Discrimination: Myth or Reality?

By: Dr S Bashir Ahmad Veeri
One fails to understand why distorted information is being presented to pollute the mind of common masses to instigate the negative thinking! How long this blame game & demagogy will continue & what purpose it will serve? I firmly believe, sane elements of society are really shocked about the happenings of last two to three months in our state. One part of our state was convalescing from the ugly chapter of last two decades of death; destruction & human suffering, that all of sudden things evolved in such a fast speed that all the achievements of last 18 years in Kashmir were lost in just 18 days. Discrimination, regional imbalance, Kashmiri, Muslim, Hindu, Dogra, Pandit, etc etc is all rubbish & frustration of some vested interests. For God sake stop all this medievalism & bandwagon phenomenon & think on pragmatic lines. Jammu & Kashmir including Ladakh is one state & people of any of the above three regions are free to settle, work & live anywhere they like. Why we regionalize or communalize the things or the situation that too in 21st century where whole of the world is converted into a global village due to advanced technological know-how. Even the borders between Nations have become irrelevant & people belonging to different Nationalities, religious or ethnic clans like to develop together to have participatory developmental attitude in order to achieve greater heights in every field of human activity. All the great religions in the world are passing through difficult times and facing crisis together. In such a background one feels suffocated & ashamed while examining the recent happenings throughout the state on religious exploitations. Foundation of Jammu city as learned during our primitive schooling was laid by King Jumbo Lochan purely on harmony while seeing a goat & loin drinking water together. Past 20 years are witness to the regiono-communal amity of Jammu by its great people in spite of strong provocation by anti social & fanatic elements which contributed to a larger extent for the present development of the region but the recent ugly happenings are really worrisome & need to be analyzed in a proper perspective to uncover the enemy designs. As for as my thinking goes state of J&K is for behind in every sphere of development & all the three regions have not achieved up to the expectations. Let our Jammu develop like Shanghai (one of the best developed city of China) & wish Kashmir be like Hong Kong or Switzerland & Ladakh become more advanced than the two. All the three regions are inter dependant & development or under development in one region definitely reflects in other region. Disturbance similarly in one region have its negative effects in the other region. As a matter of fact Srinagar & whole of the Kashmir valley has written history of thousands of years old, a unique feature of civilization. With 5000 years of its track, Srinagar has been the capital of most parts of sub continent, a power centre of the likes of Ashoka the great, Lalitadatya, sultan Shabu din & great Zain ul Abudin (Bud shah)to mention a few. It is an epitome of civilization, a hub of legendry empires. Kashmir has remained a seat of learning. Buddhism Practised till date in China & Japan spread from Kashmir & it is said that one of the daughter of Ashoka went to Sri Lanka as successful ambassador of Buddhism from Kashmir & left its mark not only in Lanka but in whole of the south east. Mughals too had a great liking for Kashmir & they changed country of Kashmir into country of gardens which are still part of its beauty. So one cannot just take away the importance of Srinagar by rhetoric, false propaganda & denounce the masses living there only because they preach other religion. Coming back to the contents of the article written by Ms Somal regarding industrial discrimination with Jammu. Either the author is ill informed or pretends so, that all the big industries are located in Jammu & Kathua districts only. The reason is simple i.e. accessibility, availability of raw material & cost effectiveness as compared to valley compounded by hilly & ambiguous route & scarcity of power. Another slogan of so called discrimination is “Kashmiri Leadership domination” this newly coined term & phraseology to mislead innocent people of Jammu & instigate them on communal lines is highly unfortunate & shameful. Height of the situation was when Samiti people refused to meet Dr Farooq Abdullah only due to his religious background forgetting his uncountable sacrifices & contribution for India. It was the charismatic & articulative personality of Dr Abdullah who defeated Pakistani propaganda brigade headed by Late Benazir Bhutto the then Prime Minister of Pakistan in UN in 1994. Pakistan could not recover from this blow till date & Atal Behari Vajpayee acknowledged this contribution more than once. There are hundreds and thousands of examples of sacrifices of Abdullah family in the in the history of Kashmir, moreover he remained CM of the state more than anyone else and always advocated in favour of