The Congress high command should have been shocked when one of their ministers in J&K publically adopted a line which even the Hindu-right is hesitant to take. However, Congress spokesman at New Delhi, Abhishek Manu Singhvi termed Health Minister Sham Lal Sharma’s views made in presence of J&K Congress chief Prof Saifuddin Soz as ‘personal’.
Singhvi may be politically correct. Earlier Deputy chief minister in Azad government, Muzaffar Hussain Baig defended his government and coalition leaders allegedly involved in 2006 sex scam by a very smart statement that “offences like theft and rape are personal and none on earth can be held responsible for the one committed by other”. Some actions of individuals are personal.
But organisations cannot exonerate their members at responsible positions for their public actions as personal. If political leaders are allowed to get away with sensitive public statements as personal views, politics will surely be reduced to an institution without moral accountability.
Institutions without moral accountability have no right to expect public trust, which Congress never could gain in Kashmir even after six decades of engagements. The grand old party of Nehru and Gandhi has one set of political approach to rest of India and quite another for Kashmir.
Sharma, health minister in Omar Abdullah government, on December 5, cheered the audience by spitting venom against Kashmiri leadership for its alleged discrimination against Jammu and Ladakh. The rally in Kathua was attended among others by PCC chief Prof Saifuddin Soz. And as a panacea the minister suggested trifurcation of J&K – separate state for Jammu, Union Territory for Ladakh and Azadi for Kashmir Valley. Mind it, the Azadi, Sham Lal suggested, is not what a section of Kashmiris are romanticizing about.
Only a video clip could have best explained the contemptuous expression when Sham talked of Azadi for Kashmiris. Why would a minister lording over a huge department talk about something which goes beyond the ambit of his political comprehension. Some Congress leaders, doing damage control, term the remark as off the cuff. A peep into Sham’s political backroom would explain the home work, these Congress leaders do before their ‘off the cuff remarks’.
A matriculate who started his career as a police constable and later became a pharmacist in Health department and today’s health minister is a brother of Madan Lal Sharma, Congress MP representing Jammu-Rajouri-Poonch Lok Sabha seat. During 2008 Amarnath land row Sham Lal was one of the several Congress leaders who not only took active part in downright communal agitation but also regularly attended meetings of RSS and VHP backed Amarnath Sangharsh Samiti at Geeta Bhawan, the Jammu headquarters of rightwing Hindu outfits.
It was his ride on the Hindutva sentiment that brought him landslide victory. Sham and his brother Madan are not the cases in isolation. They have been talked about here for the health minister’s latest ‘words of wisdom’. Almost all Congress leaders in Jammu are of same order.
For them securing vote is more important than ideological commitments. In Jammu province Congress is in a self-manufactured competition with the BJP. A secular constituency would expect Congress to defeat BJP’s communal plank. But when the Congress crosses the Lakhanpur gateway, their ideologies merge with BJP and other Sangh organisations. For the people, the choice is between two evils – none lesser than the other.
Some events are pivotal in history. Amaranth land row is to J&K what 9/11 is for America and 26/11 for India. The communal agitation of 2008 summer was not only a creation of Congress but also sustained by their Jammu based leaders who led processions, courted arrests and helped Hindutva outfits to cause deep fissures between two regions and two communities. The state presidents of the Congress whoever they be – Soz, Azad or Peerzada Sayeed, just join the project of Congress becoming B-team of RSS. Seeds for the divisive agitation of 2008 were actually sown in 2002 when Congress which calls itself secular, campaigned on the plank of giving Jammu a local chief minister. Ghulam Nabi Azad led the history’s most divisive campaign in J&K.
There is nothing in constitution which deprives Jammu from staking claim to high offices. Then why make gullible people of Jammu believe that there is something seriously insulting which the Kashmiris have inflicted upon them. When Congress campaigns for a Jammu chief minister it is an undeclared declaration of Azadi for Kashmiris, making them believe that there is nothing for Valleyites in a future with Jammu and Ladakh. Why blame Kashmiris when any or many of them think of the Valley alone.
There are some grievances in Jammu region and some of them genuine too. But there has never been a leader who carried the trust of entire Jammu region. Jammu is a mosaic of different cultural and political identities and the definition adopted by the Congress and the BJP is too narrow to accommodate aspirations of entire region. The best way forward for Jammu is to identify genuine grievances and build local political capacities. Sowing the seeds of hatred and still expecting Kashmiris to concede power to them just because some Sham Lal is articulating trifurcation of state is not going to help the region. Congress has already done enough damage and in the backdrop of what happened in Kashmir in the summer of 2010 it is time for their national leadership to take corrective measures.
Writer is editor Jammu-based Epilogue Magazine
