Cong must not act as 'Dhritrashtra' over land row

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The ongoing imbroglio in Jammu over the Amarnath land issue has not only ruptured the Azad-led government in J&K but has also damaged the socio-cultural demography of the state. The Congress must not shrug off its responsibility for the crisis.



Sanjay Khajuria
THE AMARNATH land transfer fiasco has already taken a toll of the Ghulam Nabi Azad-led Congress government and is on its way to now adversely damaging the entire social structure, economy and polity of Jammu and Kashmir. It is high time the United Progressive Alliance (UPA)-led Congress government at the Centre reads the writing on the wall and must not act as ’Dhritrashtra’ (the blind king in the epic Mahabharata), but, needs to awaken to the call of Jammu instead of trying to write another Mahabharata.
The fear psychosis over the land row has already resulted in a sharp decline of tourists to the Valley. The aspirations of Jammuites has set apprehensions that it would leave the Congress, a house completely divided.
It is the appeasing policies of the Centre towards the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and National Conference (NC), along with some people in media, who are trying to gag the real voice and this has becomes the immediate problem. They offer megaphones to the separatists, be it Mirwaiz Umar Farooq or Sajjad Lone, but, nationalists like Dr Chirangoo and others were not given a chance to defend. They are literally harassed by the so-called political analysts, which was evident on a leading electronic news channel on Wednesday (August 6) night.
Though people of Jammu had never expected much from the All Party Meet in New Delhi in the absence of leadership from Jammu, the culmination of the meet has proved that it was a mere eyewash.
Since the land row heated the state politics, various separatist and fundamentalist factions from Kashmir have indulged in branding the Jammu stir as communal despite the fact that the Jammu Muslims are participating in it.
Some news reports mentioned Yasin Malik, the chief of the J&K Liberation Front, who has gone on a fast unto death saying that sectarian forces in Jammu are hell-bent upon annihilating Muslims. Another hoax, which is being spread in the country is that the movement is being led by activists from Rajasthan and Gujarat to fan communalism and spread antagonism against Muslims.
Another Kashmiri leader Syed Ali Geelani, called for a massive strike and even warned authorities not to please (Hindu) fanatics by transferring the land to the Hindu shrine while Mehbooba Mufti and Mirwaiz-led All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) has okayed the separate state, which can be carved out of two-and-a-half Hindu-majority districts viz Jammu, Kathua and half of Udhampur.
For this duo, I must simply say, ’saying is always easy’. Do they ever bother about the Muslims living in the said areas and the Hindus living in the rest of the areas? If this becomes a reality, would they be able to carry the burden of bloodbath that still haunts the refugees of 1947? Would they forget their hoarse-throat appeals to the Centre about ’road opening’ to enhance people-to-people contact between India and Pakistan? Here, in their own state they, instead of looking for an amicable solution, advocate erecting walls of hatred.
Here, one must appreciate Yasin Malik, who outrightly denied the further division of Kashmir as some reports appeared in newspapers.
Mehbooba may be raking the issue for some political gains, Mirwaiz, in a view to counter the hardliner factions of Hurriyat (G), but Yasin Malik, who is known to be a patient and cool leader in Kashmir, is the right choice to take up the issue that it is not the war of ’fanaticism’, but is a matter of religious faith.
Why do a handful of Kashmiri Muslims want to destroy peace and harmony in the state over a matter of just two-months’ shelter to the pilgrims? Would outsiders be able to take it away or purchase the land? The answer is no, due to the Article 370. Then, why make this hue and cry?
Not only are the state leaders and separatists running their shops over the land row but the UPA-led Union government too has not remained untouched by this obsession. It has given a clean chit to 10,000 forest trees to be chopped down to build the Mughal road in Kashmir. But, when 40 hectares of uninhabitable land is handed over to the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board to provide better facilities to the Amarnath ’yatra’ pilgrims, all hell breaks loose.
If one goes back to the history, the Mughal road project was stopped during the regime of Indira Gandhi, as the project is strategically and environmentally very sensitive and it impinges on the future security of India. A project, which was stopped by Indira Gandhi, has been cleared by the policy makers of the same Congress, now under an appeasement policy and even this time over the land row they would do the same.
Let us take a hard look at the arguments presented by the locals who opposed the transfer of land. Have they bothered that allotment of land to the Mughal road project would have adversely affected the environment around the area?
One wonders where these tree-hugging environmentalists were when the same government allowed the felling of 10,000 forest trees to build the 89-km long Mughal road. Fourty hectares of land to be used to provide temporary shelters for pilgrims has hardly any forest as compared to the area covered by the Mughal road.
Secondly, the opponents of land transfer consider it the government’s ploy to settle Hindus from outside the state to change the demographics of the Valley.
Other Articles by Sanjay Khajuria
PM's all-party meet: An end to monopoly of Kashmir?
NC-PDP-Cong urge Jammuites to maintain peace
Jammu boils as media faces govt atrocities
Abdullah, Mufti stranded, violence rocks Jammu
Adamancy of Kashmiri leadership over land row
more >> But, this would not be a danger sign as how many Hindus can be accommodated in a small piece of land.
In fact, it is an issue created by the PDP to polarise the vote bank, but, it had never thought it would become a tempest within the cup. Isn’t it a shame that the Congress leaders thumped the desk during the speech of NC leader Omar Abdullah on the trust vote day, who categorically refused to give an inch of land for enhancing the facilities to the pilgrims and saying there is no need for land and new facilities when the pilgrimage has been going on for many years. Perhaps, Omar has forgotten that the hostile environment took toll of 256 lives during the ’yatra’.