For travellers on the road, a drive through the Jawahar Tunnel on the National Highway IA could well describe the divide between Jammu and Kashmir- at least geographically. The political,and the emotional differences run much deeper. The moment the 3kms dark tunnel enters into light, the breeze is cooler. The treacherous mountain road ends and drive down to the Valley of greens and yellows begins. But this time, tunnels and landscapes donot express the divide, instead a frenzy of voices on both sides do. Jammu and Kashmir pulled apart to the edge, with 800 kanals in between them. But as the agitations over Amaranth Land cross 40 day mark, the land row is left far behind. The fight now is for much more.
For marchers on the streets of Jammu, the agitation is now about an identity. Their best chance to break free from the shadow of the Valley, and get noticed. The violent protests are about a lingering sense of Kashmir's domination. They are about a political discontent, with the region getting less representation in both assembly and Parliamentary seats. The stir is about a long awaited victory against Kashmir's leadership. In 1966, Jammu fought for an agriculture college, when Kashmir was granted a University. In 1979, it was about Jammu getting fewer jobs in the education sector. The present agitation is about making up for the past failures-even the political ones. The rallies on streets are about fewer jobs and wanting more say. They are about not wanting autonomy and wanting more affiliation with the Indian state. The entire row is now about Jammu's hidden grievances against Kashmir's articulate anger. It's about not being heard by the Centre till they turned violent.
In Kashmir, though, the protests are about the loss of the last 19 years. The anger on the streets is about a complete disregard for human life. It is not only about 18 killed in two days in Kashmir, but about the 50,000 lives lost in the last two decades. Kashmir's protests are about every missing youth, and young lives under the fear of gun shots. It's Kashmir's sense of isolation and about depending on a single road link. Kashmir's anger is against missed opportunities for reconciliation. It is about waiting for too long, with too little coming their way. Kashmir is protesting for a fair referendum promised over 55 years back-the frustrations of a struggle which has not led to a solution yet. The agitation is about being heard all over again- and finding a relevant space in India's and Pakistan's priority list.
And for the Kashmir Pandits, who form a major part of agitations in Jammu, the protests are about completing 20 years in exile. It's not only about 800 kanals, but it's is about every inch they left behind in Kashmir in 1989. It is about being forced out of their homes, to never return. It is about losing an identity, and struggling to carve out a new one. Perhaps the anger they could not vent in 1989, is out on the streets now.
And the land row? Well, that was an issue which perhaps could have been resolved till date had it just been the land row!
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OK here goes the part III of the discrimination...
JK Police was established in 1914. For nearly a century now, we have had only two Kashmiri Muslim Police Chiefs. An ‘accomplishment’ in itself, for the ‘anti nationals’, that is. The legendary and celebrated Peer Ghulam Hassan Shah was the first Kashmiri Muslim to man the Police top job. His phenomenal rise from the lowest to the highest rank, along with an incredible performance is nothing short of an epic. But he took voluntary retirement because of the treatment he could not take. Treatment, that a legend he was, rather still is, did not deserve.
Ghulam Jeelani Pandit was the other Kashmiri Muslim head cop. Although being an upright and devout Muslim, he probably got the ‘benefit of doubt’ because of his surname. However, this memoir too had a blue ending when he was transferred with the eruption of militancy in the state. Obviously, for ‘reasons of national security’. All said, there have been four Kashmiri Police Chiefs overall including Dwarika Nath Koul, a scholar cop and of course the present Director General Kuldeep Khoda.
It becomes imperative to get in the Sachar Committee Report in here. As has been already specified, for fair comparison the population composition in West Bengal and the respective representation makes a perfect analogy to the scenario in our state. The population composition in Bengal is exactly the opposite to that of Jammu & Kashmir as far as the Hindus and Muslims are concerned. Now imagine, if West Bengal had only two Hindu Police Chiefs over a century. No doubt, we would have had a dozen Bengals by now instead of just two! But our very own Kashmir has been made to play second fiddle to ‘everyone’ and ‘everything’. And, we have sincerely obliged. Without a revolt. Without even a squawk. And of course, without ‘Civil Disobedience’ to keep up with the modern day protocol of protests across Chenab. The fact is that the ‘alleged discriminator’ is in fact the ‘actual casualty’. The menacing wolf has always been the vulnerable lamb. The irrelevant Kashmiriyat has been a keep of the ‘jingoistic’ Ek Vidhaan, Ek Pradhan, Ek Nishan. Eternally.