Jammuites with the stress on equitable development of all the three regions. Such was communal malice in the hearts of a few fanatics who rejected to meet him & caused more damage to themselves than to him, although he was the only leader to welcome the agreement between the Billorea panel & Samiti at the cost of his political stakes on the other side of Pir Panjal. As far as discrimination by kashmiri leader ship is concerned any sane person can very well understand that the coalition govt led by Azad belonged to Jammu, major partner or big brother was from jammu, so where is the scope of discrimination by leaders from Kashmir or was it a blame game or to instigate public by directing attention towards kashmiri leaders as it has religious connotation as well & also they were not present in the situation to defend themselves. Besides Dr Farooq Abdullah’s 1983 tenure of one year & 1987 with congress two years during which he tried to remove this feeling of discrimination by suggesting to stop the darbar move practice to save public exchequer & keep all important offices after bifurcation at Jammu & Srinagar permanently so that people on either side does not suffer during move and only three offices of CM, The Governor & GAD will move, this move was also resisted by people of jammu tooth and nail & Dr Abdullah has to withdraw the orders overnight. How unfortunate, people with vested interest still blame him & refuse to meet him, isn’t it bigotry & communalism! The other elected Kashmiri leadership who had say in the administrative affairs of state was that of Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah 1977-82. Prior to Sheikh Abdullah all the leaders right from Bakshi Gulam Mohd to Syed Mir Qasim including G M Sadiq were selected by New Delhi in connivance with the leaders of jammu right from 1952 to 1977, so where was the scope for discrimination by kashmiri leaders. During this period (1952-77) Kashmiris would boycott the election & govt of India would select “Mukhota’s from kashmir” for the consumption of world opinion, so they had nothing to do with Kashmiris. If there is a feeling of discrimination during this period one should direct anger towards New Delhi & not mislead innocent people of Jammu & stop polluting their mind with hatred and misconception. Dr Farooq Abdullah won 1983 election with thumping majority but it was not liked by New Delhi which followed his undemocratic removal in collaboration with Mufti Mohd Syed & G M Shah & all of us know what they did later on. First time history of Kashmir witnessed communal riots instigated by Mufti Mohd Syed in 1986 just to dislodge G M shah. Recent contribution of Mufti’s we all know, be it Amarnath Land controversy or separatist stand of Mehbooba Mufti that too after misruling the state for three years. Honest & retrospective analysis of Sheikh Mohd Abdullah’s period followed by Dr Farooq’s regime, jammu witnessed much more growth than Kashmir, be it road widening, new bridges on Tawi, bye pass road, Bagh e Bahu garden, GMC Bakshi Nagar, Agriculture university campus during Sheikhs period & fly over, road widening, better road connectivity of intercity & intra district, two more bridges on Tawi, new Jammu university campus, Gandhi Nagar govt hospital, massive industrializations, private medical colleges, encouraging Mata Vishno Devi Trust to start university, stress on Railway ministry to expedite Udhampur Track & double Gauging of Pathankot Jammu track. International airport at Jammu, full fledged agriculture university, Engineering Colleges, work started on four laning of national Highway, new Police Headquarters’, APHQ headquarters, CID headquarters, hundreds of modern level police stations & tehsil buildings, directorate of education building, Rail Bhavan, polytechnic college, Circuit house canal road, posh residential colonies, modern infrastructure & installation of new machines(MRI,CAT Scan, Cath Lab)for benefit of common people in GMC & Associated hospitals of Jammu, international level swimming pool, notification of land for golf course in Sidhra Jammu, J&K Bank Headquarter, Nirman Bhavan, Vikas Bhavan, Bahu Plaza all buildings at rail head complex, Van Bhavan, Forest Complex at Narwal, indoor stadium, Tawi Shopping complex Channi Himmat jammu, High court complex Janipora, Kala Kender, Abhinav theatre ...........list is endless ........are a few examples of Dr Farooq’s period. Yes, if there is any discrimination with the politicians of Jammu that they are not elected to Legislative Assembly and events since 1980 are witnessed to the slogans of discrimination being raised by these un-faithful political leaders lacking the count of numbers and developments carried forward by the successive governments? If we take “discrimination” view let’s compare it with Kashmir’s drain like “black spot on the natural beauty of Kashmir” fly over at Jahangir hotel, pot hole & bumpy roads full of dust & mud in Srinagar city, medieval type bridges on Jhelum river in city, Afghanistan like markets, dilapidated condition of state hospitals in city & other district headquarters, shrinking Dal lake due to neglect of govt’s, Asia’s largest fresh water lake Wullar is receding at alarming rate & faces threat of extinction along with Dal lake, no shopping malls in the city indicates southwards economic status of the people & region. 