Censoring the discrimination - Delimitation and Jammu & Kashmir

Within hours of assuming charge, the new Home Minister of the country, Amit Shah held closed door meetings with Governor of J&K Satyapal Malik, Union Home Secretary Rajiv Gauba, Intelligence Bureau chief Rajiv Jain and senior officials of the Jammu Kashmir Division of the Home Ministry. The speculated outcome was clear. A big decision was on the way for the state of Jammu & Kashmir. Speculations hovered over what and how big the decision could be. Soon headlines flashed - "According to the sources, MHA is planning to delimit the Legislative Assembly constituencies of the state." Every news channel showed this as a breaking news, 9 PM primetimes covered it and soon after, the decision started drawing wrath of the ex-Chief Ministers of the state, Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti, both claiming to be the undisputed mouthpieces of the majority section of the state. Next morning, after the newspapers published the same news on their front pages, the MHA issued a statement saying no such decision has been taken and no such proposal was under it's consideration. Though these speculations invited wrath from Kashmir, it emerged as a ray of hope for the 5.6 million people of Jammu and Ladakh divisions, who have been the victim of regional discrimination and chauvinism due to Kashmir centric politics since the last 70 years.  

 Stereotyping, the Kashmiri hegemony and demand for a seperate state. 

The first question as a resident of J&K state we are asked is "You live in Jammu. It snows there na?" Initially exasperated, now I reply to this question with a smile. The people, who can conventionalize every South Indian as a Madrasi, for them it can snow in Jammu. Lamentably, the stereotyping and presenting the picture of Kashmir as that of whole J&K state by the media has to be blamed for the same. Notable thing here is that the tensions and the conflict is limited to Kashmir region only. People of Jammu and Ladakh have been the worst victims of this stereotype. I can call this as a cultural and social discrimination. But a similar discrimination persists in the intra-state affairs too. The muffled cries of these people for equal representation in every field have almost gone in vain. Since the legislature has been constituted in the state, out of 17 terms of the Chief Minister/Prime Minister posts, only 1 has been held by a Jammu native, Dr. Ghulam Nabi Azad. Ladakh never gave a CM. On contrary, it is rarely given a berth in the state cabinet. There have been several allegations on the government for it's bias towards Kashmir, many of which have been proved. The state machineries of Police, Banking, Government departments, all of them have been alleged for prefering  Kashmiris in employment matters. All such cases have led to protests from the people of Jammu, the most recent one being the huge variance in the cut-off levels of the J&K Bank entrance exam for the applicants of Kashmir and Jammu. 

Divisions of J&K state
Orange - Jammu
Green - Kashmir
Blue - Ladakh

Several RTIs have uncovered the facts that a major portion of the Centre's funds allocated to the state is diverted to the northern division. The remainder is always less. In brief, the state apparatus, from the post of a sweeper to the Chief Minister's, all are subject to monopoly of the majority section. 

These discrepancies have led to demand for seperate statehood for Jammu and union territory status for Ladakh, in order to end the Kashmiri subjugation.  

History has been witness to the facts that the statehood movements have always found their roots in Language movements. Andhra Pradesh became the first state to be crafted on linguistic lines in 1953. This was followed by implementation of the Reorganisation of Indian States Act, 1956, which changed the geo-political map of India completely. Post-1956, the Jai Andhra, Samyukta Maharashtra and many other linguistic movements took place, which led to the creation of these states. Incongruously, language remains one of the last things which can bind the people of Jammu. The language Dogri, traces it's roots back in 13th century and is the mother tongue of 60% of the division's population. Unlike the southern states or the states of West bengal or Maharashtra, where people have a sense of pride for their language, nothing like that can be sensed in this region or for that matter, in the state. The most unfortunate fact is that people of this state, be it the Dogras or the Kashmiris, never loved their language. Neither Kashmiri, nor Dogri is the official language of the state. It is Urdu, the language which evolved in the regions of Uttar Pradesh. 



Keeping aside the language factor, one of the most popular statehood movements which stood on the basis of the same regional bias and not on linguistic differences was the Telangana movement. A movement which lasted for more than a half century and claimed more than 400 lives. Regional political leaders steered the wheel and students pulled the cart of the movement. Both the factors, unfortunately remain absent in case of Jammu. The spark for a revolution remains absent in the youth and there is no such leader in which the trust of all 5 million people can be vested. 



