Prof Hari Om
On June 30, 2002, a political development of far reaching importance took place at Kurukshetra. That day, Akhil Bharatiya Karyakari Mandal (National Executive) of RSS adopted a comprehensive resolution on the issues facing J&K. The resolution, inter-alia, demanded abrogation of Article 370 and division of J&K State into three separate entities, with statehood to the Jammu province and Kashmir and the Union Territory status for the trans-Himalayan Ladakh region. The RSS resolution, in addition, said that Central and the state Governments should hold a dialogue with the ‘Kashmiri Hindus, hounded out of their homes by Jihadi Muslim elements’ to find a way for their safe and secure rehabilitation in the Kashmir valley ‘which has been their home for thousands of years’.
The RSS had earlier appointed a three-member committee headed by a former Chief Justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, Justice Jitendra Veer Gupta, to go into the demand for the division of J&K. The other members of the committee were Bajrang Lal Gupta, a Delhi University Professor and Bal Apte, a key RSS ideologue and former Rajya Sabha MP. Bajrang Lal Gupta and other RSS leaders had also visited my University residence and discussed the whole issue for more than 90 minutes.
The Kurukshetra resolution partly endorsed the resolution adopted by Vishwa Hindu Parishad’s Kendriya Margdarshak Mandal (Central Advisory Committee) at Hardwar on June 23, the same month. The resolution of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), a front organisation of RSS, had advocated division of J&K into four separate states. Besides, the creation of separate states for Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh, the VHP had suggested formation of a buffer state out of areas northeast of Jhelum river between Kashmir and Jammu to provide a home for Kashmiri Hindus driven out by the radical Islamists. The Hardwar resolution, which included a factsheet containing umpteen instances of discrimination against Jammu and Ladakh, had also described the regime of the then Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah as a ‘Muslim Sultanate’.
Sadly, however, the then BJP-led NDA Government didn’t consider the Kurukshtra resolution. As a matter of fact, the then Deputy PM and Home Minister LK Advani opposed the idea of reorganising J&K on a regional basis. On July 3, he dismissed the trifurcation demand and said that ‘there is no question of any division of J&K and it doesn’t favour any such action’ and that ‘any such move will not help and will only weaken India’s case’. That day, he also met with RSS Chief K S Sudershan at the New Delhi’s Jhandewalan headquarters of the organization and told him that the Vajpayee Government didn’t endorse the Kurukshera resolution on J&K. Advani took the line he took despite the fact that J&K BJP itself had on three occasions adopted resolutions seeking ‘reorganisation of J&K on a regional basis’. Very significantly, on July 21, 2002, the then J&K Prantiya Prachark Indresh Kumar defended the Kurukshetra resolution at Dehradun. “Our demand for separate statehood for all the three regions of J&K is a step towards their bright future and it should not be seen as a division of the state but as its reorganisation. The demand for separate statehood for Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh regions was based on the geographic, historic and development conditions of those areas,” he had said. He had also accused the Kashmiri leadership of ‘grossly discriminating’ against the interest of other areas of the state, Jammu province in particular, and said that ‘in the legislature system the state is such that despite equal distribution of population, Jammu gets only 37 seats against 46 of Kashmir’.
However, things changed dramatically on August 5, 2019, when Narendra Modi Government not only scrapped divisive Article 370 and discriminatory and illegal Article 35A but also divided J&K State into two Union Territories – UT of Ladakh and UT of J&K. Unfortunately, the Modi Government didn’t treat Jammu like Ladakh. The people of Jammu province, on the one hand, hailed the August 5 historic reforms, and, on the other, regretted that the discriminated against and persecuted Jammu province was not separated from Kashmir whose leadership had left no stone unturned since 1947 to muddy the Indian waters in J&K and erode the distinct identity of Jammu province calculated to creating a Kashmir-like situation in this highly strategic region. It’s a different story that the BJP leadership at the local and national levels gave the hurt people of Jammu province to understand that their 72-year-old night of discontent and despair had ended and ‘a new day of rational hopes and just aspirations’ dawned. They gave the people of Jammu province to understand that they were ‘on threshold of a new era’ and that time of the ‘singing birds has come’ and the ‘voice of turtle’ will be heard in Jammu province. Nothing of this sort has happened. The people of Jammu province continued to suffer as before at all levels and in all spheres. One can site innumerable instances to establish that Kashmir, which became non-Muslim free in 1990, continues to get preferential and differential treatment and the powers-that-be in the UT and at the Centre continue to make unjust, invidious and humiliating distinctions between the people of Jammu province and Kashmir Valley.
A reference to just one latest instance would be enough to lay bare the disparities between the claim of the BJP leadership and the ground realities. The Department of Higher Education the other day reportedly identified colleges in the UT of J&K where Honor Courses will be introduced. It identified 27 government colleges in Kashmir for 4-year (3+1) Honor Course, as against only eight in Jammu province; 12 colleges in Kashmir for 5-year Honor Course, as against only five in Jammu province; and 26 colleges in Kashmir for 3-year Honor Course, as against only 12 in Jammu province. If it’s not unjust, invidious and humiliating distinction between the people of Jammu province and Kashmir Valley, what is? The whole point is that the people of Jammu province will get what they legitimately deserve only if the UT of J&K is bifurcated and separate Jammu State created. The RSS would do well to invoke the Jammu part of the Kurukshetra resolution failing which it will be presumed that it didn’t really mean what it said on June 30, 2002.