1950 built death High way...... Banihal cart road hardly 20 feet wide, it takes only 8 to 10 hours to travel from Delhi to Jammu to cover up distance of 628 kms while it takes 10 to 14 hours to travel a distance of 290kms from Jammu to Srinagar with all probabilities of threat of losing life during travel in the 21st century when India claims to be nuclear power. It takes almost 4 hours to travel 40 kms from Anantnag to Srinagar if not blocked at Pantachowk. There is no rail link to Kashmir in last 60 years of accession of state to India. Kashmir has historic & cultural links with central Asia since times immemorial, we had silk road an important link to outside world which is now forgotten in the deep layers of history due to neglect of both state & central govt’s, Mughal road was alternate link of Kashmir to south Asia which has been deliberately made hostage to dirty politics & is still incomplete in spite of supreme court clearance, yet another road Bani Basholi Bhadarwah Kishtwar Sinthan Daksum road is also pending since ages. Pollution full environment in Kashmir due to non-checking of vehicles & allowing to ply all the trucks which are more than 15 years old and banned by Supreme Court in other parts of country. Above all blatant human rights violations be it security forces or militants, no one to care! Whom to blame? Discrimination by whom! Which special privileges Kashmir region received, name a few? Computation of General Administrative Department in 2005 for Sachar committee regarding total strength of employs of J&K and their percentage religion wise was, out of total 3, 52,000 employs, %age of employs as per population of their religious communities was: 4.61% for 30 LAKH Hindus & only 2.85% for 68 lakhs Muslims. Educated unemployed youth per lakh population in Srinagar out number their counterparts in Jammu by huge margin. Top slots in administration are as under. Administration, IAS, KAS CADRE Total cadre strength of IAS is 94. Kashmiri including pundits are 24. Jammuites all non Muslims are 27. From Ladakh are 02. Rest is outside state & number is 41 all are non Muslims. Since 1947 – out of 26 Chief Secretaries only 6 (six) were from Kashmir including Kashmiri Pandits. All important departments are headed by non Kashmiri which include, Chief Secretary, Planning dept, finance, Roads & buildings, PHE & Irrigation, Agriculture, Revenue, Social Welfare, Health, Home, CAPD, Industries & Commerce, Information, PDD, Science & Technology, and Transport & Culture. Out of 338 KAS officers Kashmiri officers including pundits are 155. Officers from Jammu are 151. From Ladakh are 22. There are 10 junior KAS officers also. Since 2001 till date, 478 KAS appointments were made which included only 106 from Kashmir. 360 KAS officers were appointed from Jammu & 12 are from Ladakh area. Within next five years majority KAS officers from Kashmir are retiring and 80 to 90% domination in the services will be from Jammu. Let us examine some seniority lists of certain departments. Junior agriculture assistants on April 2006: Total JAA were 1656 Agriculture Assistants from Jammu were 1015. From Kashmir were 641 only. Similarly seniority list of AEE’s 164 belong to Jammu & only 114 were from Kashmir. Selection list of Accounts Assistants in April 2008, Out of total 429 AA’s, 334 were fro Jammu & only 95 were from Kashmir. Police organisation, IPS, KPS & other services Since its establishment in 1914, almost in last 100 years only two Kashmiri Muslims, Peer Gh Hassan Shah & Ghulam Jeelani Pandit headed the elite force, besides two kashmiri pundits including the present DGP Mr Kuldip Khuda. Rests of the DGP’s were either from Jammu or outside state. We have seven (7) senior officers of the rank of DIGP’s. Only two are Kashmir pundits & rest 5 are from outside state. Among two ADGPs only one Dr Ashok Bhan belongs to Kashmir & another is from outside state. Out of 22 IGP’s, only four (4) belong to Kashmir, Five (5) are from Jammu & rest are from outside state. Out of 20 DIGP’s only five (5) belong to Kashmir, Eight (8) are from Jammu & rest are from outside state. We have 62 SSP’s within IPS cadre only 12 are Kashmiri, 21 are Jammuites & two are from Ladakh. However 27 are from outside state. At the same time we have 139 KPS officers with the rank of SP’s. Only 46 are from Kashmir, 87 are Jammuites & three are from Ladakh. Among 224 Dy.SP’s 112 are from Kashmir, 108 are from Jammu region & only three are from Ladakh. Out of 93 inspectors holding Dy.SP’s post only 37 are Kashmiris while as 55 are from Jammu & one from Ladakh. Judiciary Another important arm of governance & watch dog of justice is judiciary. HIGH COURT LEVEL Out of 10 high court judges, only 03(three) are Kashmiri, 03 are from Jammu, one Kashmiri Pandit & three are from outside state. Although J&K high court bench gives six slots each to Kashmir & Jammu of these two judges from Jammu, justice V K Gupta & justice T S Thakur are already chief justice posted on deputation & justice Bilal Nazki is posted at Bombay high court. The state high court has so far sent three judges to Supreme Court, one of whom justice A S Anand served as chief justice of India & other two were justice Jaswant Singh & R P Sethi all the three from Jammu. SESSION COURT LEVEL Out of 64 session judges in state, only 24 are Kashmiri, 08 are Kashmiri Pandits, 04 are Jammu Muslims & 28 belong to Jammu. 