Jammu V/s Kashmir

Vijay K. Sazawal

Unlike the sustained uprising in Kashmir in 1990 which was mostly orchestrated by Pakistani trained operatives, the uprising in the summer of 2008 was mostly indigenous, spontaneous and massive. The opening salvo, it would seem, was fired discreetly by the coalition partner, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). Networking with a group of seasoned journalists who write for Srinagar-based newspapers, the PDP let out a canard ahead of the state cabinet meeting on May 20, 2008, that the Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board (SASB) under the patronage of its Chairman, the Governor of the state, was planning to construct a large township in Baltal, to be named Amarnath Nagar, near the holy Amarnath Cave. There were other, even more serious accusations, the most disturbing of which was that the Governor was trying to change the demographics of the valley by using the SASB authority to resettle nonresident Hindus in the region. It took time for this news to make the rounds among Kashmiri political analysts and public. The PDP had perhaps hoped that Kashmir would be on fire by the time the state cabinet would meet on Tuesday, May 20, 2008, but that did not happen. In the local media, other than a story or two, the SASB episode was treated with the same mixture of curiosity and disdain as the "Pakistani currency" or the "joint management of Baglihar hydel project," and a few other odd nuggets that PDP habitually threw out like the proverbial hand grenades once in a while.
Perhaps the most significant story on the SASB-related rumors was printed on 11th May 2008 in the leading pro-separatist newspaper in the valley, where a well respected political commentator mixed nationalism with religious chauvinism in opposing the "so-called Hindu invasion" by declaring, "Islam is a reality in Kashmir, which was chosen here by the people to liberate themselves from the highly oppressive social, economic and religious order established by the Brahaminical system." The same journalist would later claim that "the saddest part of the debate surrounding the Amarnath Yatra is that it has attained communal colors, when the question is fundamentally environmental." But that would come much later. Interestingly, both senior PDP ministers -- the Law Minister Muzaffar Hussain Baig (who also served as the Deputy Chief Minister) and the Forest Minister Qazi Mohammad Afzal -- attended the May 20 cabinet meeting. Neither of the PDP ministers made any specific objections when the cabinet voted in favor of the Forest Department’s written recommendation to allow the SASB request seeking non-proprietary transfer of 38.88 hectares (about 800 kanals) of land to SASB. It should be remembered that the SASB had made the request for nearly 180 hectares in 2004 and it had taken nearly four years of due diligence, reviews, court orders, negotiations and official approvals by various departments and ministries that eventually ended up paring down the original request for land transfer to the very minimum for building comfort facilities for Hindu pilgrims in transit. The Cabinet Decision Number 94/7 of May 20, 2008, clearly states that the SASB has only non-proprietary rights to the land and is explicit regarding the compensation that must precede any construction -- a payment of Rs. 2,31,30,400, and an additional Rs. 19,94,000 on account of compensatory afforestation to be carried over twice the requested land surface (79.66 hectares).