Since the state came into being, the only time when Jammu's protest brought the entire state at halt for more than 2 months was in 2008. The state and the Union government decided to transfer 99 acres of land to the Amarnath Shrine board to provide shelter and facilities to the Hindu pilgrims. The decision drew massive protest from the Muslim-dominated Kashmir. In the following days, when the state government seemed to succumb to the demands of Kashmiris, people of Jammu stepped in. Jammu witnessed one of the biggest protests ever in it's history. From a 5 year old boy to a 90 year old woman, everyone came out on roads and supported the land transfer and opposed the Kashmiri opposition to it. This "mini revolution" might had started as a matter of religious concern, but ended up as a regional war, with Jammu Muslims and Sikhs supporting the Hindus. After a 61 days long struggle, the government agreed to transfer half of the land to the Shrine board. Though only half of the demands were accepted, it was considered as a major victory of Jammu and above all, it's secular nature. 

Pro-Amarnath Land transfer protests in Jammu city, 2008

The biggest issues of the regional, or rather say the majority-minority discrimination have surfaced after the rise of militancy in Kashmir in 1990. The Kashmir centric state government has been alleged for facilitating demographic change in Jammu division, most cases in the winter capital of the same name. The area around the Sunjuwan military station, which has been subject to several terrorist attacks is exclusively put on sale for the majority sect of the state for residential purposes. Newspaper classifieds clearly and openly mention - "Plot for sale in Bhatindi area only for Muslims".Therefore, terming this discrimination only regional won't be appropriate. The biggest exodus since the partition of India stands witness to this unjustice. It was the time when the Kashmir centric government favoured, either directly or indirectly, the terror elements in the state. Farooq Abdullah resigned along with his cabinet on 19th January, 1990, the day when exodus of 300,000 Kashmiri Pandits started. The mismanagement caused by his government and the preceding governments took a complete decade for the state to return to normalcy. Some areas, still remain sensitive.  The 2014 State assembly elections gave a hung verdict, with the PDP emerging as the single largest party with 28/87 seats and BJP the 2nd largest with 25/87. Together, they formed a coalition government which couldn't even complete it's 4 years. The PDP got it's seats from Kashmir and the BJP from Jammu. Following the same "ritual", Mufti Mohd. Sayeed of PDP became the usual Kashmiri Chief Minister and Jammu's Nirmal Singh from BJP became the Dy. Chief Minister. While people still had hope that BJP's participation in the government through Jammu would help bridge the regional disparities, their hopes were shattered relentlessly. Out of the total 24 cabinet berths, Kashmir got 14, Jammu got 9 and mockingly Ladakh got just 1. What turned even more exasperating was the powerlessness of the Jammu ministers in front of the Kashmir centralised government. This impotency got a concrete base when the illegal Rohingya refugees were illegally settled in the winter capital. 90% of the total illegal Rohingya settlements of India are in Jammu city. Anti-Rohingya protests had been heating up the city. While the local ministers assured action against them, they could not even convince the Chief Minister to give a formal public statement on the crisis. That was the level of powerlessness. However, this was nothing new. Images of National Conference party meetings with Farooq Abdullah and other leaders sitting on chairs and leaders from Jammu sitting on floors have been viral on the social media. Previous governments' Jammu ministers have often been criticised for their impotency. 

Can delimitation of constituencies help ease the problem?

Maybe yes or maybe no.

When the Jammu Kashmir Constituent (later Legislative) Assembly was set up in 1951, Sheikh Abdullah's administration arbitrarily carved out 30 seats for Jammu region and 43 seats for Kashmir region and 2 seats for Ladakh region. This regional disparity became entrenched thereafter: Kashmir (46), Jammu (37) and Ladakh (4). The under representation of Jammu at 42% and over representation of Kashmir at 53% in the legislature is a clear sign of regional discrimination.

Just as in the Constitution of India, Article 47(3) of the Jammu Kashmir constitution clearly states that -

"Upon the completion of each census, the number, extent and boundaries of the territorial constituencies shall be readjusted by such authority".

In 2002, the BJP led NDA government at the center froze the delimitation of Lok Sabha constituencies till the next census after 2026, i.e. in 2031. The then Chief Minister of the state, Farooq Abdullah implemented the similar law for the assembly constituencies, making Jammu and Kashmir the only state to freeze the delimitation. Last delimitation for the assembly constituencies took place under the President's rule in 1995 after formulating the suggestions of Justice (retd.) KK Gupta Commission. 

While the local Kashmiri parties think that the freeze cannot be withdrawn, what makes the scenario more interesting is that during the President's rule, all the legislature powers are vested in the Governor, who administers the state on behalf of the President. Therefore, the governor and further, the Home Ministry can legally function on behalf of the Legislature and continue the process of delimitation, serving justice to the minorities, people of Jammu and Ladakh and might pave way for the first Hindu Chief Minister of Jammu & Kashmir.

 Ruins of the 1200 year old ancient Krimchi temple complex, Udhampur, Jammu.