Moving on, the current Law and Order Management deserves a ‘tribute’ considering how indispensable it is for a critical and volatile territory like ours. The entire Law and Order bandobast is manned by ‘nationalistic forces’. Of course, Kuldeep Khoda is a genuine Kashmiri but then the Pandit representation is not a part of the discourse and discrimination. One hates this comparison but it looks like an Italian management of a Libyan Law and Order situation with no local component.
I am sure by now the bogey of discrimination fuelled by the proclamations of ‘nationalistic forces’ must have come home indeed to haunt them. But that is not our concern. For us, this dishonest unethical fallacy is done and dusted! What we seek now, are answers, some serious ones. Addressing our marginalization. Our alienation. Our estrangement. Our voiceless-ness. Our empowerment. Our representation. Our emancipation. And yes, our discrimination. We are no match on the propaganda front, no one to hear us out, no one to back us up. No Advani. No Togadia. Not even a Sonia Gandhi. No Manmohan Singh. No V P Singh. Or Jyoti Basu. Anyone who voices our desperate predicament, be it a former Home Minister of India or a former BJP ally at the Centre, no distinction would be made between them and Sayed Sallahudin. Still, for the optimists we are, we wait for light at the end of this sixty year long dark tunnel.
With the Kashmiri representation in Judiciary and Administration already been spelled out, the representation of ‘anti nationals’ in Police is very much a give away. The numbers are just for the record, as they say. The Gradation List of IPS Cadre boasts of 7 Director Generals (DG). Only 2 are Kashmiris in the avatar of Rajinder Tickoo and Kuldeep Khoda. The rest are from outside the state managing law, order and not to forget, Kashmiris. One Kashmiri, Dr A K Bhan, figures amongst the 2 Additional Director Generals (ADG), the other being R V Raju. Out of the 22 Inspector Generals (IG), the ‘anti national’ quarter gets 4, the ‘pro national’ quarter is one up at 5 and the rest being from outside the state. For the 20 Deputy Inspector Generals (DIG), the composition is yet again uncomfortable to say the least. Jammu with its share of 8 DIGs overpowers Kashmir, which has only 5. Moving on to the SPs within the IPS Cadre out of the total 62 Jammu gets 21, the digits reverse as Kashmir gets 12 and Ladakh 2. The rest 27, all outsiders. Way to go!
The beat goes on as we go down the hierarchy. The State Police Service employs 139 SPs. ‘Minority’ Jammu gets an overwhelming 87, ‘majority’ Kashmir a shabby 46 and Ladakh chips in with 3. The DSPs of the State Cadre stand at 224. Kashmir gets an unusual 112, Jammu nearly ‘there’ at 108 and Ladakh gets 3. Closing this with Inspectors holding the post of DSPs. Out of the total 93, Jammu gets 55, Kashmir a ‘fabulous’ 37 and 1 is from Ladakh.
Well then. The results are out. Incredible Jammu! Standing ovation, please!
Protesting, or even analyzing, these ‘discriminating’ figures would be futile. Look at the larger picture, stupid! Was it not for this overwhelming ‘pro national’ composition in the Police force, the atoot ang wouldn’t be atoot anymore. At least this seems to be the apprehension. There in comes the need to tag Jammu along with Kashmir in a forced, insincere and inconvenient wedlock. ...Reply
OK More discrimination......Here goes the second part
According to a computation made by the General Administration Department (GAD) in 2005, for submission to the Sachar Committee, the state had roughly 3,52,000 employees. The Department worked out the percentage of employees to the total strength of respective communities. Hindu employees represent 4.61 percent of the 30 lakh Hindu population in the state whereas Muslims have a representation of 2.85 percent for the 68 lakh Muslim population. So relative to the respective populations, Hindus outnumber Muslims in the State government. This should question the ‘assertions’ of discrimination effusing from the winter capital. Ridicule them. Deflate them.
