[Reader-list] Why Kashmir Erupts?

[Pawan Durani]

Yeah ....great mind think alike. This analysis is just like that what the
Mike Tyson [ boxer ] did on Kashmir. Tyson has as much knowledge about
Kashmir as Mr. Noorani has.
Pawan

On Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 9:24 PM, Nazneen Anand Shamsi <
nazoshmasi at googlemail.com> wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> I came across this rather interesting piece on Kashmir, written by A.G
> Noorani. I say -interesting- because despite his acute analysis,
> despite his display of archival wealth, and despite his good
> intentions, Mr.Noorani, refuses to acknowledge the slaughter of
> Kashmiri Pandits by Muslims and their eventual flight.
>
> May be this was just an oversight  or maybe he did it purpose but
> nevertheless I hope all those who have not had the opportunity to read
> it  will benefit from it.
>
> Best
>
> Nazneen Anand Shamsi
> ------------------------------
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> Frontline
> Volume 25 - Issue 19 :: Sep. 13-26, 2008
> INDIA'S NATIONAL MAGAZINE
> from the publishers of THE HINDU
>
>
>
> Printer Friendly Page Send this Article to a Friend
>
> ESSAY
>
> WHY JAMMU ERUPTS
>
> A.G. NOORANI
>
> Is New Delhi about to repeat Nehru's blunder of 1953?
>
> CHANNI ANAND/AP
>
> Protesters in Jammu throw stones at policemen on August 26.
>
> THE Jammu province of the State of Jammu and Kashmir has a regional
> identity with a rich past and a composite culture. It has produced
> scholars, artists, poets and writers of high distinction. After 1947,
> the Sangh Parivar foisted a communal identity on it precisely at a
> time when Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah, the foremost leader of Jammu and
> Kashmir State with a Muslim majority, moved for its accession to
> India. He was attracted by its secular ideals symbolised by Mahatma
> Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. Gandhi said at a prayer meeting on
> November 28, 1947: "You see Sheikh Abdullah with me… [who] although a
> pucka Muslim, has won the hearts of both [Hindus and Sikhs] by making
> them forget that there is any difference between the three
> [communities]…. Even though in Jammu recently the Muslims were killed
> by the Hindus and the Sikhs, he went to Jammu and invited the evil
> doers to forget the past…." (Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi; volume
> 90, page 123).
>
> There were Muslims in the valley who were opposed to the accession;
> there were forces in Jammu who resented the transfer of power from a
> "Hindu" Maharaja to a "Muslim" leader. The Maharaja's son, Karan
> Singh, resented that "Dogra rule had in effect been replaced by
> Kashmiri rule".
>
> In October 1987, Jammu erupted in fury when Farooq Abdullah, at Rajiv
> Gandhi's behest, ended the Darbar Move by which the government
> functioned alternately from Srinagar and Jammu every six months. It
> was not communal but regional self-assertion. But, in August 2008, it
> was not Jammu but the communal forces there that took to the streets
> under a false regional garb. The issue of allotment of land to the
> Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board (SASB), a legacy of the former Governor
> S.K. Sinha's communal agenda, was badly handled by Chief Minister
> Ghulam Nabi Azad for his own ends in a manner that offended Muslim and
> Hindu feelings.
>
> But while in the valley the people led the leaders and the campaign
> was spontaneous, in Jammu the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) acted
> after preparation and in pursuit of its resolution of June 30, 2002,
> for the break-up of the State into three parts. New Delhi's brutal
> clamp-down in the valley on August 24, following mammoth and unarmed
> rallies, is in glaring contrast to its kid-glove treatment of Jammu.
> It is a replay of what happened in 1953 when Nehru confided to his
> friend B.C. Roy, Chief Minister of West Bengal, on June 29: "It is
> difficult to speak openly about the injurious results of this
> movement. It has made the Kashmir problem far more difficult than it
> ever was. Before this movement was started, I had little doubt in my
> mind that the final decision about Kashmir would be in our favour,
> however long it might take. But this movement has upset all my
> calculations and weakened our position in Kashmir terribly. I am for
> the moment talking about the Kashmir Valley only. As you know, the
> people in the Valley are over ninety per cent Muslim. The reaction of
> the Jammu Praja Parishad movement on them has been very great. They
> have become frightened of the communal elements in Jammu and in India
> and their previous wish to be attached to India has weakened. Indeed,
> at the moment, all the hostile forces against us are dominant in
> Kashmir…. The whole difficulty has been about the Valley of Kashmir
> and we are on the point of losing it because of the Praja Parishad
> movement.
