Some interesting thoughts on this Thursday of Sept 2019.
1 Supreme Court (SC) asking Central Govt to restore normalcy in Jammu & Kashmir. Now normalcy is a very vague and relative term, but in this case SC added a rider which was restore normalcy keeping national security in mind. Now this directive by SC has enough leverage to Central Govt to do what they want. SC should have been more clear on what they consider the normal situation in Kashmir. In my opinion there was never a situation in Kashmir which you could call a normal. If you consider Jammu & Kashmir as one state, then this state was never a normalcy in thisl state from the time Maharaja Hari Singh signed the treaty of accession to India. The area which fall under Jammu was generally a normal one, but area which fall under Kashmir, specially the valley area was always having a trouble and it was never a normal area. For last 30 years there have been insurgency in valley which was supported and propagated by Pakistan, which resulted in exodus of lakhs of Kashmiri Pandits from valley. Over last so many years no media spoke/write about the plight of Kashmiri Pandits, and all the Govt which were ruling at centre, only talked about terrorism and insurgency. When SC talks about normalcy considering national security in mind, they only mean that terrorism should be contained, and people should have access to healthcare, school and college should function normally. Now when a state is under a three pronged attack from stone pelters, cross order terrorists and terror funding from home and abroad, then drastic measure are required, and in that situation restoring normalcy will always take time. As per govt’s reply to SC, 80% of Kashmir has almost become normal, and 100% of Jammu is normal.
It is going to be slow process to restore normalcy in J & K, specially in valley areas, because for last two generations the situation here has been always volatile, thanks to the political parties who preferred their own interests before the interests of citizens and normalcy. The political parties have taken the maximum benefits of sections 370 and 35 and filled their coffers. If some one ask the govt that how much govt has given extra to state of J & K, which was considered as special state, the amount will be mind boggling, and still the state has suffered the most.
If you will recall in 1980s, there was insurgency in Punjab at the time of Bhindranwala and Khalistan movement, which was also indirectly supported by Pakistan. But it could be solved only when govt took the tough stand and started eliminating the suspected terrorists and other wrong elements. It took govt also more than 3 years to bring state to normalcy. But in the case of Kashmir various Central and State Govts handled the situation in Kashmir very softly, which then blew into a big problem. In case of Punjab, it was willingness of state govt to drastic actions, but here state govts on the contrary encouraged the wrong elements and dissuaded armed forces from taking drastic actions.
In my opinion normalcy will come to Kashmir region only when there is stoppage of insurgency and Kashmiri Pandits return to their homes. Till then you will never be able to say that normalcy has returned to J &K. This govt has taken its first step, let us wait and watch.
2 In the case of Ram Janam Bhoomi and Babri Masjid, which is being heard at Supreme Court (SC) on day to day basis presently, the SC has asked the counsel of both the parties to conclude their arguments by 18th Oct 2019. Further SC said that they plan to pronounce the judgement on or before 17th Nov, the day Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi retires. I hope Kapil Sibal, the counsel for the Babri Masjid group, will not request the SC not to give the judgement before the state elections which are happening in late Oct and November, as earlier he had requested the SC in 1918 that no hearing should take place till next general elections in 2019.
I only hope that, whatever is the final judgement in this case, all the concerned should accept the same and matter should end. There should not be any celebrations of the kind that this group has won and that group has lost to show one up man ship. Earlier when Allahabad High Court gave the judgement that property to be divided in the ration of 2/3rd and 1/3rd , and the party which got 1/3rd of area showed its unhappiness and the matter went to SC.
So wait till the final verdict.
Awaiting your views/feed backs/comments on this blog.
Anil Malik
Mumbai, India
19th Sept 2019.