THE REAL STORY BEHIND THE SASB LAND TRANSFER!

This Write up of mine appeared in the Daily Greater Kashmir on the 28th June, 2008.

The coalition government and the SASB has created an atmosphere of total anarchy, bloodshed and turmoil to benefit few Indian politicians in Delhi, is it worth, Lets find out ,
The other day in one of the local newspaper I read that a union minister who was on a visit to the valley was pained to see the plight of Dal lake, and so he wanted to save it. I wonder did he really mean it or was it just to feed the media with lofty thoughts. Every time these Indian ministers come to visit Kashmir on a leisure trip, they either name it as an official visit to develop Kashmir or to facilitate the dialog process, its so comical to see people taking what they really don’t mean, or in other words hoodwink the gullible .lets find out the latest controversy created by the coalition government about the much hyped land transfer to the Shrine board, Lets not forget a young man lost his life for this.
The Fact File
The origin of Amarnath Yatra dates back to the year 1850 A.D, when a Muslim shepherd from Batakot, named Botta Malik first discovered the cave with shivling made of ice. According to tale, Buta Malik was given a sack of coal by a Sadhu. Upon reaching his home he discovered that the sack, in fact, contained gold. Overjoyed and overcome, Buta Malik rushed back to look for the Sadhu and thank him, but on the spot of their meeting discovered the cave and eventually this became a place of pilgrimage for all believers. So pleased was the Dogra king Maharaja Gulab Singh by this discovery that he decreed that a representative of the Malik family would always be present at the holy shrine, along with the Hindu priest and Pundits of Ganeshpora, during the period of the pilgrimage each year. Also the family of the muslim shepherd was granted a large estate near Pahalgam and exempted from paying land revenue to the state. Further one third of all the offerings made at the shrine each year were to be given to the Malik family as reward until…..

The Cunning policies of politicians

The coalition cabinet decided to allot 800 kanals of land to the SASB at Baltal in Sonmarg and Domail at Pahalgam without even thinking about the consequences of devastating the whole forest land. People opposing the project alleged that it would harm the greenery in the tourist spots. Every one is just guessing why now, The reason is that the assembly elections are just four months away. The latest controversy was triggered by outgoing Governor S.K. Sinha’s letter to the state government demanding the establishment of an independent development authority controlled by the Amarnath Shrine Board. Subsequently, the Azad-PDP government decided to transfer forestland to the Board .Surprisingly, now the same PDP, PDF , etc the coalition constituents have started exploiting this situation, and PDP, has openly accused the Congress of blackmailing their ministers and forcing them to accept the controversial land transfer. Although Chief Minister Azad is silent over the issue.
The Amarnath Shrine Board, meanwhile, has become an emotive issue in the Hindu-dominated districts of Jammu where both the Congress and the BJP, are trying to exhibit their Jammu-centric credentials by supporting the Shrine Board as well as Raj Bhawan. While as the PDP for their face saving have reversed their stand, Look what the chief parton of the PDP had to say in his statement “I am pained at the turn of events and would advise caution to all the stakeholders in the State’s ecology, environment and cultural identity as also the government and the SASB. What the PDP doesn’t say is that the party’s own ministers — Forest Minister Qazi Afzal and Deputy Chief Minister Muzaffar Hussain Beig didn’t have a problem with the land transfer when forest officials first objected. I read it in one of the news papers and I quote “memorandum for submission to the cabinet” was tabled in May revealed that senior Forest ministry officials rejected the report of the D F O, Sindh and Wildlife Warden, who warned that construction of the shrine board complex on forest land would have an adverse impact on the adjacent Thajwas wildlife sanctuary. Another senior Forests official had said that “the uncontrolled flow of yatris will cause pollution which will have some impact on the wildlife if no mitigating measures are initiated by the shrine board authorities” and the area is a “habitat of the endangered brown bear, leopard and panther”. The case was referred to Advisory Committee where the Chief Wildlife Warden rejected the observations, calling it “overcautious and environmentally conservative approach”. Even then Qazi Afzal, a senior PDP leader, did not object to the Chief Wildlife Warden’s decision( may be that’s why graduation should be the minimum qualification for a politicians ). What’s more, the General Administration Department had thrice returned the Forest Ministry proposal for land diversion to the shrine board, seeking clarifications. Each time, the Forest ministry argued that the land diversion should go through. The cabinet, in fact, had deferred a decision on the land diversion proposal last February. After getting clearance from the Advisory Committee, the forest land diversion rain into another hurdle: a recent Supreme Court order had made it mandatory for such forest land diversion to go through the apex court before clearance. The forests in J&K are not governed by Central laws and the state has its own conservation laws. The Forest department decided to seek the opinion of the Law department, the Central Empowered Committee and the Advocate General. The Law department advised the Forest department “to move an application before the Supreme Court and await clarification in the matter”. The empowered committee, however, said that the J&K government did not need to seek clarification from the Supreme Court. The issue was again sent for an opinion to the Law department which advised that the apex court be approached.
Now read this
“Finally, the case was sent to Deputy Chief Minister Muzaffar Hussain Beig — he is also the Law Minister for a final decision. Beig cleared the proposal, terming the Law department view of approaching the apex court “abundant caution” and agreed with the view that there was no need to approach the apex court. Now the same Hon. Minster, in a local channel warns the congress of withdrawing support if they do not revoke the order. Mr. Beig who are u fooling sir or May be you are trying to score points over your humiliating ouster from the cabinet in 2006 by mufti sayeed, but unfortunately it’s too late to fool people anymore. Likewise the Indian media is flaring up the issue, with such cheap headlines “Shri Amarnath Shrine Board (SASB) received huge land parcel from the Jammu and Kashmir State Government – Islamic terrorists launch massive anti-hindu campaign” and they claim to be from the largest democracy.
And finally
I appreciate Omar Abdullaha when asked on NDTV about the issue, He demanded to handover the shrine to kashmiri pundits, with a argument that the two communities have lived in total harmony and facilitated the yatra with much fervor all these years, even in bad times when a few years back a massive storm took many lives of yatris ,the first people to come to their rescue was a local Muslim . We should take a cue from that, Like Kenneth Woodward said “The human species has no doubt sinned against the environment, but it has also sinned against itself - and God - which is why stories of redemption still possess power, even in an ecological age”. God save Kashmir!