>
> "Psychologically we have lost it and it would be difficult to get back
> to the older position. You will appreciate how it has distressed me to
> see the hard work of several years washed away by this movement. In
> the ultimate analysis, we gain Kashmir if we gain the goodwill of the
> people there" (emphasis added, throughout; Selected Works of
> Jawaharlal Nehru; volume 22, pages 203-205). In 2002, the RSS admitted
> that in 1952 it had "agitated in the name of Praja Parishad". Nehru
> tried to "control" the situation by arresting Abdullah on August 9,
> 1953, and inflicted a wound that has still not healed. Is New Delhi
> about to repeat that mistake in 2008?
>
> Three factors must be borne in mind – the preparations behind the
> Jammu disorders, the RSS' trifurcation agenda, and its roots.
> Dharmendra Rataul of The Tribune reported from Madhopur as early as
> August 5 that "hundreds" of Shiv Sainiks and Bajrang Dal men, led by
> Dinesh Kumar Babbu, a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Member of the
> Legislative Assembly, had "blocked the NH-1A linking J&K with the rest
> of the country. Punjab BJP leaders including two State Ministers
> camped 10 km away." He cited the details. Azad remarked on August 4:
> "There have been four delegations of the BJP going there in the past
> one month and they call it spontaneous. The BJP is backing the
> Sangharsh Samiti and is funding it" (Indian Express, August 5). Anil
> Anand reported in DNA (August 11) that the RSS was "tightening its
> hold over the BJP" to implement its agenda and had selected an RSS
> loyalist, Leela Karan Sharma, as chairman of the Amarnath Sangharsh
> Samiti.
>
> Anuradha Bhasin Jamwal, executive editor of Kashmir Times, published
> from Jammu, wrote a detailed report in Communalism Combat (July-August
> 2008): "That the protests in Jammu were not marked by spontaneity but
> by a steady build-up is evident from the fact that in the first few
> days of the agitation only a few protesters, supporters of the Sangh
> Parivar, were out on the streets. Gradually, the numbers started
> swelling into thousands" to join in "the violent protests". Television
> channels were not curbed, as they were in Srinagar from August 24,
> when they "worked to complement mass mobilisation campaigns by the
> Bajrang Dal, the VHP and the RSS". No praise can be too high for
> Anuradha or her father, Ved Bhasin, the paper's founder, for standing
> by the values of secularism and honest journalism throughout these
> difficult years.
> RSS agenda
>
> The RSS' agenda was mooted almost from the time of the State's
> accession to India. Its prime mover was none other than Maharaja Hari
> Singh, as Nehru wrote to Vallabhbhai Patel on April 17, 1949, after
> reading an intelligence report from Kashmir: "In this report, among
> other things, a reference was made to a growing Hindu agitation in
> Jammu province for what is called a zonal plebiscite. This idea is
> based on the belief that a plebiscite for the whole of Kashmir is
> bound to be lost and, therefore, let us save Jammu at least. You will
> perhaps remember that some proposal of this kind was put forward by
> the Maharaja some months back. It seems to me that this kind of
> propaganda is very harmful, indeed, for us. Whatever may happen in the
> future, I do not think Jammu province is running away from us. If we
> want Jammu province by itself and are prepared to make a present of
> the rest of the State to Pakistan, I have no doubt we could clinch the
> issue in a few days. The prize we are fighting for is the valley of
> Kashmir.
>
> "This propaganda for a zonal plebiscite is going on in Jammu, in Delhi
> and elsewhere. It is carried on by what is known as the Jammu Praja
> Parishad. Our intelligence officer reported that this Praja Parishad
> is financed by the Maharaja. Further, that the large sums collected
> for the Dharmarth Fund, which are controlled by the Maharaja, are
> being spent in propaganda for him" (Sardar Patel's Correspondence
> 1945-50; volume 1, page 262).
