Kashmir on the fault line of its land

What has happened in Kashmir valley over the past four days is not a picture of whole India. India does have religious strife and sectarian conflict in galore. But the present trouble is a matter of constitutional problem of identity of Kashmiriat that was assured to the people of that state. However the dispute over the allotment of 39.88 hectares of land for temporary shelter to Hindu pilgrims taking shape of a permanent feature of the land is having deep impact on the Kashmiri psyche. That is threatening to make India what Jagmohan feared “a torn and tormented India, an India that is continuously at war with itself.” Certainly India is not a torn country although there is some torment and continuous friction thanks to BJP and even Congress. It will ever be there till a foreseeable future. The present phase is nothing short of “nuts and bolts of operational reality” of the conceded meager autonomy.
The retiring Governor SK Sinha had prepared the plan of granting of land for the Amarnath pilgrims. It has transpired that the temporary shelters in the form of makeshift tent camps would change into permanent guest houses in which the annual visiting pilgrims would stay. They would become full fledged settlements for good. The phobia of the “outsiders” occupying their land haunts the ordinary Kashmiris. The incoming Governor NN Vohra sanctioned the proposed bill. The popular perception is that there is no ruckus over either the pilgrims or improvement of their transit facilities. But taking away forest land and changing the shape into a different identity mark did not go well with the people. Hence the resentment that the governors have undeclared agenda of cutting corners of whatever special status is given to the region through the Resettlement Act of 1983 or otherwise.
The Kashmiris themselves do not cry foul at the governor who is invariably a Hindu. This is despite the fact that some governors have had close link with the right wing parties and were self avowed Hindutvavadi. But lawyers point out that in other states where Muslims are in significant number there is no such arrangement whereby there is a Hindu chief minister and a Muslim governor. Kerala is the antipode. Hurriyat Conference, Peoples Democratic Party or Democratic Freedom Party in the valley does not look at the rest of the country when they agitate over the issue. To them their separate status and identity matter more and they fear the land allotment is an encroachment. Or else why has the resentment become so endemic. Could not have the governors seen all this?
Interestingly the matter was first raised by PDP whose leader Qazi Mohammad Afzal is the forest minister. His supporters and others are not so much concerned that permanent structures could pose threat to the delicate ecology of the region what with plastic and polythene and other non biodegradable things mixing in the soil or felling of the trees and all. It is the tone and tenor of the administration where a governor can extend Amarnath Yatra for a whole month and bring confrontation with the Chief Minister to a head. As it happened during Mufti Sayeed’s tenure. Or, the Centre considering right to information celebrity Wajahat Habibullah to replace SK Sinha leading VHP and BJP to threaten a stir against the move. The central security forces have their own perspective. One CRPF soldier killed Farooq Ahmad Rahi (18) standing on the second floor of his house, not part of the protesters on the ground. There are also different hobby horses which the governors ride in a marked contrast to the elected representatives and their leader. Sinha wanted to manage not only Vaishno Devi pilgrimage but also start a Vaishno Devi University in Jammu. Creating a separate board for reviving Shiv Khori yatra in Reasi, Kailash Kund and the Machail yat in Doda and setting up of a Shardapeeth Unioversity in Kashmir were also on his anvil. As a senior reporter from the valley put it : the protest “reflects the people’s anger and distrust for outgoing governor Lt-Gen S.K. Sinha’s (retired) extra-constitutional ways of conducting himself and running the shrine board, and government’s silence over the matter,”
A divided administration on such a fault line bodes ill for the country as it did not so long ago.