision of allotting 40 hectares of forest land to Shri Amarnath Shrine Board following a similar uprising in Kashmir. Passions are surcharged to a level that no one is ready to understand that it was all a secretariat file work and actual possession of land was neither handed over to any party nor taken back. What all people are asking is the question that why land was surrendered after protests in Valley and is it not being restored when Jammu is protesting more aggressively.


After fall of popular government on July 7, the Governor NN Vohra, who took over the charge of state government on July 11, is walking on a tight rope. If he takes a decision to restore normalcy in Jammu, there are dangers of severe backlash in the Valley. Even after series of consultations and several proposals offered by him, no middle path is emerging. Normalcy may eventually return to Jammu and curbs on media may go with restoration of some semblance of order but unfortunately Jammu and Kashmir has not remained all the same place again.

What has shattered in last 45 days is the myth that ‘Jammu’ and ‘Kashmir’ can behave like a common entity called ‘Jammu and Kashmir’. The geographical divide between two regions of this state is perhaps not as deeper as the emotional and sentimental divide is. This has been once again been made clear by a series of events, happening one after the other since the middle of June.

Violent protests and demonstrations erupted across Kashmir Valley when government ‘diverted’ some 40 hectares of forest land to the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board for creating facilities for the annual pilgrimage by way of raising temporary structures. The Peoples Democratic Party (then a part of the coalition government) barely two days after signing the cabinet decision on land diversion called for its immediate revocation. In Valley, initially the protests against land diversion order were on the basis of ecological inundation the human use of fragile tract of land may have caused.

There are no two opinions about the fact that the land at Baltal is ecologically fragile and some experts have gone to extent of suggesting that there should not be even breathing activity in the area. The Himalayan region around Shri Amarnath Shrine is home to hundreds of glaciers feeding several rivers eventually contributing to some 8000 MW of electricity in the country. The decision on land transfer was though cleared by the empowered panel on environment but the leaders spearheading protests conveniently ignored this fact.


Had the protests in Kashmir Valley continued around the question of ecology the situation would have been different. Immediately after eruption of protests, the entire band of separatists and mainstream parties including the National Conference and the Peoples Democratic Party jumped in the fray to politicize the situation and notions like ‘Hinduisation of Kashmir’ were thrown up. The agitation in Valley soon became powerful anti-India movement as tens of thousands of people hit the streets raising slogans for Azadi.


The PDP locking horns with the then Governor SK Sinha and accusing the Raj Bhawan of promoting Hindutva in Valley left very little for the common masses of Valley to doubt about the ‘dangerous communal plans’ carried out under the garb of Shri Amarnath Shrine Board of which the Governor is ex-officio chairman by way of a legislation enacted in 2000. Hours after replacing SK Sinha at the Raj Bhwan, the new Governor NN Vohra wrote to the then Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad on the midnight of July 25 that the controversial land was no more required by the Board and hence-after the state government may also take over responsibilities of managing the annual pilgrimage. This caused unrest among the Hindus of Jammu who warned government of taking any such decision which amount to hurting the religious sentiments. The government did not heed to any such warnings.

In a typical New Delhi mindset on Kashmir, the order of land diversion was revoked on June 30. In consultation with New Delhi and the Raj Bhawan, the government had wanted an early restoration of normalcy in Valley without caring for any possible repercussion in Jammu region. The protests in Valley, which by that time had claimed five lives in Police fire, suddenly came to a halt as entire Kashmir entered into celebration mode. Precisely June 30 was the day when protests erupted in Jammu and still there is no end in sight.

Five lives have been lost in Jammu too and according to an estimate of Chamber of Commerce and Industry the local economy has been suffering a daily loss of Rs 200-250 Crores. Jammu’s economy is essentially trade based but this is perhaps the first time that traders are not caring about losses. Even when the curfew is relaxed by a couple of hours the shops remain shut. The agitation initially spearheaded by a 30-party conglomerate called Shri Amarnath Yatra Sangharsh Samiti has now become a mass movement. Jammu region has Muslims in minority and in the districts witnessing strong protests the Muslims are in miniscule minority. They have repeatedly offered their support to the ongoing agitation but still the agitation has been strongly formed around a Hindu sentiment that Muslims are now coming under attacks at several places.

In the early days of agitation, the popular slogans heard in Jammu were “we want the land returned”. These slogans are no more audible. Now people are asking for an end to Kashmir’s domination over Jammu. The problem is now no more between the government and the local people on a controversial decision. It has been now projected as Jammu versus Kashmir.

NN Vohra is perhaps the first Governor of this state since 1965 whose effigies are being burnt in Jammu. He is being accused of placating the Kashmiri sentiment at the cost of Jammu. The controversy around a religious issue has been fully blown into a regional problem; of course, religion still remains at the heart of it. The uprising in the region has consolidated into such a strong movement of sentiments that all top leaders of Congress belonging to Jammu region are now rallying behind the Shri Amarnath Yatra Sangharsh Samiti to take the issue to a logical end. Provocation from Kashmir is also not ebbing. When agitators in Jammu blocked the economic supplies to Valley, several leaders in Kashmir instead of intervening to pacify the situation called for exploring trade options via Muzaffarabad.

Jammu and Kashmir is today at a worst intersection of history where integrity of state is badly threatened. The regional sentiments are polarized in a way that there is no scope of flexibility either side. The Government of India has been fighting its Kashmir case from different levels last 50 years but fragility of sentiments within the region seems to have been overlooked all this time. When small spark has put the state on fire it has also demonstrated that efforts of dousing flames in one region may well prove as fuel in the other. It is high time that New Delhi’s Kashmir policy is redrawn and sentiments beyond Kashmir are also taken care of.

Author is Editor of Epilogue Magazine and can be reached at [email protected]



 


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