DOST KHAN
Jammu: Jammu has been last priority for the rulers, both in New Delhi and in Srinagar. The peculiar mindset has left this region vulnerable to all sort of exploitation. The new dispensation at the Centre has not made any significant difference, unfortunately, despite very loud claims, day-in and day-out. Had it been so, the border dwellers, rendered homeless due to latest spate of ceasefire violations in Samba and Kathua districts, would not have been left to fend for themselves with politicians caring two hoots for them.
The incessant ceasefire violations along the International Border have uprooted over 3,000 dwellers yet again. There has been no respite in the skirmishes, as intermittent firing is continuing, leaving civilians dead, some of them injured and the whole lot scared. However, the trauma has not evoked the response it should have since the state of Jammu and Kashmir stands abandoned for months together-first due to flash floods and now because of political wrangling that has come in the way of forming the government.
In fact, Jammu and Kashmir stands abandoned since the day nature created fury and left many parts of the state, mostly in Kashmir, inundated with gushing flood waters devastating posh localities. Chief Minister Omar Abdullah is on record having stated that he was left with no government during those turbulent days. The aghast-nation watched him desperately moving around in the company of armed forces, at times dropping relief material for the marooned population, as the civil administration had almost submerged in inertia. Then came the announcement of elections to the Legislative Assembly and the implementation of Model Code of Conduct (MCC), which virtually rendered the state abandoned. That was precisely the date when the ministers stopped visiting Secretariat and attending to their bonafide duties. The reasons were manifold-conduct of campaigning and compulsion of MCC. The later is perhaps a subject that needs countrywide debate as far as existence of the ministry that refuses to work on the pretext of MCC. How come the political executives keep drawing their wages without any work done? This is a mute question that shall keep craving for answers.
Another catastrophe came in the shape of fractured mandate that left the Governor no option but to ask the incumbent Chief Minister to look after his administration till new arrangement was made. The arrangement seems to be elusive and instead of looking after the affairs of the state, the ministerial lot is still in the mode of inertia. But what about the State; will it continue to remain in the state of freeze in absence of the government?
The pain of Jammu border dwellers is no less than those of flood sufferers, for whom the mainstream politicians were very vocal ahead of elections. Both ruling and the opposition camps; leaders from Jammu, as also from Srinagar and even the civil society activists kept craving and demanding for declaring the floods as national calamity. Nobody is, however, coming forward to look after the border dwellers. The politicians are currently engaged in ‘tagging and breaking’ process to have the numbers for remaining glued o power for the next six years. Those roaming in every street and lane of the border constituencies during electioneering are nowhere to be seen when the people actually need them most. The paper tigers have even forgotten to shed crocodile tears through press releases, which is most ideal mode of communication for them, not for the sake of people but to be in circulation and limelight.
The connotation of ‘care-taker government’ has lost its meaning in Jammu and Kashmir, where the outgoing ministers, most of them defeated in elections, have called it a day. They are no more caring for the people. It is, therefore, time for those at the helm of shaping the destiny of this nation to ponder over such a situation, not only in Jammu and Kashmir but elsewhere as well, and have a mechanism in place where people are not left abandoned.