Small Separatism
With Ladakh all set to be elevated as a separate division, Chenab and Pirpanjal seek autonomy from Jammu region
The 2018 Kathua rape and murder case blew the lid on a smoking cauldron of rising communal tensions over Muslim settlers along the banks of the Tawi and Ravi rivers in Jammu. Local Dogra (Hindu) residents see the expanding settlements as a bid to invade Jammu in concert with Kashmir-centric political parties like the National Conference (NC) and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). And though the communal rift between Kashmir and Jammu isn’t new, Kathua underlined new fault lines within Jammu. It has brought the region, comprising 10 districts, to the precipice of an unbridgeable divide between the Hindu and Muslim residents, who have mostly lived in harmony. Even as it sparked outrage across the nation, the horror of Kathua spurred dormant regional aspirations with the Muslimdominated Chenab Valley and Pirpanjal, spread over the districts of Doda, Kishtwar, Ramban, Poonch and Rajouri, raising demands for ‘azadi’ from Jammu. It has gained traction since Governor Satya Pal Malik’s approval to greater
KATHUA UNDERLINED NEW FAULT LINES WITHIN THE JAMMU REGION
administrative and financial powers for the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council (LAHDC) on September 26, 2018, and his feelers to the BJP council members on December 5 that Ladakh could be notified as a separate division.
Besides a full-fledged state university, division status entitlements include independent administration and equitable developmental funds for regions that have reportedly suffered discrimination. LAHDC’s chief executive councillor Jamyang Tsering Namgyal wants Ladakh to be pencilled out of the J&K map: “We want administrative autonomy and separation from Kashmir,” he says, accusing the NC and PDP regimes of discrimination.
The issue of regional autonomy has drawn distinct battle lines. While the BJP and the Congress support a separate division status for Ladakh, the NC and the PDP want similar concessions for the Muslim-dominated areas of the Jammu region. Khalid Najeeb Soharwardi, a former NC minister from the Chenab Valley, accuses right-wing parties like the BJP of using religion to instil fear amid Jammu’s Hindus. He says autonomy to Chenab will lead to the development of the region.
Spooked by the expanding Muslim settlements, right-wing politicians have been crying foul regarding an alleged bid to alter Jammu’s demography. But the fact is that the influx is being driven by the abysmal educational and health infrastructure in the Chenab and Pirpanjal areas. This has forced migrations to Srinagar and Jammu for decades. And Jammu has been a preferred destination ever since militancy erupted in the Valley in the 1990s.
Ameer Mohammad Shamsi, a Rajouri-based Jamaate-Islami functionary, argues that contemporary communal tension is rooted in the Dogra (Hindu) aversion to Muslims. Kathua, he says, brought the schism to the surface. Interestingly, Lal Singh, the BJP minister who swore solidarity with the accused in the Kathua case and in December launched the headquarters of ‘Dogra Swabhiman Sangathan’ against the “stepmotherly” treatment to Jammu, is espousing separate statehood to the region. Singh has been raising emotive issues like fines imposed on Jammu farmers for not paying toll tax while 70,000 trucks carrying apples from Kashmir are issued free pass.
Former president of J&K State Sikh Gurudwara Prabandhak Board Sudershan Singh Wazir has suggested equal treatment to Ladakh, Chenab and Pirpanjal for ending the conflict. Or else, he says, it would lead to more conflicts, including a push for reservation of assembly seats for the Sikhs. “If Ladakh is elevated as a division, the aspirations of Chenab and Pirpanjal have to be taken into consideration too,” Singh, the Jammu-based chief editor of Urdu daily Azaan-e-Sahar, argues.