Scanning the composition of the State administration, the claims of discrimination do come home, indeed. The irony, though, is that the victim of this discrimination is not the ‘Pro National’ Jammu wala as we have been made to believe but the ‘Anti National’ Kashmiri, to put in the latest Right wing lingo. One, which is being endorsed by our wannabe Prime Minister L K Advani as well.
Starting with the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), the total cadre strength is 94 with 24 officers belonging to the Kashmir division, 27 officers belonging to the Jammu division and two from Ladakh. The other 41 babus are from outside the state. So where exactly is Jammu getting discriminated in all this? Delusion, but nothing! Further, most of the core developmental departments like Planning, Finance, R&B, PHE and Irrigation are headed by non-Kashmiris. Even the all important departments of Agriculture, Revenue, Social Welfare, Health, Home, CAPD, Industries and Commerce, Information, PDD are ‘endowed’ to non-Kashmiris. The trend is the same for Science and Technology, Transport and Culture. No Kashmiri components!
Another ‘discriminating’ fact, for the record. Since 1947, out of 26 Chief Secretaries of the State, only 6 have been Kashmiri Muslims. How’s that for discrimination for the only Muslim majority state of ‘secular’ India. But no one has ever stood up for this. Makes sense, in a way. Why would a Kashmiri Muslim civil servant take the ‘risk’ of speaking against discrimination engineered by a minority and be branded as ‘anti national’. Not worth it! Never was.
Now comes the real shocker. The Kashmir Administrative Service (KAS). This is where scores have to be settled, intriguing serious questions have to be asked, discrimination has to be debated and alienation of Kashmiri Muslims has to be addressed. Out of the 338 KAS cadre officers in the state, 155 officers belong to Kashmir division, 151 to Jammu division and 22 to Ladakh division. 10 officers are from junior KAS. Now how can this representation be fair, even ethical? This is unfair by any account of economic management or population distribution. The ratio is 55:45 in favor of Muslims but why has everything been worked out and settled at 50:50? It is not supposed to be that way. Kashmir outnumbers others in terms of population, but why is that they are outnumbered when it comes to Administration, Judiciary, Police and even Private enterprise? This preposterous idea of 50:50 distribution is absolutely fake, senseless by all parameters. Save your disappointment, resentment and protests for now though. Save them for the ‘administrative genocide’ I am about to illustrate.
From 2001 till date, 478 KAS appointments have been made. Kashmiris are at 106, Ladakh at 12 and Jammu at a staggering overpowering figure of 360. Discrimination? No, not by any standards. This is something far beyond the term, with devastating consequences for the majority. As I said ‘administrative genocide’, if you like. Engineering, competent and successful, has been done for the next three decades and things (read Kashmiris) have been leveled out for the ‘pro National’ Jammu bureaucrats. In fact it would not even make sense to call it KAS five years down the line. It will be, rather already can be, rechristened as Jammu Administrative Service (JAS). And here in Kashmir, we would even have to import BDOs and Tehsildars!
And mind you, Kashmiris are not overpowered in bureaucracy alone. It’s all across. Take for example the 641 Muslims and the 1015 Hindus figuring in the tentative seniority list of 1656 Junior Agriculture Assistants as of April 2006. Or for that matter the 114 Muslim AEEs in Works Department against the 164 Hindu AEEs as of May 2005. And be assured, it only gets worse after that.
The latest recruitments don’t show any mercy to Muslims or Kashmiris. Amongst the 429 Accounts Assistants selected by the Service Selection Board in April 2008, Jammu accounts for 334 Assistants while Kashmir gets a ‘fabulous’ 95. I am not even going to comment on that.
