J K News Today
Jammu, August 3:
One year of any event is not just a commemorative date on the calendar, impact makes it historical . The real impact cannot be summed up in a single word or sentence .
The August 5, 2019 , reshaped the history of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh . These changes are welcome as these undid the injustice and realised a long-awaited idea of one nation, one constitution that means quality and freedom for one and all without any discrimination on any count . This reflected the real spirit of the Indian constitution , the equality in real sense of the word .
These changes are welcome – the Indianness of the land and the people of J&K . These represent march with the times after coming out of the cocooned mindset . This section knows what exactly are the merits of having equal rights and equal access in all fields.
But there are always those who resist the changes for the changes that bring equality har their vested interests . Those mourning the demise of Article 370 ae the vested interests who had gained the most through the special status of J&K , overlooking the interests of the common people.
Did feudal lords ever like the idea of democracy which gave equal rights to all, bringing them at the level where they were as much empowered as the people whom they used to exploit . It is something like that only what these changes did in Jammu and Kashmir . An era of exploitation was over on August 5 , those who exploited masses in the name of special status, obviously did not like it .
Jammu and Kashmir was never an easy state . It was known by its size and majesty . It had everything – natural beauty and several hundreds of miles and vast glaciers and thick forests . That’s why it was called crown of India , or still is, one is not that sure, because this crown has been battered by the bloodletting let loose by Pakistan , to grab its resources .
This made Pakistan to align with the people in Kashmir who exploited the masses and invested in them, and when the Article 370 was withdrawn , Pakistan started shedding crocodile tears of the so-called sympathy and empathy without recognising that the people just wanted peace and an end to the exploitation that was imposed and then perpetuated by the vested interests.
Facts always speak more powerfully than the best fiction. A year after the abrogation of Article370 , there is a flood of narratives , saying that the things have gone worse- human rights have been trampled , and lockdown after lockdown has crippled the economy and that there is a lot of resentment against what was decided or done on August 5 . They call it suppressing the voices and exploitation. There could not be any worse example of double speak.
It is time to turn the pages of calendar in reverse order until August 5 last year , it would become clear that who was exploiting whom. There were serious charges, some of them very substantive too, that there was a discrimination . This discrimination created a wedge between Kashmiris , now in whose name the whole narrative is being pushed forward that they are unhappy with the new arrangement .
These are the voices that had exploited and discriminated against the people . There was reservation of jobs not as per the constitutionally guaranteed criteria but the kind of pick and choose reservation that politicians invoked for their near and dear ones , or those who bribed them. This exploitation was worst kind of human rights violations . Pakistan was a party to that. How, because it helped all those who perpetuated this culture of corruption and discrimination.
