Muhammad
Jamil
BJP
government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to change demographic
make-up in Kashmir, and it is being done in the name of resettlement of the
Kashmiri Pandits who had left the Valley during uprising in 1989. Chief
Minister of Indian-held Jammu and Kashsmir Mufti Sayeed during his meeting with
Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Tuesday had assured the latter that his
government would acquire and provide land at the earliest for composite
townships in the Valley. After demonstrations by Jammu and Kashmir Liberation
Front and other Kashmiri leaders, Mufti Sayeed backtracked and said there were
no such plans, but steps will be taken for return of the minority community to
the Valley. However, Home Minister Rajnath Singh said that BJP government would
not go back on its agreed plans of settlements of Kashmiri Pandits.
BJP\'s
State general secretary Ashok Kaul said the party would work towards its plan
of a separate homeland for the Kashmiri Pandits irrespective of Mr. Sayeed\'s
statement. In a surprise development, a group of Kashmiri Pandits living in the
Valley joined JKLF-sponsored protest against the proposed setting up of an
exclusive township for the migrant minority community. Educationists Pandit
Vishin Jee, Pandit Moti Lal Bhat, social worker Kumar Jee Wanchoo, businessman
Moti Lal Dhar and several women of the community joined JKLF chairman Mohammad
Yasin Malik in the protest at Maisuma after Friday prayers. The Kashmiri
Pandits told reporters that there was no need and no use of making separate
colonies. They were of the view that only the majority community can ensure
safety and security of minorities, and making separate homeland will create
more wedges between communities.
Former
chief minister of Madhya Pradesh Digvijay Singh recently said it was the then
Governor of J&K Jagmohan who forced Kashmiri Pandits to leave the valley on
January 19, 1990. \"Kashmiri Pandits were unnecessarily forced to leave
the Valley by the then governor Jagmohan. Hindus and Muslims lived together for
Centuries in Kashmir,\" Singh wrote on microblogging site Twitter. It is
not the first time that a senior congress leader has blamed Jagmohan for the
migration of Kashmiri Pandits (KPs) from Valley after eruption of militancy in
the State. Senior Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar in his book titled,
\"Confessions of a Secular Fundamentalist\" has written in details
how Jagmohan gave a safe passage to KPs to Jammu before unleashing
\"terror\" in the valley. According to independent observers some
20000 Kashmiri Hindus/Pundits had left the Valley; but this figure is being
highly exaggerated to read as 200000 to 300000.
In
June 2008, Kashmiris had launched an agitation against the state government\'s
decision to transfer 40 hectares of land to the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board
(SASB). Article 370 specifically prohibits the sale of land to non-Kashmiris,
so people came out to the streets in protest. Indian government is deliberately
altering the demographic makeup of Jammu and Kashmir by settling non-state
citizens in Indian-held Kashmir and turning its Muslim majority into a minority
by dividing the population on ethnic, religious and communal lines. In Indian
Occupied Kashmir, a sustained political movement has been ongoing since 1947
against India, but Kashmiri youth took up the arms in 1989. Estimates put the
number of civilian casualties during the past twenty five years at 100,000.
Whereas people of Kashmir celebrate Pakistan day, they
observe India\'s national republic day on January 26 as black day? On the
occasion, black flags fly on rooftops of homes and shops throughout the valley.
And the day\'s official ceremonies are held in a massively fortified stadium in
Srinagar, with an extremely selected audience in attendance. All roads and
alleys to the venue are closed down to the public, while helicopters keep
flying over it for surveillance until the ceremonies end. Also, days ahead of
the republic day, prominent Kashmiri leaders are put under house arrest or
incarcerated on trumped-up charges. Despite all these measures, and
trigger-happy Indian soldiers having inflicted brutality on the Kashmiris, the
anti-India sentiment has never been in short display; and freedom sentiment
manifestly lives in Kashmiri hearts still animatedly.
