Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, June 11: More organizations and prominent individuals have conveyed their strong resentment against the mandatory Urdu test for qualifying Naib Tehsildar’s post in Jammu and Kashmir and demanded immediate rectification of this clause in the advertisement by JKSSB to ensure equal opportunity to candidates of all linguistic backgrounds across the Union Territory.
Manish Sahni, President, Shiv Sena UBT Jammu and Kashmir unit said that Urdu is not the sole official language of J&K and it is also not the mother tongue of any important group. Hence, there is no fun of ensuring Urdu knowledge mandatory for Government jobs, he added.
Sahni urged the Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha to end the dominance of Urdu in official works and issue necessary instruction to get the Urdu test deleted from the SSB advertisement for the post of Naib Tehsildar.
MJR-47, an organization of PoJK refugees, has also strongly opposed the recently published advertisement by JKSSB for the post of Naib Tehsildar, in which Urdu has been made a mandatory language requirement for the examination.
Spokesperson of MJR-47 Om Parkash Khajuria questioned the rationale behind this condition, especially in light of the J&K Official Languages Act, 2020, which clearly recognizes five official languages for the UT. He emphasized that if knowledge of Urdu is essential for performing certain revenue duties, it should be part of the 9-month training period at the Revenue Training Institute, after selection, not a pre-condition that disqualifies candidates before the exam.
J&K BJP executive member Raman Suri has dubbed the SSB move as deliberate attempt to sideline youth from regions where Urdu is not widely known.
He urged the Chief Minister to take immediate action and issue a revised notification to ensure equal justice for all aspirants, irrespective of linguistic background. “The government must stop playing with the sentiments and careers of our youth. Equal opportunities must be provided to all, and no one should be disqualified based on language or regional bias,” he said.
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