It is now a fact that people in J&K face a systemic problem that cannot be solved by focusing on individuals.Investigations into the qualities of individual politicians will do no good. There has to be a systemic cleansing. And politicians, who believe in this kind of politics, must go as a part of this cleansing.
True the allegation must have hurt Omar, personally if not politically. But there is a much bigger loss. Without doubt Muzzaffar Beigh’s greatest damage is to the system that his party is so keen to strengthen. When Beigh contended that Omar must resign as he has lost the moral right to sit in the chair of the chief minister, he was basing a moral judgment on something that is not in public domain, at least not so far. Sooner or later, the reality will come to the fore. But then the morality would lose the foundation on which it has been built. And we become an immoral nation. That is if we are not one already.
The long-term consequences are untenable for a democratic political system. PDP, by levelling such a charge in such a manner at such a forum has damaged the prestige of the position of the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir. There was a time when the Chief Minister of J&K had the stature to meet international heads of state, and there is a time now when our Chief Minister has to get a character certificate from a lowly official of the CBI or the CID. It is a humiliation, not so much for Omar Abdullah but the office of the head of government of J&K. For a party that prides itself on self-rule, it has done irreparable damage to the most important position of autonomous power in the state. Omar is back in office. Now he wants to take the opposition along. But the crisis, through which he has passed, must convince him that a crusade needs to be launched for keeping the system clean. CBI’s investigations, that a division bench monitored, has recorded 4000 pages of exploitation of our women folk, how they were being lured in the name of jobs and favours and shockingly for getting their relatives realised from the prisons by the people holding high offices.
His government must resolve that it will go with the decision that the full bench of the high court would pronounce. Instead of trying to save the suspects and the accused, the government must facilitate the respective investigating agency in arriving at the right conclusions so that a clean system is restored.
True the allegation must have hurt Omar, personally if not politically. But there is a much bigger loss. Without doubt Muzzaffar Beigh’s greatest damage is to the system that his party is so keen to strengthen. When Beigh contended that Omar must resign as he has lost the moral right to sit in the chair of the chief minister, he was basing a moral judgment on something that is not in public domain, at least not so far. Sooner or later, the reality will come to the fore. But then the morality would lose the foundation on which it has been built. And we become an immoral nation. That is if we are not one already.
The long-term consequences are untenable for a democratic political system. PDP, by levelling such a charge in such a manner at such a forum has damaged the prestige of the position of the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir. There was a time when the Chief Minister of J&K had the stature to meet international heads of state, and there is a time now when our Chief Minister has to get a character certificate from a lowly official of the CBI or the CID. It is a humiliation, not so much for Omar Abdullah but the office of the head of government of J&K. For a party that prides itself on self-rule, it has done irreparable damage to the most important position of autonomous power in the state. Omar is back in office. Now he wants to take the opposition along. But the crisis, through which he has passed, must convince him that a crusade needs to be launched for keeping the system clean. CBI’s investigations, that a division bench monitored, has recorded 4000 pages of exploitation of our women folk, how they were being lured in the name of jobs and favours and shockingly for getting their relatives realised from the prisons by the people holding high offices.
His government must resolve that it will go with the decision that the full bench of the high court would pronounce. Instead of trying to save the suspects and the accused, the government must facilitate the respective investigating agency in arriving at the right conclusions so that a clean system is restored.
