Jammu & Kashmir Agog With Rumours About Another Bifurcation
Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.
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By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2021-06-10 01:49:19
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Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.
View all posts by this Author
Rumours of the Centre making another bifurcation of Jammu & Kashmir have been doing the rounds for the last few days as more than 200 companies of paramilitary forces have been sent to the UT. To add fuel to fire, the five party People's Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD) met on Wednesday after 6 months to discuss "prevailing uncertainty" in the state. Since nothing else has changed, it was obvious that the PAGD met to discuss the speculated bifurcation move although National Conference president Farooq Abdullah denied the same. The meeting was held at the residence of PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti and attended by Hassnain Masoodi of the NC and Mauzaffar Ahmad Shah and Mehboob Beg of the PDP besides Abdullah and Mufti. Mohammad Tarigami of the CPM was named the spokesman of the group.
The rumours of another bifurcation of the UT have spread like wildfire in the Valley after the arrival of more than 200 companies of paramilitary forces in the last few days. The UT administration has denied any such move and has said that the forces were being re-stationed in the state after being requisitioned for election duty in the recently held elections in 5 state and Pondicherry. It categorically said that it was not planning "any such misadventure". But the people are wary as before the abrogation of Article 370 there was a similar build up and the government had kept denying till the last moment that it was planning anything.
Another bifurcation of the UT would indeed be a misadventure and a serious one. Although the erstwhile state of Jammu & Kashmir comprised of three distinct regions in the Kashmir Valley, Jammu and Ladakh, the government has already separated Ladakh. The only option before it now would be to carve out a separate Jammu. But that would be a huge mistake as not only would it be seen as being done on religious basis (since the Valley is predominantly Muslim (97%) and the Jammu region is predominantly Hindu (65%)), carving out a separate identity for the Kashmir valley would reignite the siege mentality and give rise to another round of militancy in the region. One hopes that the rumours are unfounded and the relocation of forces is indeed a routine exercise.
pic courtesy: kashmirreader.com
