Omkar Dattatray
It seems and appears true that Prime Minister Package employees are the children of lesser God and are lesser creatures in the estimation and schemes of the NDA Government led by BJP. These unfortunate and hapless package employees have been reduced to the place and position of persona non-gratia. They are insignificant before and in the estimation of the BJP to whom in past the Kashmiri Pandits and their sad plight was the pet theme of their politics perhaps for the vested and selfish purpose of vote bank politics. The BJP used them many times in the past as the sufferings of the displaced Pandits were at the heart of the right wing politics. But now it seems that the BJP is dumping the Kashmiri Pandits including the package employees and their genuine issues of survival. Today the same BJP which was once parroting and raising the issues and concerns of the uprooted community of Kashmiri Pandits has today forgotten these minuscule minority Pandits and the package employees and therefore they have no time to meet the agitating package employees and have discredited and dumped them as useless creatures. The step motherly and discriminatory treatment is meted to the package employees who are agitating for over two months under the humid climate and incessant rains in this monsoon season. But the NDA dispensation of the centre and the LG administration is not paying any attention towards the protesting package employees perhaps under the wrong impression and notion that acceding the demand of the survival and considering their relocation/attachment demand will be akin to handing over the Kashmir to militants. Besides the BJP government is under a wrong notion that relocating the package employees outside the Kashmir valley is the failure of the return and rehabilitation policy. But in actuality it is not true because the return /rehabilitation of the Kashmiri Pandits and the special Prime Minister Employment package are two different things and to club the two different things as one if wrong and faulty and clubbing them together is bound to prove counterproductive. The fact is that the employment package is an economic package and it has to do nothing with the comprehensive and broad return and rehabilitation policy. The UPA government has given the special employment package to give some sort of succor to the educated youth of the uprooted Kashmiri Pandit community by way of providing government jobs to the jobless Kashmiri Pandit youth. But as ill luck would have to the youth of the Kashmiri Pandit displaced community, the scheme was implemented falsely and erroneously in year 2010 when the Pandit youth were forced to sign a bond at the time of joining the government job to the effect that the posts under the prime ministers special package are non transferrable and the appointee will be liable to termination if he seeks transfer. It is sheer injustice with these hapless employees. Thus under a well planed manner the Package employees stand deprived of their right of transfer to divisions other than Kashmir. This signing of the agreement by the package employees is void and unlawful from ab-initio and therefore it is the severe discrimination with the hapless package employees. But the government as the other party has violated the bond/agreement as it stipulated that the government will be bound to construct dwellings for the package employees and only then the appointed youth can be asked to join the duty in Kashmir and the government failed to provide accommodation to the majority of the package employees with the result that they are forced to live on rent accommodation on very high rent in scattered manner where no security is possible. The discrimination with Prime Minister Package employees continues under the NDA government which is headed by BJP, as the party is disregarding, overlooking and ignoring the issues of the displaced Kashmiri Pandits including Prime Minister package employees. The centre government and the LG administration is not paying any attention towards the demands, sentiments and aspirations of the package employees as it they are lesser mortals and do not fit in the politics of the BJP. It is very unbecoming and unfortunate that MoS Home Nitayanand Rai has given an unrealistic statement that the Prime Minister Package employees will not be shifted/transferred to Jammu under any circumstance. The statement shows the insensitiveness of the centre government and their no seriousness towards the genuine demand of the package employees. The statement of the MoS Home further shows that the NDA government is hell bent to make Prime Minister package employees as the sacrificial goats under its faulty policy of return and rehabilitation of Kashmiri Pandits. The government is only experimenting with the exiled Kashmiri Pandits and the package employees as if they are some animals or laboratory products. Thus the government is experimenting on the uprooted Kashmiri Pandits including the Prime Minister Package employees in the gas chambers of the secular laboratory. Therefore the government does not show any concern and sympathy towards the protesting package employees as if these innocent employees are demanding something unrealistic which cannot be conceded by the powers and as if it will dent the credibility of the centre government. The BJP government is parroting and drum beating about the improvement in the situation in Kashmir valley and claims that the situation is normal in Kashmir. But the ground reality show that there is no normalcy in Kashmir as the security forces, Kashmiri Pandits, package employees, Jammu based employees and the non local laborers and other Hindu minorities and even the Sikh minorities are targeted and killed and this exposes the normality claim of the centre government. Some allege that the MoS Home Nitayanand Rai has dished wrong and misleading statistics in the Parliament in which he has said that the government has provided government job to 5500 Kashmiri Pandits since August 5, 2019 that is post abrogation of controversial article 370.But the fact is that the employment figure of 5500 also includes the youth from other Hindu community, Sikhs and even Muslim migrants. The MoS Home has also stated that no Kashmiri Pandit has migrated after the targeted killings of the Pandits and other Hindu minorities, but the people allege that a large number of the Pandit package employees and their families have migrated post targeted killings. The centre government as well as the LG administration is ignoring, disregarding and even not paying lip sympathy towards Kashmiri Pandits including Prime Minister Package employees. The government is disregarding the issues and concerns of the Prime Minister Package employees and is ignoring their genuine demand of relocation to Jammu division. This way the powers at the helm of affairs are not paying any attention towards the striking package employees with the result the employees fell let down by the government. The government is not sensitive and serious towards the demand of the protesting package employees and this shows that the government is regarding the package employees very insignificant but the powers should know that a little spark can burn the magnificent buildings to ashes and thus the Kashmiri Pandits have the determination and will to force the indifferent government to accede the genuine and one point demand of their relocation/shifting to Jammu till the complete normalcy is restored in Kashmir. The centre government and the LG administration has not shown any concern, empathy and sympathy towards the protesting package employees and this has led to dissatisfaction and mental agony among the package employees who are protesting for their safety and survival. In fact, Prime Minister Package employees are caught between tow stools as they are forced to choose between the livelihood and the life and this is the great tragedy and reality. To conclude it can be safely opined that Prime Minister Package employees are the children of lesser God in eyes of the people at the helm of affairs.
(The author is a Columnist
and Social-Activist).
