The Kashmiri leadership’s alienation of Jammu and ladakh has strengthened the demand for trifurcation of the State
The clamour in Jammu and ladakh for the trifurcation of Jammu & Kashmir State notwithstanding, there is a broad consensus among political parties active in the State that the unity and integrity of this sensitive border State must be maintained at any cost. Kashmiri leaders of all shades of opinion, including National Conference president Farooq Abdullah and his son Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, People's Democratic Party leader Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and his daughter and party president Mehbooba Mufti, State Congress president Saifuddin Soz and leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad, Hurriyat Conference leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (M) chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, Jammu Kashmir liberation Front chief Yasin Malik, to mention only a few, have repeatedly opposed the demand to trifurcate/re-organise Jammu & Kashmir.
The argument of the so-called mainstream Kashmiri leaders and separatists has all along been that the division of the State into three — the States of Jammu, Kashmir and ladakh — would further ‘alienate’ the already-alienated Kashmiri Muslims. They say that such a division would hurt the psyche of Kashmiri Muslims. The NC, the PDP and the Congress even dismiss the demand in the grossly-ignored and politically-marginalised Jammu and ladakh as ‘communal’ and ‘anti-national’. They describe it as a manifestation of ill-will and hatred of the people of Jammu and ladakh towards Kashmiri Muslims.
Additionally, almost all Kashmiri leaders say, day-in and day-out that the BJP has been working for the State's division on communal and ethnic lines. This is a wild charge. The BJP has never supported the demand for the State's division, despite the fact that it is a votary of smaller States. Also, the BJP has never demanded even a regional council for Jammu division. On the contrary, it was the Congress that contested the 2002 Assembly election in Jammu promising a regional development board. During the 2008 Assembly election, the Congress vowed to form a regional council. It won 15 seats in 2002 and 13 in 2008. It was this mandate that brought the Congress back to power in Jammu & Kashmir after a long gap of 26 years.
The fact of the matter is that the BJP, like all other political parties in the State, opposes the idea of division of Jammu & Kashmir to empower the people of Jammu and ladakh, who stand alienated from the Kashmiri leadership for reasons that are not difficult to fathom. Of course, the BJP leadership recognises the need to empower the people of Jammu and ladakh, but it dismisses the demand for the State's division, opining that the three-way split would not be in the larger national interest. According to the BJP, division of the State will help Pakistan and its agents in Kashmir play nefarious games in the Valley and help separatists promote their seditionist agenda has been its main argument.
The fear of the BJP is well-founded. It will be too much to say that Jammu and ladakh are acting like a millstone around the Kashmir's neck, but it will be proper to say that these two strategically-important regions have been acting as a powerful counter-poise to the irrational and divisive hopes of the Kashmiri leadership. It is because of the opposition from Jammu and ladakh that the Kashmiri leadership has failed to achieve what it has been striving to since 1947 — to start with, a dispensation outside the political and constitutional organisation of India and eventually, complete independence.
It's hardly necessary to catalogue the complaints and grievances of the people of Jammu and ladakh against the Kashmiri leadership. Suffice to say that the Kashmiri leadership has established its stranglehold over the State's political, financial and social institutions while Jammu and ladakh have little or no say in the governance of the State. The Gajendragadkar Report of 1968, the Wazir Commission report of 1983 and the Singhal Committee Report of 1998 have all acknowledged that Jammu and ladakh have never got their legitimate due in the State's socio-economic and political processes. The Gajendragadkar Commission had gone to the extent of saying that “even if all the matters were equitably settled (between Jammu, Kashmir and ladakh), we feel that there would still be a measure of discontent unless the political aspirations of the different regions of the State were satisfied”.
What the Gajendragadkar Commission said 48 years ago is true even today. This can be seen from the fact that inter-regional animosities in the State have assumed alarming proportions. Jammu and ladakh have no faith in Kashmiri leadership. Sadly, Kashmiri leaders of all hues do not look at these realities in the face. They summarily dismiss the charge of the people of Jammu and ladakh that the latter are being discriminated. They leaders say it is nothing but a misinformation campaign unleashed to discredit politicians. It is this approach of the Kashmiri leadership that has led the people of Jammu and ladakh to believe that if they remain silent and stay away from intense political activity any longer, they will soon be entirely submerged under the rising tide of the Kashmiri leadership's exclusive sub-nationalism.
(The writer is former Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Jammu)