Of prejudice and bias

Shiban  Khaibri
Senior PDP leader and MP Tariq Ahmed Karra has stirred up a hornets’  nest by alleging that the centre has brought to fore its “inherent bias towards Kashmiris” and that his Party should rethink on the continuance of its alliance with the BJP. “Any continuation in the coalition, fears Karra, “seems to be doing more damage to Kashmiris and the Party.” He further goes on to say that the “Agenda of alliance” has been just confined to paper and “right from the day one, there has been no consonance between the functioning of the PDP – BJP coalition government with the said Agenda.”He has expressed his anguish over the package of Rs.2437 crore announced by the centre for reconstruction and rehabilitation of flood affected Kashmir areas. It may be recalled that a total of Rs. 5039 crore has been provided for short term relief and reconstruction measures for the flood affected state, as announced by Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh in a press conference in New Delhi on 16th instant. He also made it known that for a long rehabilitation package, the Government was to send a team of experts and high officials including those from Niti Aayog to assess the damage and give suggestions as also recommendations for long term rehabilitation. The Government has thus promised that it could sanction more and even the Prime Minister had made it clear, whose intentions and concerns were fairly evident when he personally flew in to visit the affected areas of the valley immediately after the disaster struck the valley. Not only this, the PM did not celebrate one of the most important festivals, Deepawali on Oct 23, 2014 and instead chose to be physically present amidst and  with  the flood affected people in Kashmir.
Agreed that the magnitude and the extent of the damage and destruction of property caused by the unprecedented floods in the valley in 2014 warrant that the amount of rehabilitation announced is not reasonably adequate which calls for more assistance from the centre but the approach to look at the problem by Karra and to come out with the type of solution he envisages or the accusation of prejudice and bias, are totally unwarranted. It also cannot be taken as foolproof and accurate that an amount of  over Rs.44000 crore  was worked out correctly by the previous NC and Congress coalition government in the state  as rehabilitation and help to flood affected people and for rebuilding infrastructure which was later  submitted to the Central Government. How much is the stake of the State Government and how much from its own resources, it was going to help the victims has not been made clear.  Or is it that the state has never ever thought about it in the hope that it was centre alone whose responsibility it was to always sanction the required funds for the state regardless of whether the help came in the form of aid, assistance, ex- gratia, and loan or merely as doles.
The state finance Minister Dr. Drabu recently stressed upon the fact that development “could not be dependent on doles alone and various stake holders must participate in the process” must be seen in the light of the trend of total dependence on the centre for each and everything and not only for any natural calamity like the one that unfortunately struck the state, in particular, the valley. Dr. Drabu in his maiden budget speech this year made something of the sort very clear about the financial position of the state when he said, “This is not a good position to be in, in fact if anything, it should be the other way round. But there is no way I can help it as it is a legacy of the last 30 years, if not more.”To meet the disaster and to mitigate the sufferings of the victims is the prime responsibility of the Central Government but the State Government too must step in prominently at least in a modest proportion, say even in 10 to 15 percent from out of its own resources. And the argument of the alleged prejudice and bias against Kashmiris falls flat when for example, the people from other areas like Jammu are contributors towards state revenues more than those from the valley and yet in developmental projects, this area is lagging behind. No Government in the state so far, has ever tried sincerely to augment its resources and increase the revenue since the base to earn has not been broadened, not in the least. The centre has all along been more than generous and even lavish in granting aids, assistance and packages to the state, most of which is  never to be returned,  even servicing of the debts is something unheard of comparatively,  while on the contrary, states like West Bengal plead to defer the payment of interest payable on the funds borrowed from the centre and the repayment of loans taken by their previous government, not to speak of waiving them, has not been accepted by the central government for obvious reasons. See quite contrary in the case of the State of  Jammu and Kashmir and yet the charge of prejudice and biased approach?
There is , however, no denying the fact that much needs to be still done  to provide the requisite help to flood victims , especially those who are from middle and lower middle income groups in the valley but to indulge in blame game and attribute motives which  are unfounded result neither in any resolution of the problem on the ground nor does it help build any atmosphere to fight the anti India and separatist forces who are on the prowl to pollute the political and  longed for peaceful atmosphere in  the valley.
Mr. Karra’s advice to his party to walk off the coalition contradicts his own Party’s much hyped philosophy to fight the separatist forces in the valley with political ideology which in other words means strengthening the idea of India and treat accession of the state as a settled issue and to convince such forces inimical to non – violence, logic, peace, secularism and Indian nationalism to shun their futile stand and abject loyalty to alien elements across the borders. Looking to what is happening presently in Sopore where rule of law is imperilled and as a sequel to employing newer techniques of bringing about death and destruction in the valley, whether by planned stone pelting, by damaging mobile phone towers,   by issuing diktats and now by select killings, what role is being played by the PDP of which Karra is one of the senior leaders? By threatening to quit the coalition arrangement, was that going to  help anyway in containing situations like in Sopore or taking on effectively  other faces of militancy like implanting fear, hate and confusion among Kashmiris to attain objectives as dictated by Pakistan overtly or covertly.
Not only the PDP but other mainstream regional parties including national level parties like Congress are practically playing no political role in Kashmir to counter the separatists, terrorists and fundamentalists to strengthen the nationalist forces.  The vicious circle of spying and fear of death, confusion, and remaining mum even knowing about the culprits, among the people, only makes situation grim and one sided weakening India and Indian hood. Blaming and criticizing Modi only and the BJP even if a gentle breeze makes a branch of a fruit tree in Kashmir breezy or lampooning like “reporting to Nagpur” are no ways to fight secessionist forces in Kashmir.  In fact, they tend to get strengthened which does not auger well for all mainstream political parties and their leaders based in this state, in particular the  Kashmir valley.

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