>
> It had no effect on Patel because he had ranged himself for Hari Singh
> and against Abdullah. Only three months after Jammu and Kashmir's
> accession to India, Hari Singh threatened secession in a letter to
> Patel dated January 31, 1948: "Sometimes I feel that I should withdraw
> the accession that I have made to the Indian Union. The Union only
> provisionally accepted the accession…" (ibid, page 167). He was, of
> course, not reprimanded by Patel.
>
> General K.M. Cariappa reported to Nehru that "the Maharaja's
> brother-in-law was openly carrying on a campaign against Sheikh
> Abdullah and his government and issuing pamphlets of this kind". Nehru
> added that in an intelligence report "mention was made of the Yuvraj
> [Karan Singh] getting mixed up with this business" (ibid, page 262).
>
> To Patel, Nehru "after all… is also a Hindu and... a Kashmiri Hindu",
> "a patriot", and Kashmir was "a Hindu State situated in Muslim
> surroundings" (ibid, pages 3 and 4).
>
> Shyama Prasad Mookerjee resigned from Nehru's Cabinet in 1950 and set
> up the Jana Sangh, with the RSS' support, on October 21, 1951. Nehru
> called it the "illegitimate child of the RSS" (The Hindu; January 6,
> 1952). Mookerjee was in search of a plank. Kashmir came in handy. He
> asked Nehru in a letter on January 9, 1950, that if a plebiscite were
> held "what will be the fate of Jammu in case the majority of the
> people, consisting of Muslims, vote against India?" He dilated on "the
> peculiar characteristics of different parts" of the State.
>
> Karan Singh revived his father's plans. On November 14, 1965, he
> confirmed to Neville Maxwell of The Times (London) his ideas on
> trifurcation. Kuldip Nayar, who headed the United News of India,
> reported his views at length – "a unilingual Kashmiri-speaking State";
> Jammu's merger with Himachal Pradesh; and Ladakh to become a Union
> Territory. Jammu and Kashmir was an "administrative monstrosity".
> There was no "sanctity behind" it. His family had brought the two
> parts together through conquest and he as successor would say that
> "the sooner the present arrangement was ended the better it would be."
> (He had written differently to Nehru earlier.)
>
> B.K. Nehru became Governor of Jammu and Kashmir on February 26, 1981.
> "The only real briefing that I got was from Tiger (Karan Singh) who
> put the State of Jammu and Kashmir in correct perspective for me. He
> explained that the State was a wholly artificial creation, its five
> separate regions being joined together by the historical accident that
> Raja Gulab Singh had conquered all the territories over which his
> father Maharaja Hari Singh was ruling at the time of Independence and
> Partition. Those five different entities had nothing in common with
> each other…. In our part of the State, there were three clear
> divisions – Jammu, which was Hindu, Kashmir, which was Sunni Muslim
> and Ladakh, one part of which was Buddhist and the other Shia Muslim.
> Because of the lack of commonality between these three divisions, the
> sooner they were separated the better it would be for the future"
> (Nice Guys Finish Second; 1997; page 589).
>
> Karan Singh's statement of August 5, 2008, refers to the recent
> upheaval as "a symptom of a deeper problem including the relationship
> between the three regions of the State still with India" – a strange
> formulation – "Kashmir, Jammu and Ladakh. The fundamental problem
> needs to be looked into carefully and a national consensus arrived at,
> but that can be done only after the next round of national and State
> elections." He is the only one outside the BJP to call for Governor
> N.N. Vohra's ouster.
>
> As Union Home Minister, L.K. Advani set the ball rolling calculatedly
> at Leh on June 7, 2000. He knew he was on charged territory. The
> Ladakh Buddhist Association (LBA) had for years threatened to use
> violence. A social boycott of Muslims was on for months. The ritual
> qualification "within the four corners of the Constitution" is less
> relevant than the fact that the Home Minister countenanced ("can
> discuss") trifurcation at all and did so in the context of the memo
> containing the demand which the LBA gave Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee
> that day.
