Regrettable decision
On March 21, 2022, the President of India, Ram Nath Kovind, conferred Padma Vibhushan Award on a number of Indians. Former Congress leader, Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha, and ex-J&K Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad was one of the privileged persons who also received the award that day. He was conferred the award despite his controversial speech in the Rajya Sabha on August 5, 2019, when the House of Elders adopted the motions/ resolutions moved by Home Minister Amit Shah that read down the seditious Article 370, abrogated discriminatory Article 35A and created out of the erstwhile J&K State UT of J&K and UT of Ladakh.
It needs to be noted that the Padma Awards, one of the highest civilian awards, are given to persons for their splendid contribution to various disciplines/ fields of activities, viz. – “art, social work, public affairs, science and engineering, trade and industry, medicine, literature and education, sports, civil service, etc”. Padma Vibhushan is awarded for “exceptional and distinguished service”. Had Azad contributed to any of these disciplines/ fields? I leave it to the judgment of the Modi government. However, there are reasons to believe that the Narendra Modi government must be bemoaning its decision to confer Padma Vibhushan Award on Azad.
Azad’s Ideology
It was hoped that the Padma Award would motivate Azad to review what he did as CM between November 2, 2005, and July 2008 to further muddy the Indian waters in J&K, help Pakistan promote its sinister agenda, cause immense political losses to Jammu province, change Jammu’s demography, fan communalism and outrage the religious sensitivities of the Hindus. To be more precise, it was hoped that he would reform himself and promote mainstream politics in the state. Sadly, he didn’t do that. Instead, he founded his party, Democratic Progressive Azad Party (DPAP), with the promotion of separatist ideology as its stated objective. Announcing the formation of the DPAP in Jammu, he, inter-alia, said that his ultimate objective was to undo what the Narendra Modi government did in August 2019 to fully integrate J&K into India and restore the situation as it existed on August 4, 2019. I need not reflect more on what he and his party wish to achieve in and for J&K. Suffice it to say that he was a divisive ideology before August 5, 2019, and he continues to promote it even today with renewed vigour on a daily basis.
Azad’s role as J&K CM
Azad took over as J&K CM after the votary of self-rule or Indo-Pak joint control over J&K Mufti Sayeed completed three years in office as per the PDP-Congress power-sharing formula. Azad couldn’t complete his term as he had to resign in July 2008 under pressure from below in the outraged and wounded Jammu Province.
It’s not possible to catalogue all the details of what Azad did during this period. I will only refer to some of the major highlights which would prove that his government turned out to be far more dangerous than the ones headed by his predecessors, including Sheikh Abdullah, Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad, Khwaja Shamsuddin, GM Sadiq, Mir Qasim, Farooq Abdullah, GM Shah, and Mufti Sayeed. His government:
- Defeated bills on secularism, socialism, and national flag and adopted the bill on the J&K flag.
- Rejected outright bills seeking citizenship rights for Hindu-Sikh refugees from Pakistan languishing in Jammu since their migration in 1947 and adequate representation to Jammu province in the State Assembly.
- Adopted bill on Shari laws.
- Subverted the 1981 Wazir Commission Report and created four new districts in Kashmir, as against one recommended by the Report, and created four new districts in Jammu, as against three recommended by the Report.
- Willfully violated the J&K HC’s unambiguous direction to the Mufti-led J&K government and snatched the Baltal land from the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board to appease and please radical Islamists and separatist outfits in Kashmir, who were opposed to the HC’s direction that the Baltal land should be allotted to the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board for the creation of some additional facilities on a temporary basis for the Amarnath pilgrims.
- Further changed the land policy under the Farooq Abdullah government’s Roshni Act of 2001 to help his co-religionists loot and plunder 24 lakh kanal of state land, mostly in Jammu province, and set up colonies exclusively for one community (J&K HC rejected the Act in 2020 as “unconstitutional, illegal and unsustainable” and ordered a CBI probe).
- Caused a loss to the state exchequer to the tune of Rs.25,000 crore, which was termed by the C&AG in 2014 as the “biggest land scam in the state”.
- Azad himself declared that J&K was not an integral part of India like other Indian states and Union Territories and that “there should be Indo-Pak joint control over J&K’s waters, power projects, agriculture, sericulture, tourism, forestry, and environment”
- Persuaded the Manmohan Singh-led Congress-led UPA government to hold Round Table Conference to decide the political future of J&K,
- Azad himself told media persons in New Delhi that “the more corrupt you are the more efficient you are and the more honest you are the most inefficient you are”.
Support to zameen jihad
That Azad is religiously committed to creating a Kashmir-like situation in Jammu became abundantly clear on Thursday (Feb 23, 2023), when he extended his maximum support to the Zameen jihad. A case in point is what he said while addressing a rally at Bidhard Daksum in the Anantnag district. He, inter-alia, said: “If his party is elected to power, it will bring back the Roshni Act under which the ownership rights were given to the occupants” (read zameen jihadis).
“The anti-encroachment drive to retrieve land given to people under the Act should be stopped. If we form the government, then we will implement the Roshni scheme once again…Today, notices are being served, the land is being retrieved. I had passed the bill of Roshni in the Assembly keeping in mind the poverty of the people here. Be it Hindus, Muslims, Kashmiris, or Gujjar-Bakerwals, they possessed lands for over 100 years when there were only two persons in the house. …They have grown in numbers and cannot be accommodated on those lands. They cannot build houses or farm them. So, I made them owners of the government land…The law was passed in the Assembly by elected representatives, by an elected government…This decision was taken to end the poverty of the people so that they at least have a house or some land or for a small shop or a kitchen garden. Which storm was caused by it? We did not give land to some other country, but our own people. The land is for the people,” Azad, among other things, said.
And what he said could be legitimately taken to mean his open support to those who have been changing the demographic profile of the strategic Jammu province, particularly after 1994 and especially after October 9, 1996, when Farooq Abdullah took over as J&K CM for the third time.
SC and eviction of encroachers
It was the J&K Governor Satya Pal Malik who repealed the Roshni Act in November 2018. However, it was on January 9, 2023, that the LG Manoj Sinha administration ordered the retrieval of the state and kahcharai land. All the Kashmir-based politicians, without any exception, opposed the government directive. They termed the official circular as an attempt to change J&K’s demography by settling non-Kashmiris. Two Kashmiri Muslim activists even went to the Supreme Court and sought its intervention. On January 20, 2023, the Supreme Court refused to stay the said J&K government order directing all the 20 deputy commissioners to evict the encroachers from the state land. According to reports, almost “16 lakh kanal state and kahcharai land has been retrieved so far from influential people, including former ministers, bureaucrats, police officials and others close to the corridors of power”.
Present status
On February 18, the government of UT of J&K put on hold the anti-encroachment drive till the consolidation of actions taken so far and has directed for geo-referencing and digitization of retrieved land at the earliest so that evicted land can be used by various departments for public purposes. One can only hope and pray that the powers-that-be at the Centre and in J&K would re-launch drive against zameen jihadis to retrieve the entire state land encroached by them under the official patronage.
Note:
1. Text in Blue points to additional data on the topic.
2. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of PGurus.
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Modi and BJP are trying hard to appease muslims. Unfortunately, they will never change their color, no matter what. Sooner Modi and team realizes this better it will be for them and India.
Wonder when Modi will give Gurumurthy an award!
After all he dislodged Swamy and enabled him to sit on riches untold.