16 out of 24 Kashmir Muslim judges are retiring in next two years. MUNSIF COURT LEVEL Out of 110 sub judges/Munsiff, only 29 are Kashmiri Muslims, 02 are Pandits & 79 belong to Jammu. Can you still count it discrimination? If we compare with other states, demographic pattern of state has close resemblance with West Bangal, that is Hindu population there is 72.5% & Muslims are 25.2%. Whereas J&K has 68% Muslim & 29% hindu population. In west Bengal share of Muslims is 4.8% at the level of session judges & 3.2% at level of munsiffs & same is the case with other wings of Govt. Reverse is case here despite being a Muslim majority state. Plan expenditure & taxes Prime Ministers rehabilitation package under healing touch policy was much celebrated for elevating the decades suffering of Kashmir due to militancy & reconstructing damaged infrastructure, creating new avenues for employment to counter militancy & bring youth to main stream in Kashmir. Rs 24,000 crores package was announced which was later on enhanced to Rs 29,000 crores. This infrastructural package on the name of Kashmir was spent as under : Only Rs 6448 crores were given to Kashmir. A whooping amount of Rs 12531 crores were allotted to Jammu & Rs 2805 crores were given to Ladakh The remaining amount was diverted to state level sectors & projects such as transmission & distribution, Mughal road, ADB- counterpart funding & figure stands to Rs 8929 crores. During last two decades of militancy in Kashmir region Jammu got massive diversion of funds due to non utilization in Kashmir due to disturbance. Another important industrial package of Rs 5000 crores for Kashmir was announced to generate employment and to boast dead and non-existing industries of Kashmir region which suffered heavy losses during past 16 years of militancy, with impressive incentives to entrepreneurs in the form of excise and sales tax refund. For 2006-07,excise refund stands 950crore and Kashmir gets only Rs 90 crore ,rest is taken by Jammu. Sales tax refund stands at Rs 400 crore per year and Kashmir component is less than 40 crore, rest is taken by Jammu. The whole sale depots and C& F company depots are shifted to Jammu on grounds of disturbance in the valley, they serve the consumer market in Kashmir & Rs 200 crore are collected annually as sales tax alone in Jammu but paid by dealers from Kashmir which is counted in the basket of tax collection of Jammu. Plan expenditure is 14% per capita more in Jammu division than in Kashmir region. In the last two years under central road fund, number of schemes sanctioned to Jammu stands at 13 with involved cost of Rs 205 crore & Kashmir gets just TWO with involved cost of Rs 24 crore only. Under PMGSY (Prime Ministers Gram Sadak Yojana) the number of schemes sanctioned to Jammu stands at 423 with allotted cost of Rs 1405 crore & the length of all road scheme being 2967 kms. Whereas Kashmir got only 414 schemes with an allotted cost of Rs 687.26 crores & the length of all roads in all schemes is 1451 kms. Planning commission of India made comprehensive district wise profile based on certain indicators of development in the J&K state. Agriculture is the only area where Kashmir tops as traditionally agriculture is backbone of society & economy of Kashmir due to rich natural water resource, fertility of soil & favourable climatic conditions. On Social sector development, Jammu stands at number one followed by Khatua, Leah & Srinagar at number 04. Though Srinagar is not a modern urban conglomerate. It has been reduced to a second class town lacking all modern facilities a state capital requires. On infrastructural development front again Srinagar ranks 04 & Jammu is at number one. On the economic development index both the capitals are placed equally. When composite index of development is taken which is average of all the developmental indices of agriculture, social, infrastructural & economic again Jammu stands at number one & Srinagar at number two. Honestly one has to admit that Jammu certainly is better place to live in. Metropolitan infrastructure, international standard roads, shopping malls, clean hospitals, international level Jammu university auditorium and so many other facilities make Jammu much more attractive than Srinagar. On the basis of comparative merit it is seems that practically Kashmir have been discriminated but one has to be pragmatic and not get swayed by emotionalism & join the Bandwagon of hue & cry which does not serve any purpose rather becomes counterproductive both for region as well for state.