> Idea of trifurcation
>
> THE HINDU PHOTO LIBRARY
>
> Maharaja Hari Singh, whose last days as the ruler of Jammu and Kashmir
> were marred by a massacre of Muslims.
>
> Constitutionally, the Centre has no right or power in this matter.
> Article 3 empowers Parliament "by law" to "diminish the area of any
> State". In relation to Kashmir, however, no such Bill can even "be
> introduced in Parliament without the consent of the Legislature of
> that State". The Centre has no business to offer to "consider" a
> demand whose acceptance is the sole prerogative of Kashmir. Advani
> could not have been unmindful of the chain reaction his remarks would
> set off. The LBA's memo said: "We believe a lasting solution lies in
> trifurcation of the State." The Times of India's correspondent summed
> up the reaction in a report from Jammu published on June 14, 2000:
> "Trifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir, an idea forwarded by organisations
> and individuals – either as a demand or suggestion in the public
> debate, set in motion by the Centre – has been given new
> respectability by Union Home Minister Advani's remark… during the
> Sindhu Darshan festival demanding trifurcation of the State or Union
> Territory status for Leh." Buddhist protests led to the scaling down
> of the tamasha.
>
> On June 30, 2002, the RSS' All India Workers' Conclave at Kurukshetra
> adopted a resolution that asserted: "The people of Jammu think that
> the solution of their problems lies in the separate statehood for
> Jammu region." It also supported "the demand for U.T. [Union
> Territory] status for Ladakh region". This is the agenda that is being
> promoted in Jammu now.
>
> Jammu will be split evenly. Three of its six districts, now broken up
> into 10, have a Muslim majority - Poonch (91.92 per cent), Rajouri
> (60.23 per cent) and Doda (57.92 per cent). Two tehsils in Udhampur,
> Gul Arnas and Gulab Garh, have a Muslim majority. Farooq Abdullah
> realistically warned that these areas would not live with Jammu; the
> massacres would be worse than those of 1947; and "India will be left
> with two and a half districts while the so-called Greater Kashmir will
> go on a platter to Pakistan eventually" (Greater Kashmir; October 3
> and December 11, 2000). Mirwaiz Maulvi Umer Farooq also said "if the
> Dogras of Jammu's two and a half districts want to secede from the
> rest of the State… we won't oppose it either" (Indian Express; August
> 10, 2008).
> Massacre in Jammu
>
> Farooq Abdullah's reference to the 1947 massacres has a poignant ring.
> His father had overlooked the ethnic cleansing of Muslims of Jammu,
> under Maharaja Hari Singh's auspices, to forge a Union with India on
> the basis of the ideology of secularism. As Gandhi said on November
> 27, 1947, "This has not been fully reported in the newspapers"
> (Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi; volume 90, page 115). It was, and
> still is, little known in India. It is now being recalled in Jammu.
> Here are the facts. Gandhi said on December 25, 1947: "The Hindus and
> Sikhs of Jammu and those who had gone there from outside killed
> Muslims there. The Maharaja of Kashmir is responsible for what is
> happening there…. Muslim women have been dishonoured" (ibid, page
> 298).
>
> In 1947, Muslims were in a 61 per cent majority in the Jammu province.
> Horace Alexander wrote in the Spectator (January 16, 1948) that the
> killings had "the tacit consent of State authority" and put the figure
> at 200,000. On August 10, 1948, The Times (London) published a report
> by "A Special Correspondent", an Indian Civil Service official who had
> served in the State. He wrote: "2,37,000 Muslims were systematically
> exterminated – unless they escaped to Pakistan along the border – by
> all the forces of the Dogra State, headed by the Maharaja in person
> and aided by Hindus and Sikhs. This happened in October 1947, five
> days before the first Pathan invasion and nine days before the
> Maharaja's accession to India." India was, therefore, not responsible
> one bit. Hari Singh was, personally. Between 1941 and 1961, the Muslim
> population of Jammu fell from 61 per cent to 38 per cent.