DIALOG THE ONLY SOLUTION

This write up of mine was published in one of the prestigious newpaper

The Greater Kashmir

Nobody wants a war or rather, no one in his senses ought to do so, without being clear in our minds we intend to achieve something but eventually lose every thing. It is a principle that has often been seen never more so than in the conflict of Kashmir for the last 18 years. But it is clear that the response to such challenges has not exhibited the clarity of aim. Muddle and hesitation, misguided compromise with the perpetrators of atrocities and the initiators of conflicts, seesaws of public opinion, and dissent among various political parties have marked the down fall of many nations and in our case the state of Jammu and Kashmir. It can be argued that those who win wars do so because they have a better understanding of both the past and the future than their opponents. To draw out the threads that connect the struggles of recent years is thus not only interesting, but may be vital. After Kargil war, one of the most important lessons to be learned that in 21st century wars are never a solution. Kashmir is a debatable subject which can only be addressed by a dialogue. Kashmir has all along seen people taking about Peace and in this context a debate or a dialogue has a lot of relevance.
Dialogue or a debate There are many human needs that people have and these needs are often the cause of unnecessary conflict or the escalation of a small dispute because one of the two parties does not realize that they are not meeting the others needs. During interpersonal communication, the other person has a need for you to listen to their ideas and to acknowledge them. The need to be heard also goes with the need to express one’s inner feelings without the fear of evaluation, judgment, or reprisal for making it known. Had the issue of Kashmir been discussed in its inception may be the hundred thousand lives we lost would have been saved.
Independence of Expression Autonomy is a basic human need. We hate to be forced to do anything without a say or choice in the matter and many of us will resist or defy just based on not having a say in the matter. Parents are the best experts on this need. When we tell our child to go to bed or to brush their teeth, or to eat their vegetables, or take their medicine, what is the response? “No” It’s not so much that they don’t disagree with the decision, but merely that they want to exert their own independence and free-will into the process. As adults, we are no different; we’ve just found more creative ways to articulate “No.” In this part of the world killings of political activists are very unfortunate, You tend to forget that we are discouraging the future policy makers of our nations therefore we fail to attract people with impeccable charter to join politics for the fear of being labeled or killed.
Accountably and free will Realize that everyone has a curious nature. It is programmed in us. Once our interest is sparked by something, we usually can’t leave it alone until we get a satisfactory answer on it. Therefore if we shut someone down with a position that offers no explanation or reason, then this will create resistance and resentment. Bureaucrats and authority figures often get into the bad habit of telling people that nothing can be done because “its policy” or “its the law.” This shuts them down without offering an explanation to them that satisfies their need. Their only recourse then is to take it out onto the person by making them the villain. These few reasons will find a lot of merit in the conflict of Jammu and Kashmir. Even in the so called Modern world, the Americans feel that conflicts can be solved by its army. The institutional obstinacy of the armed forces has reinforced by the huge insensitivity of politicians which add to the casualties of Humans. And they are subject to unremitting attention from the media, intensifying the public expectation that the military campaign will bring swift results without serious casualties among the forces employed or among civilians in the area of operations.. The British had found a ‘secret weapon’ in the ‘combination of insistence on the arms embargo with a military presence to protect humanitarian aid’. It was a combination that froze Western policy in IRAQ to the worst possible posture. Two things that gave India the edge, for a while. First, Being the largest Democracy, it played its “Democracy Card” very well. Second, Western policy helped them enormously, helping them politically to showdown the uprising in Kashmir and make it look like “Terrorism “. Both Manmohan and Musharraf, the contributors to The Peace Process should quote the same passage, that points clearly toward the need to understand the nature of the conflicts into which peoples and nations are put first. Misunderstanding the conflict and you will fight the wrong war, fight when you should not fight at all, or fail to fight when that is the only right course. The Indian’s and pakis exhibit all three possibilities, and the conflict that began 50 years back carries the same potential for error, But with a Huge rider that the stakes today are even higher.