Of course, Raj Bhawan, the custodian of the constitutional rights of all sections of society remains off limits for at least one community, no prizes. The last Muslim Secretary the First Citizen of the state had was when we used to have a Sadr i Riyasat. Since then it is graciously adorned by the malis of Floriculture Department who are considered indispensable for their manicuring skills and presenting a gulab every morning to the sahib of the estate. However with the arrival of the present Governor two middle level Muslim officers from the former Chief Minister’s office are now manning the secretariat outpost of Raj Bhavan.
To conclude, all this is in complete sync with the latest branding of Kashmiris. Anti Nationals, at the end of the day you see.
PS: Yesterday’s piece on judiciary reflected only the current composition affected by deputation and transfers. The actual composition of the J&K High Court Bench gives Kashmir 6 slots and Jammu 6. Of these two from Jammu, Justice V K Gupta and Justice T S Thakur are already Chief Justices posted on deputation. Justice Bilal Nazki from Kashmir is a judge on deputation to the Bombay High Court.
The State Hugh Court has so far sent 3 judges to the Supreme Court, one of whom, Justice Anand, served as Chief Justice of India. The other two were justice Raja Jaswant Singh and Justice R P Sethi. You know their home addresses. ...Reply
Oh you are talking about the discrimination? Your channel has already pitched it as JAMMU VS KASHMIR....no wonder!!!!! Talking about the discrimination I guess you have missed out the DISCRIMINATION MYTH series which was carried out by Srinagar based daily Greater Kashmir..Here it goes:
The ‘discrimination’ debate has come to the fore, yet again. Taking the centre-stage in Jammu along with the Amarnath agitation, its misrepresented and clichéd tagline of ‘second class citizens’ has not only been restricted to the slogans of resurrected right wing netas and newsprint in Jammu but has found its way into the newsrooms of National media, gaining undue mileage across Bharat.
We are making an attempt to remove some mist around this discrimination debate. However, Greater Kashmir does not want to contribute to the agenda of hate, discord and divisive politics being run across Chenab. We just want to put the record straight and remove the myths of regional disparity. This is the first of a series of articles on the subject.
We start with the Judiciary. First things first, though. The Sachar Committee report on the Social, Economic and Educational Status of the Muslim Community of India, commissioned by the Prime Minister, reveals important figures and information which would somewhat help in dispelling the distorted facts around discrimination in Jammu and Kashmir. We take the representation of Muslims in West Bengal Judiciary as an analogy to the judicial composition in our state. This makes sense because the composition of population in West Bengal is roughly opposite to that of Jammu & Kashmir. West Bengal has a population of 72.5 percent Hindus and 25.2 percent Muslims, whereas Jammu & Kashmir has 67 percent Muslim population and about 29.6 percent Hindus. In West Bengal judiciary the share of Muslims is 4.8 percent at the level of Sessions Judge and 3.2 per cent at the levels of Munsif. A comparison of these numbers with the Muslim representation in our judiciary will prick the bubble of the discrimination bogey.
Muslims and Kashmiris are hugely outnumbered in the superior and lower judiciary of Jammu and Kashmir, the only ‘Muslim majority’ state in India. Contrary to the bogus claims emanating from different quarters, the figures are surprising. Grave, on second thoughts. We have 10 High Court Judges. Only 3 happen to be Kashmiri Muslims. One a Kashmiri Pandit. Amongst the rest, 3 are Jammu Hindus and 3 outsiders, Hindu again. Well then, discrimination? Of course. But the other way around. Muslims with more than double the population of Hindus have been ‘made to’ stand on equal ground in the superior judiciary. Blatant discrimination. Exploitation. I hope these figures address the concerns of the self proclaimed ‘second class citizens’ up in arms against Kashmiri Muslims and gives them an ego boost. A much needed one.
Moving on to the Sessions Judges. 8 Kashmiri Pandits, 4 Jammu Muslims, 28 Jammu Non Muslims and 24 Kashmiri Muslims. The representation of Jammuites works out to 50 per cent. Compare that with the representation of West Bengal Muslims quoted above. With these figures, I can only be shocked as to how this blatant myth of discrimination of the Jammu population has been kept alive for so long and even gets coverage and endorsement across the ‘Breaking News’ bandwagon of modern day India. A commendable feat indeed. And to add to these disturbing figures, sixteen of the twenty four Muslim Judges of Kashmir are retiring in two years. It is all yours to play Jammuites!