>
> In 1971 Hari Singh's complicity was fully exposed by the publication
> of Nehru's letter of December 30, 1947, and the Sheikh's letter of
> October 7, 1948, both addressed to Patel, significantly (Sardar
> Patel's Correspondence; volume 1, 1971, pages 135 and 237).
>
> The Sheikh wrote: "There was enacted in every village and town through
> which he [Hari Singh] passed an orgy of arson and loot and murder of
> Muslims. In Jammu the killing of Muslims all over the province
> continued unabated for weeks under his very nose."
>
> That orgy is being recalled in Jammu now. In an article entitled
> "Being Muslim in Jammu", Zafar Chaudhary writes: "There was hardly any
> family in the region which escaped" it. Those "events permanently
> changed the way the Muslims of Jammu would live or think" (Economic &
> Political Weekly; August 23, 2008). Some decided to make peace with
> the BJP agitators. The BJP's State president, Ashok Khajuria, said at
> a press conference on July 26: "Muslims vacate your houses... I am
> warning you… else, Jammu people are ready to throw you out."
>
> From 1947 to 1953, these very forces undermined Sheikh Abdullah's
> standing in Kashmir. In 2008, they have strengthened its demand for
> azadi. It is, of course, absurd to say that land for the SASB will
> affect demography. But people overreact when they are told that they
> are not in a majority in their own State. Witness: Assam. In Srinagar
> I was told by the 15 Corps Commander in 1995, while working on an
> article for Frontline, that Kashmiri Muslims were not in a majority in
> the valley itself. On August 16, 2008, S.K. Sinha said the same thing
> in the Manekshaw Memorial Lecture. What is it that drives persons in
> government to say such things? Imagine the impact of a similar remark
> in Mumbai, for instance.
> The land and the law
>
> Now for the land issue. In 1989, the number of pilgrims to the
> Amarnath cave was only 12,000. In 2007, it was 400,000. Is there any
> place of pilgrimage anywhere in India where land is sought to be
> allotted or transferred in any form for the pilgrimage? Whether by
> leave and licence or by lease? In law, citizens have a right to move
> along any road, subject to considerations of security and the like.
> When throngs gather, the organisers arrange facilities. Land need not
> be allotted for that. It has not been, anywhere at any time. Neither
> at the Kumbh Mela, where far greater numbers gather, nor at Gangotri
> and Goumukh in Uttarakhand, where, on May 1, 2008, the BJP government
> limited the number of pilgrims to 150 a day to protect the
> environment. Experts have testified to the environmental degradation
> already wrought on the route to the Amarnath cave. Yet, S.K. Sinha
> wanted to extend the duration of the yatra and the numbers who visit
> the cave.
>
> The Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) efficiently maintains 12
> temples and their sub-shrines in the Tirumala-Tirupati area. The TTD
> once owned 600 villages, but they were acquired by the State under the
> Zamindari Abolition Act, 1950. The average income of the TTD is a
> whopping Rs.800 crore. The TTD, established by the TTD Act, 1932, is
> now governed by Chapter 14 of the Andhra Pradesh Charitable and Hindu
> Religious Institutions and Endowments Act, 1987. A Board of Trustees
> is constituted by the State government, which also appoints the chief
> executive and other officials. The Tirumala hills comprise seven
> peaks. The temple of Sri Venkateswara is on the seventh peak. Section
> 114 of the Act empowers the State government to notify "the limits of
> the Tirumala Hills area for the purpose of civic administration". It
> will be deemed to be a village under the Gram Panchayats Act, 1964,
> and the Public Health Act, 1939.
> Sengupta report
>
>
> Following a blizzard in August 1996, the Government of India asked
> Nitish K. Sengupta, IAS (retired), and member of the Trinamool
> Congress, to inquire into the tragedy in which 243 people died on the
> Amarnath Yatra. Had his report, the only definitive study of the
> actual state of things, not been flouted by S.K. Sinha, no disputes
> would have arisen. There are two routes to the Amarnath cave. The
> "traditional route" is from Srinagar – lately from Jammu – to Pahalgam
> onwards. "The limited carrying capacity of the 32 km track provides
> strong grounds for controlling the number of pilgrims… there should
> not be more than 9,000 or 10,000 pilgrims" on the last sector. The
> other route is from Sonamarg to Baltal onwards, "an alternative or
> supplementary route", which, Ghulam Nabi Azad said on August 4, "is
> taken barely by 10 per cent of the pilgrims".
