‘Represents systematic disempowerment of the people of J&K’

SRINAGAR: The People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD), a conglomerate of five regional parties formed for the restoration of special status of Jammu and Kashmir, on Friday termed a recent report on development by the GoI as “concocted” and “fabricated”.

The Alliance’s spokesperson MY Tarigami said the GoI’s report, titled ‘The Dream of One Nation, One Law, One Symbol Fulfilled’, represented a systematic disempowerment of the people of J&K, which is continuing to happen through bureaucratic rule.

“The reality is that Nashri Tunnel, Zojila Tunnel, establishment of 50 degree colleges and various medical colleges are projects approved much before the abrogation of Article 370,” Tarigami said.

Released on September 20, the report asserted that abrogating Article 370 has “erased the pain of people” and created new industries, boosted employment opportunities, reduced terror incidents, removed corruption, and brought new Central laws for the “betterment of people”.

Targami said the projects mentioned in the report were approved before the abrogation of J&K’s special status in 2019, and are falsely shown as “an outcome of abrogation of Article 370.” He said that the report was fabricated to an extent that it claimed the Rs 80,000-crore development package was an outcome of abrogation of Article 370. The package was released when the Peoples Democratic Party-Bharatiya Janata Party coalition government was in power in 2015.

“How is that possible?” Tarigami asked. “The state of Jammu and Kashmir was a pioneer in implementing revolutionary land reforms laws, which no other state has done except Kerala to some extent. Similarly, the erstwhile state’s own RTI Act was stronger than the Union law,” he said.

What has happened since the abrogation of Article 370, Tarigami said, was that Kashmir has been opened up for corporates, for the purpose of land acquisition for real estate development or for sheer speculation on land price.

Tarigami said that JK “got the same benefit from many schemes as other states, schemes such as Pradhan Mantri Kisan Scheme and the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna.”

Under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna, the government claimed in its report to have built two lakh houses in Jammu and Kashmir.

“The slogan of ‘development’, in short, is a red herring,” Tarigami said. “Why then has the Central government done what it has? The common answer is that it has been a long-standing demand of the Hindutva elements, with an eye, no doubt, on altering the demographic composition of the only Muslim-majority State in the country,” Tarigami said.

  Kashmir 370

Junaid Nabi Bazaz