Thanks to the recruitment during the past twenty years the lion’s share will literally belong to the ‘second class citizens’. Have a look at these staggering figures. In all there are 110 Sub Judges/ Munsifs out of which 79 are from Jammu, with 19 Muslims and 60 Non Muslims. This works out to 72 percent, compared to the 3.2 percent Muslim Munsifs in West Bengal! The participation of Kashmiris in the most vital judiciary is of course a pittance. Only 29 Kashmiri Muslim Sub Judges and 2 Kashmiri Pandits. This is not even discrimination, it looks like ethnic cleansing.
There is no doubt in my mind that Kashmiris got only what they deserved on the basis of comparative merit. But they don’t complain. Look who does! ...Reply
The state of affairs in Kashmir for the last couple of days has drifted the valley behind by around 20 years. The Amarnath Land issue has been inflated to the extent that the issue itself is buried under the weight of the new dimensions taken by the communal monster. The life had hardly returned to normal when the threat to block the life line of Kashmir, the NH1A, the only viable link to the rest of India, started to spread its tentacles at Lakhnpur, Jammu and Sambha. The threat of economic blockade was given concrete shape by a few fanatic, politically motivated hooligans and all this on the other side of tunnel manifested into the call to move across the LOC. The valley was shaken, no petrol, no medicine, no baby food, no X-ray prints, no news prints, no Kerosene and no to all essential commodities. The ripe fruit industry that has just these two months to get the returns from the market was pushed to rot within the mountains confining the valley. People moved to cross over to Muzfarabad and the result was death, blood soaked streets, smashed heads, amputated limbs, pools of blood, crammed hospitals, and all this accompanied with the shortage of supplies due to the Jammu inflicted blockade of highways. While the people were marching unarmed, apples in their hands, they were brutally sprayed with the bullets when even there was no curfew nor any section of the law imposed to stop the march. The next day, in retaliation to the deaths when people resorted to stone pelting and protests against the authorities the reply again was given with the bullets resulting in the total of 33 dead Kashmiris and hundreds wounded. The people felt alienated and discriminated. The reply from the police came that the mob had attacked the armed men and they in self-defense had to resort to firing. The local intelligentsia is dumbfounded over the discrimination and the question on everybody’s lips is why did not the same armed force retaliate with bullets when armed men were ruthlessly thrashed in Jammu and several police stations were torched by the mob (shown on the same day on national media). How many did they kill when some Kashmir police personnel were thrashed to pulp and all this was blatantly shown live on the national media. Over the issue of economic blockade the army lifted the national media in the choppers and showed them the highway and the media unashamedly said that they did not find any kind of blockade all across the highway. They showed the zig-zag road going over to Jawahar tunnel. But the so-called responsible media did not use their scruples to portray this picture in right perspective. Didn’t anybody tell them that the blockade was not the something of physical barricades planted on the roads, it is to do with the mob that suddenly pour out on the road with the petrol bombs, batons and trishuls on the sight of vehicles coming or going along the road that too on some specific locations like Akhnor, Samba, Udhampur, Lakhnpur etc. the rest of the road they showed on media is otherwise also quite and calm as it seemed on the screen. The testimony to the attack on the drivers is the reports shown on the same media just a couple of days back, the trucks without the windscreens and the burnt and thrashed drivers in the hospitals in Jammu, Punjab, Delhi and Srinagar. If there is no blockade what is the role of Army, why is administration harping that the army is on vigil and the highway is constantly being monitored. By this economic blockade the communal parties gave a flip to the long simmering emotions of Kashmiris who even otherwise have a feeling that they are being treated as the second class citizens. These communal parties shall be responsible for smashing India into fragments and Indian media is abetting them in this cause. ...Reply
its unfortunate that people like him are adding fuel to the fire.NO one is desperate enough to be friends, if you dont want you are welcome.I know what happened with you is unfortunate but people in valley suffered more than you did. ...Reply
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