>
> Sengupta recommended that the Tourism Department "should be the
> administrative department responsible for conducting the yatra" plus a
> Board, with the Chief Minister at its head, to "undertake primary
> responsibility of looking into all matters relating to Amarnath
> Yatra". At one place he calls it a "coordination committee" (page 25),
> at another (page 49) a Board "to coordinate efforts of the various
> agencies". It would "lay down overall policy measures" and exercise
> supervision". It is the government that wields executive power.
>
> The yatra should start on July 1 and end on August 15 – 45 days – with
> an overall ceiling of 100,000 pilgrims for the annual yatra and only
> 10,000 pilgrims a day between Chandanwari and the cave. He was most
> emphatic on both the duration and the ceiling on numbers (page 54).
> S.K. Sinha flouted both.
>
> In an article in Asian Age (August 14), Sengupta opines that "as long
> as only 20,000 pilgrims are there they would be able to take shelter
> in existing huts and be safe".
>
> He considered the Baltal route as an alternative. "Almost 5 km of this
> route from Sangam on the way to Baltal is extremely difficult and
> risky. There cannot be any question of permitting large number of
> people to travel on this track." It is "extremely slippery". The Army
> holds that it is not an "immediate alternative possibility". Why then
> did he recommend development of this route? If the numbers are
> restricted, as he himself said, the Pahalgam route would suffice. Yet
> it is on the Baltal route that the controversial land was allotted.
>
> He did not recommend any acquisition of land. The Jammu and Kashmir
> Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board Act, 2000, set up a Board for
> "upgradation of facilities" for the pilgrims with the Governor as its
> head. The Board is empowered (Section 16 d) "to undertake
> developmental activities concerning the area of the Shrine and its
> surroundings" – and no more.
>
> S.K. Sinha became Governor in 2003. On July 2, 2004, a petition was
> filed in the High Court at Jammu, not in Kashmir where the Amarnath
> cave is situated, against the State government for just three reliefs
> – it must not interfere with the SASB's decision at its meeting in New
> Delhi on March 17, 2004; it must give up registration of yatris
> nationwide and quotawise; and it must not authorise a private
> helicopter service. No demand for land was made at that meeting at
> all. Only suitable accommodation for yatris and shelters – without
> allotment of land. The SASB supported the petition, "it is interesting
> to note", Justice Permode Kohli remarked in his judgment on April 15,
> 2005. He went far beyond the petition to grant reliefs it did not seek
> and counsel it did not ask for. He ordered extension of the yatra to
> two months. "The State should not object to it."
>
> The land issue surfaced in this judgment as an order to "permit user
> of the land by the Board" to upgrade the infrastructure along the
> route. The judge found the Baltal route "narrow and dangerous…." but
> then found "considerable improvement" on both routes – on evidence
> neither side had provided.
>
> On appeal, a Division Bench comprising Justices Y.P. Nargotra and V.K.
> Shanji gave interim directions on May 17, 2005, "without prejudice to
> the rights of the parties". No judgment was given. In regard to land,
> the word "user" was not used; it was allotment. "The land to be
> allotted by the Board would be only for the purposes of user." This is
> allotment, not permission for user. Allotment implies transfer of
> legal interest in the land, however limited. It is not sought in any
> of the pilgrimages in India or anywhere else. Local bodies do not
> "allot" land to bus companies. They permit them to erect stops and
> shelters on the route.
>
> Meanwhile, on May 29, 2005, the Secretary, Forest Department, Sonali
> Kumar, wife of the SASB's chief executive officer Arun Kumar, issued
> orders, at his request, for diversion of land to the SASB. His and the
> Governor's offensive remarks on reactions to the eventual order of
> allotment on May 26, 2008, need not be recalled here (see the writer's
> article "Why Kashmir erupts"; Frontline; August 1). Like the Central
> Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980, the State's Act of 1997 also lays
> down mandatory curbs, even for permits that forest land "may be used
> for any non-forest purpose". A Cabinet resolution based on the advice
> of an advisory committee is mandatory.
