Prof (Dr) Nutan Resutra
We are great. We are mighty. We are the warriors ! And we are the Jammu walas !!
This is how we the people of Jammu feel. And there is no false pride or exaggeration in any of these assertions. Just have a glance at the historical facts. The ancestors of Raja Jambu Lochan, the founder of Jammu belonged directly to the family of Bhagvan Shri Ram. Bahu Fort built by Raja Bahu Lochan the elder brother of Raja Jambu Lochan still stands a bold testimony to those great kings.
In much later years, Dogras under the able Generalship of General Zorawar Singh carried the Dogra Flag as far as Tibet in the snow desert of Himalayas which was considered impossible in those days. These Generals and Maharajas of Duggar Desh kept the Dogra pride at its highest esteem. Even the English that had ruled more than half of the world had all regard for the Dogras. Our valour has been second to none.
We hardly come across an example in modern history when the Maharaja of a State on finding his subjects attacked by enemy had announced to go to the battle field to lead his forces himself. But Maharaja Hari Singh, the last crusader of Dogra Royalty, when came to know that mercenaries had attacked Kashmir and were all set to capture major parts of the State; donned the Army Uniform and made public announcement on Radio that he was going to lead his men from the front itself to save his State; an act considered suicidal by many. But then he had the guts and the Dogra pride that was unparallel in his contemporaries !
We are a deeply religious people also. We have a strong faith on one of the shloks of Bhagwat Gita where Lord Krishan has said Yada yada hi dharmasya, glanir bhavti bharat; Abhyuthanam adharmasya tadatmanam srijamayaham ……!
And with this rich historical, cultural, moral and ethical background, we are now living in desperation, in our dark ages, and also in an illusion, in fool’s paradise if I may be permitted to use some strong words.
Since Independence, rather painful Partition of the State, the people of Jammu have been subjected to an unseen sinister plan set into motion for their demographic and cultural annihilation. All along we have been nationalists to the hilt and we have been sacrificed at the altar of being Nationalist Indians. Please note that when we use the term Jammu walas, it comprises ofthe Dogras that include people of all religions and all faiths living in Jammu Province.Throughout we have been denied our basic right of equality with our counterpart; subjected to second, rather third class citizenship. We have always been deprived of the basic chances of employment, education, tourism and development as per the Standing Operating Procedureof the rulers. To add insult to injury we have been given false lollipops of hope by one after the other in a successive change of governments!
I will not go into details as to who were responsible for our deplorable condition; everyoneknows it.But the bitter truth is that today we are in the most unenviable condition, with hardly any thing to look up to, scared to death with haunting bleak future. Even at the risk of being called a kafir, I believe that He will not fulfil His promise of Paritranaya sadhuna ………………….sambhavami yugey yugey !!
So what to do now.With hardly any support from our present day rajas, what should we do to at least breathe with respect; to ensure some respectable future for our coming generations ? Should we keep on waiting and waiting for some Massiah to come and save us? As I said above, this is not going to happen. But in the given bleak situation there is only one solution for all our problems : a Separate Jammu State !
Frankly, there was a time when I had been rubbishing the idea of a separate Jammu State; but now with my almost forty years’ experience of being an academician, an administrator and also as the Special Assistant to the then Hon’ble Education Minister of the State, I am of this firm view that we must all rise and strive for our own Jammu State. While making this statement I know I will be a direct pleasure hit for many, but then this is the harsh fact. I am reminded of the world famous incident of public humiliation and killing of Captain Alfred Dreyfus of French Army in Paris in January 1895. Captain Dreyfus was falsely tried on charges of treason and sentenced to death. A full military ceremony was held on the famous road of Paris where thousands of people braving windy weather gathered for pleasure to watch the “death of the traitor”. When the public humiliation of Captain Dreyfus was over, the mob cried in hysteria : ” Kill the traitor; kill the Jew !!”
In that mob was also a newspaperman named Theodor Herzl who too was a Jew. Shocked, Herzl realised that it was not just for the blood of Dreyfus that mob was shouting, it was his blood; the blood of Jews. The incident shook him so much that he produced a blue print, a one hundred page document which was titled The Jewish State. And this ultimately resulted in the birth of Israel.
With pain in my heart, I wonder how many more Dreyfus like me would be humiliated, disgraced, killed in spirit for being a Jammuite before people wake up and the idea of a separate Jammu State catches up with masses. In one of its issues, this very esteemed newspaper The State Times had once written about me with the headline : Give Resutra a bad name and hang him; he is a Jammuwala !
Let me quote from a letter written by our legendary War Hero General Goverdhan Singh Jamwal in one of the local dailies : “We will be content with the original Jammu Raj of Maharaja Gulab Singh of 1833 from where he started to build a unique Empire of the Dogras which provided not only the strategic depth but also buffer to withstand whatever is happening today.” He further says: “We cannot continue making mistakes. Now is the chance to get our State back, only the Jammu State !”
What a wise statement it is. He calls it a buffer to withstand whatever is happening today; adding further that we cannot continue making mistakes !Well said Sir. A Jammu State is not something that any one will give us on a platter. We will have to strive for it, and strive for it strongly. In short we will have to be ready to sacrifice, sacrifice our lives, our everything if we have to achieve our goal. We have a small example before us when during the agitation for Uttrakhand, more than three hundred persons were killed in police firing in one go. And do you think we will get Jammu State just like that?
The basic thing is that everyone becomes aware of this situation and becomes determined to strive for it. It is not the duty of one particular leader of a specific political party or some particular citizen group to cry hoarse for Jammu State, but it should become dream of everyone in living in Jammu to strive for it. I agree that there may be differences of opinion among us, but we can take care of those afterwards also when we get separate State.
Let us invoke the Dogra pride and wake up to the need of the hour. It seems that the eternal words of Swami Vivekanand are even more relevant at this moment when he had said : Arise, awake and stop not till you have achieved your goal !
I am reminded of an old bhakti song : Teri gathri mein laga chor musafir jaag zara ………
But the million dollar question is : When will we come out of our deep slumber?