The communally and politically motivated decision of the Congress-PDP Government of Jammu and Kashmir to transfer forest land to the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board (SASB) is having costly repercussions in the State, with the added danger that it may emerge as a communal agenda nationally. The land transfer, taken in the context of irresponsible official remarks recommending changes in the demography and « culture » of the region as a « solution » to the Kashmir « problem », was like a spark to the tinder-box of pent-up resentment in the Valley. Lives were lost in police firing on the protestors ; the PDP tried to distance itself from its Ministers’ decision in favour of the land transfer by pulling out of the Government ; and the Government was belatedly forced to roll back the land transfer decision.
The BJP and Sangh Parivar’s declaration to mobilize Hindus « nationally » against the revocation of the land transfer stoked the resentment in Jammu : resentment that stemmed from accumulated anger against the systematic neglect of the region’s aspirations but has been given a communal colouration by the RSS-BJP. The Congress Government also contributed to communalization of the issue, with statements that the protests against the land transfer had been funded by Islamic countries. The resulting flare-up has continued for several weeks ; Jammu has witnessed communal violence against its Muslim residents ; curfew has been imposed in four of the eight districts of Jammu ; Srinagar has been under siege ; Kashmir Valley has been blockaded, requiring army deployment to ensure supply of essential commodities. With fruit growers hit by the blockade, protests escalated again in the Valley, met again with police firing which claimed 6 lives including that of a senior Hurriyat leader Abdul Aziz. The unrest in the Valley escalated ; further firing by police and paramilitary on Aziz’s angry supporters claimed 12 more lives all over the Valley ; and indefinite curfew has been imposed all over the Valley for the first time since 1990.
The BJP’s top leadership is continuing to fan up communal flames over the episode, projecting the revocation of the land transfer as an injustice to the Amarnath Yatra pilgrims. The facts fly in the face of such propaganda. The use of the aforesaid land for hospitality for the yatris was never opposed in Kashmir ; in fact Muslims local residents had unfailingly provided all sorts of services and assistance to them year after year. The High Court order of 2005 directing the State Government to erect temporary structures to provide for the yatris during the two-month pilgrimage period was never opposed by anyone ; only the move to transfer the land from the aegis of the Government to that of the Shrine Board, implying that the Shrine Board could then erect permanent structures on the land and prevent local residents from using the land when the pilgrimage was not on, was opposed. Further cause for concern was that the huge unregulated inflow of lakhs of pilgrims was endangering the fragile local ecosystem ; while there is a limit set to the number of pilgrims to Gangotri or Gomukh, there is none for Amarnath. Another crucial factor was that the pilgrimage itself had been projected by the Central and State Governments as a ’patriotic’ enterprise – this officially sponsored identification of a Hindu pilgrimage with ’patriotism’ was fraught with communal overtones and set the stage for deep suspicion of any handover of resources to the Shrine Board.
The deep-seated sense of neglect in Jammu and alienation in Kashmir have not been addressed by successive Governments and political forces. Instead communal polarization is being sharpened by political forces who are trying to project the alienation of the Jammu residents as having a Hindu and therefore ’nationalist’ character (protests being organized with the tricolor in hand) while the alienation of the people of Kashmir is being portrayed as ’Muslim’, ’anti-national’ and specifically, ’Pakistani’. The BJP’s all-out communal build-up has received fodder from the opportunisms of the Congress and PDP. The National Conference, despite Omar Abdullah’s brave declarations of secularism in Parliament, has done its share to promote the BJP’s communal agenda in the State. All in all, the political forces in the State seem all set to push the situation dangerously towards the trifurcation of the State on communal lines – an agenda openly avowed by the BJP in the past and proposed by various think-tanks of the United States of America like the Kashmir Study Group.
The spate of indiscriminate firing by police and paramilitary forces on protestors in Kashmir smacks of the Indian State’s habitual repressive and callous chauvinism. The solution to the present impasse could be sought in upholding the High Court Order of 2005 which had stipulated that « The land to be allotted by the Board would be only for the purposes of user and would remain limited for the duration of yatra. The Board shall also identify the sites to be allotted for the purpose of langar, erection of detachable/prefabricated huts and toilets, etc, that would not be permanent in nature and are liable to be removed after the period of yatra is over. » But politically motivated forces are eager to block such a solution, seeking to reap a communal harvest from the situation towards the next elections. Even if such a solution is eventually reached, the sores left by the entire episode on the polity in J&K are not likely to heal easily. The Congress-led State Government and the UPA Government at the Centre are squarely to blame for having handed the BJP a communally potent agenda on a platter, in the process doing far-reaching harm to the sensitive region of Jammu and Kashmir.