>
> The Secretary, Forest, overlooked this as did the three judges of the
> High Court. Chief Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed rescinded the order
> and stalled on S.K. Sinha's demands. The High Court stayed the
> rescission.
>
> In a letter of January 1, 2008, S.K. Sinha contended that the Governor
> is "sovereign ex-officio holder of the power… who acts on his own
> personal satisfaction and not on the aid and advice of the council of
> ministers… the member [of the Legislative Council] may be explained
> that he does not enjoy the powers to question the decisions of the
> body" (Greater Kashmir; June 12, 2008). This was insolent nonsense. As
> a statutory body, the SASB is amenable to the Court's orders and also
> to the Assembly's probes. S.K. Sinha even proposed to set up an
> independent Amarnath Development Authority on the stretch from
> Sonamarg to Pahalgam.
>
> Proceedings under the Act were taken only in 2007. The Law Department,
> the Advocate General and Law Minister Muzaffar Hussein Beig considered
> the applicability to Jammu and Kashmir of the Supreme Court's interim
> directions in a case on April 27, 2007. They were not. But on November
> 23, 2007, the Court gave its judgment in the case (T.N. Godavarman vs.
> Union of India (2008) 2 -SCC 222). Its observations bind Jammu and
> Kashmir. They were not considered before the Cabinet took the decision
> on May 20 or before the government passed the order on May 26. Both
> are bad in law. These facts are cited in the Forest Department's
> memorandum to the Cabinet for its decision dated February 26, 2008. It
> is gravely flawed and misrepresents the Advocate General and the Law
> Minister.
>
> It is noteworthy that the Supreme Court did not clear the project in
> that case although it would have helped the poor tribal people in that
> area. It made important observations on balancing development with
> environment concerns. In the Amarnath case, the land sought to be
> given is on the alternative, and not sole, route to the cave which is
> admittedly dangerous. Only a political agenda can explain such sheer
> obstinacy.
>
> The Forest Department's order of May 2008 went beyond "user"
> (paragraph 9). Arun Kumar said it was permanent and the yatra would be
> for the whole year (Rising Kashmir; June 17, 2008). The State
> government has now agreed to make the land available to the SASB for
> three months, reportedly. It wants to give "user rights"; the SASB
> wants "exclusive rights" (The Hindu; August 25). On August 30 the
> Sangharsh Samiti rejected the government's proposal on the grounds
> that it was not given "exclusive" rights. Within hours, the government
> caved in and accepted the Samiti's diktat. It will "set aside for the
> use by SASB exclusively the land in Baltal" and falsely characterise
> this as land traditionally under use for the use of the yatra. The
> accord is worse than the order, which never used the word "exclusive".
> The duration of use will be for the yatra and also from time to time
> as the SASB requires – a faint hint of user throughout the year. There
> is no provision for return of land. The accord is one-sided and void:
> it violates Section 2 of the Act of 1997.
>
> The 39.88 hectares of forest land were to be given "at Baltal and
> Domail", not on the main Pahalgam route. The Sengupta Report was to be
> abandoned - on the duration of the yatra and on the number of yatris.
> The yatra becomes a show of political strength, not a holy pilgrimage.
> The SASB's spokesman, Rajendra Mishra, said on August 18 that the
> numbers would increase. The accord if concluded will be void in law.
> The entire process has been irregular, most shockingly.
>
> It is bad enough that the Cabinet did not consider the Supreme Court's
> ruling. What is shocking is that the Forest Department's memo
> contained grave factual misrepresentations regarding Advocate General
> Altaf Husain Naik and Law Minister Muzaffar Hussain Beig. On August
> 26, Naik said in detail that the file in this case was "never"
> referred to him. His observations related to a different case of
> diversion of forest land. In equal detail, on August 27, Beig informed
> me that his views also quoted in the memo related to a different case.
