TALES OF TRAVESTY
DR. JITENDRA SINGH
However much the present Kashmir-centric rulers of the State may detest Maharaja Hari Singh, they cannot but be eternally albeit secretly grateful to the Dogra monarchy for having introduced the practice of Durbar move and thus provided the present hard pressed rulers with an opportunity to escape both the bitter cold of Srinagar winter as well as the intense heat of Srinagar blasts. Whether Geelani’s ‘‘Azaadi’’ movement makes any headway or not, certainly enough ‘‘Azaadi” has come to atleast a small section of state’s population comprising Durbar move officers and employees who seem to be stretching up their arms in relief and taking a deep breath of ‘‘freedom’’ in the liberated environs of Jammu.
For next six months, Jammu is ready to offer all the balm and respite. To Srinagar’s ‘‘Hartal’’ calendar, Jammu’s answer is ‘‘reception’’ calendar and to Srinagar’s ‘‘stone-pelters’’ Jammu’s answer is ‘‘sycophant -servers’’. Soon the Darbar Ministers and their henchmen would be as usual treated to pompous feasts, functions and felicitations by traditionally hospitable organisations and ‘‘prominent’’ citizens of Jammu. Experience from past bears out that majority of Jammu goes with the ruling polity while the miniscule opposition kills itself with everybody fighting against everybody.
Notwithstanding reincarnation of self-respect following Amarnath land agitation in 2008 and reinforced realisation of discrimination following New Delhi’s indulgence with separatist secessionists or semi-separatist ‘‘mainstreamers’’, the socalled prominent citizens of Jammu as well majority of public and civil society activists continue to be slaves of a feudalist mind-set which ends up turning them into compulsive obeisance-makers at the mere sight of a white Ambassador car with a red light. A common observation is that anybody who is somebody in the State government hierarchy or anybody who is nobody but claims access to State corridors of power is received with awe by Jammu citizens while a simple cup of tea offered by a lower-rung minister or a lower-rung bureaucrat to a Jammu activist is enough to sweep the latter off his feet.
Meanwhile, as far as the common man is concerned, the Durbar in Jammu will be marked with six months of hieghtened traffic congestion and nagging traffic jams, nuisance of security vehicles and long queues of desperate persons lined up outside Secretariate gate waiting to gain entry for redressal of a pending file or application. And the Jammu origin bureaucrats, who turn bitterest critics of State government’s ‘‘Kashmir-centric” policies soon after their retirement, are more-loyal-than-king while in service and make use of these six months in Jammu to host sumptuous Eid feasts for their bosses turning a deaf ear to Umapathy’s Akbar Allahabadi refrain ‘‘Qaum Ke Gham Mein Dinner Khaatey Hai Hukkaam Ke Saath, Ranj Leader Ko Bahut Hain Magar Aaram Ke Saath !’’
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