Speak Jammu, Speak

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 27, 2008
Straight Facts
When Shobha Yatra was taken out in Jammu I wondered as to what has prompted the Jammuites to paticipate in the Krishan Janamashtami Shobha Yatra in such huge numbers? It was perhaps due to indomitable spirit of the Jammuites that made them to convert the occasion of Shobha yatra as an endorsement of the Shri Amar Nath Yatra Sangharsh Samiti Programme. As regards Janamashtami Celebrations I must salute the spirit of the Jammuites who celebrated the Janamashtami rather with renewed enthusiasm against all odds.

I always considered the phrase “ India is a vibrating democracy” as a cliché but the current situation in J&K has made me to change me my opinion. This because you don’t have any other explanation to justify the way the separatist leaders from Kashmir were provided a platform by most of the channels to spew venom against India and openly call for merger with Pakistan and Azadi from India. Some of my friends were furious at that but I had to calm them down with the argument that there averments bring before the entire country as well as the world the inherent contradictions and lack of argument in their statements. At a point when Pakistan is struggling to find a Government the very talk of being a Pakistani on Indian soil seems ridiculous. I am convinced that the kind of freedom that the Kashmiri Separatists are enjoying in India will be a far fetched dream in Pakistan. Think of Nawab Bugti and Lal Masjid leaders in the past and situation in FATA and SWAT etc. at present which provides the answer which is there for one and all to see for themselves.

Ms. Mehbooba Mufti, President, Peoples Democratic Party of Jammu and Kashmir is a privileged person in more than one way. She enjoys the privilige of being the Member of Indian Parliament, darling of Sonia Gandhi and a liability for Manmohan Singh who won the Floor test in Indian Parliament with the support of her one vote among others. Had this not been the case she could not have been allowed to spit fire the way she has been doing for the last couple of days. A close scrutiny of her statements will reveal that she is trying to show one upmanship over the Separatist leaders in Kashmir. The arguments advanced by her are just ridiculous. Now one could make out as to why she continued chanting “main kaya bolloon” while participating in the debate on confidence vote in the Parliament. She did not want to commit herself to any specifics as it may have landed her in a soup later on.

Look at the clumsiness of the arguments advanced by her. She says that the protestors demanding Azadi from Indian State and chanting Pakistan Zindabad, Hindusthan Murdabad, Meri Jaan Pakistan and “Yahan kaya chalega - Nizam-e-Mustafa” were marching towards Muzaffarabad peacefully and that the Indian State had no right to stop them by using minimum necessary force. Any person who knows even very little about the apple crop in Srinagar knows that most of the apple varities are still on the trees and will take quite sometime before being plucked but she raised the bogey of the fruit rotting in Kashmir. She has the temerity to equate the two agitations across the tunnel ignoring the very fact that in Jammu it is a fight spearheaded by the nationalist forces whereas in Kashmir it is being spearheaded by the separatist forces. She wants the Indian State to abdicate its responsibility of protecting the sovereignty of the Indian State and allow the writ of the separatists to run in Kashmir.

Mehbooba Mufti had said on a channel the other day that whenever there is a terrror strike in the country these days, only the Muslims are rounded up. Can Mehbooba tell the nation if any Muslim was rounded up in Sri Lanka for terrorist activities? How many Muslims were rounded up in Punjab when militancy was at its peak in Punjab? Why Muslims are being rounded up and killed in Pakistan as a measure to combat militancy there? Mehbooba needs to tell the nation as to why Parwez Musharraf had to attack the Lal Masjid and whether there was any Hindu involved in that exercise? When around the globe terrorist modules are working in the name of Islam then obviously the Security Forces have to look for the prime suspects in the community which is nursing a grudge against the State, be they Hindu or Muslim. And if the needle of suspicion points towards Muslims then there is no way the Security Forces could shun performing their legitimate duty. The recent arrests of the SIMI activists are a pointer to this end.

It may also be said that when Omar Abdullah says that while referring to “Our Land” he was referring to land belonging to only the State Subjects of the State and not to Kashmiris alone, he being a President of one of the main political parties of the J&K State need to understand that when everyone in Kashmir was stating that the land in question belongs to “Kashmiris”, his statement was obviosusly bound to be read in that context.

The matter of the fact is that Kashmiri Leaders have always considered the people of Jammu as second fiddle and are at present unable to reconcile to the idea of awakening of the Jammuites after a long lull. They now need to explain to the nation reasons for having taken no actions or at best the selective actions on the reports of the Gajendra Gadkar Commision and Wazir Commission etc.