> Clearly the Forest Department in its zeal pressed into service in the
> Amarnath case opinions by two lawyers given in an altogether different
> case and misrepresented them in effect. This vitiates the entire
> process.
>
> No order for diversion can be made now, even under an accord, unless
> the entire procedure under the Act of 1997 is undergone afresh.
> Section 2 of the Act mandatorily requires advice of the advisory
> committee which must be given afresh - plus "a resolution of the
> Council of Ministers", which will come into being only after the next
> elections.
> Mailed fist for valley
>
> REUTERS
>
> Trucks stranded on a road blocked by protesters in Jammu on August 26.
>
> The mailed fist is reserved for the valley. The few days of mammoth
> but unarmed rallies revealed nothing about popular sentiment that was
> not known before. S.K. Sinha himself said: "We have been able to
> control militancy in Kashmir but the mindset behind the separatist
> movement is intact" (Business Standard; August 16). Precisely.
> Militancy can be crushed. Alienation cannot be. It deepens with
> repression. It cannot be eradicated by the crackdown on August 24
> following the visit of M.K. Narayanan, National Security Adviser.
>
> S.K. Sinha could not have behaved as he did or even survived in office
> but for the Centre's backing, mainly, but not exclusively, by Home
> Minister Shivraj Patil. Even before the crackdown ordered by the
> Centre, the disparity in treatment was glaring. It has become worse
> since, because some in New Delhi sympathise with the agitators in
> Jammu and have been consistently and notoriously hostile to the ones
> in Srinagar. It is the same old story of "them" and "us". In Jammu, as
> Amitab Sinha remarked, "It is significant that despite loss of public
> property and defying of curfew and prohibitory orders by thousands of
> people, authorities have restrained themselves from making preventive
> arrests" (Indian Express; August 6). There were attacks on Muslims;
> the Gujjars' huts were torched.
>
> Muzamil Jaleel cited specific cases in Srinagar of the Central Reserve
> Police Force targeting ambulances ferrying the injured and, "in one
> instance, they opened fire at the entrance to a hospital's casualty
> ward" (Indian Express; August 15). Kashmir Times editorially censured
> police firing "inside the emergency and casualty wards of the SMHS
> hospital" (August 13).
>
> It is the very peaceful character of the Hurriyat's movement that
> unnerved New Delhi. "The change is that there is no militancy this
> time," Mirwaiz Umer Farooq said on August 16. "New Delhi cannot
> dismiss the demand of Kashmiris as militancy. Now, it has to address
> the issue [of Kashmir's status]."
>
> On August 23, a day before the crackdown, the United Jehad Council
> headed by Syed Salahuddin "unanimously decided to silence the guns in
> Kashmir" (Shujaat Bhukhari; The Hindu; August 24). The New York Times'
> Somini Sengupta reported from Srinagar: "The main city hospital was
> filled with Kashmiris shot and wounded by Indian security forces"
> (International Herald Tribune; August 23). On August 24 came the
> crackdown. "This is the strictest curfew in Kashmir in the past 20
> years" (Indian Express; August 27). Srinagar went without newspapers
> from August 24. Mediamen and even doctors with passes were beaten up.
>
> Whatever for? To soften the Hurriyat leaders to secure acceptance of
> the new land deal? And, indeed, what follows next? When Nehru arrested
> Sheikh Abdullah on August 9, 1953, he imagined that with repression
> over time Kashmir would submit. It did not. It will not now, either.
> Prime Minister Manmohan Singh must assert himself and, with his
> liberal instincts, ask himself two questions: What will be the
> consequences of appeasement in Jammu? And what will be the
> consequences of the repression in Kashmir? He can arrest the drift to
> disaster even now. How can elections be held in Jammu and Kashmir in
> this situation?
>
> Burke's speech in the House of Commons on March 22, 1775, on
> conciliation with rebellious America has stood the test of time: "The
> use of force alone is but temporary. It may subdue for a moment; but
> it does not remove the necessity of subduing again; and a nation is
> not governed which is perpetually to be conquered… conciliation
> failing, force remains, but force failing, no further hope of
> reconciliation is left."
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