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!