It's Time a non-Muslim became CM of J&K: Lalit k kaul

 

It's Time that a non-Muslim became the CM of the UT of J&K

Lalit K Kaul

Fundamentally speaking, there is no such provision in the Constitution of India which obligates that in a non-Muslim majority State a Non-Muslim should become the CM and in a Muslim majority State a Muslim. That's why it was that Sri Abdul Gafoor became the CM of Bihar in the decade of 80s and that a non-Muslim majority Nation had seen many Muslim Rashtrapati.

More than the Constitution of India, it's about the history of existence of the last 76 years in J&K which stares into everyone's face reminding them unambiguously and vociferously how this experiment of having a Muslim CM in the erstwhile J&K state had not only failed its people but also traumatized its heterogeneous society having succeeded in transforming Kashmir into a homogeneous one. It was an experiment that the Constitution of India didn't necessitate, but that the then political situation, perhaps, did.

Any failed experiment is to be shut down like any misadventure is to be called off. The question to be answered is: Why a non-Muslim should become the CM of the UT of J&K?  An attempt is made to do that, in the following lines.

Discriminative Policies institutionalized by successive CMs:

Whether it was the “Land to the Tiller" initiative; admissions into institutions for vocational studies; job opportunities in the government and carrier growth opportunities in Kashmir, the non-Muslims, significantly the Kashmiri Pandit community (KPC), were always discriminated against. Due to institutionalization of such discriminations the members of KPC were forced to migrate to other parts of India for pursuing vocational studies and finding job opportunities for basic survival. Such policies were openly stated and therefore were no secret. Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah is on record having said that members of KPC can get opportunities anywhere in India and that the resources and opportunities available in Kashmir were only for the Muslims.

The disparity in the quality of life between the population of Kashmir (predominantly Muslim) and that of Jammu and Ladakh (predominantly Hindu and Budh) successively increased with every passing decade as the funds allocated by the Government of India (GoI) were appropriated nearly wholly for Kashmir. It's this inhuman discrimination -reminds of the Islamic rule in India- that propelled the demand for a separate UT for Ladakh by Ladakhis and a separate Jammu state by the Hindus of Jammu.

These discriminative policies drew strength from their religious ideology and so they had no guilty feelings about their implementation.

Muslim CMs’ Loyalties lay with Pakistan:

They slowly but surely indoctrinated the Muslim population in the erstwhile state of J&K that as per their religion their pious land was Pakistan and all this was done very covertly through their party cadre and the Moulvis and Maulanas during Friday prayers. The fact that this anti-India (actually anti-Kafir) propaganda gained steam post Bangladesh war, doesn't mean that the Muslim outfits were not engaging their community people in such campaigns before the year 1972. JKLF and Jamait-e-Islami had been active decades before the year 1972.

It was possible to take entire administrative machinery into confidence for waging Jihad for Pakistan against India because a Muslim was the CM. The whole planning-in coordination with Pakistan- was done

over one and a half decades in which entire administrative machinery including the police, the judiciary, the Muslim Clergy, the teachers, the academicians, the other investigation agencies and of course all political outfits-ostensibly pro-India- were synergized while throughout the span the unsuspecting non-Muslims in the Valley were greeted with warm smiles.

The laid-out procedure for Jihad against Kafirs was scrupulously followed stage by stage until the day of reckoning arrived for testing the waters. That was Anantnag riots of 1986 and the rest is the History!

All this wouldn't have been possible-at least not at the scale at which it was accomplished- if the state machinery and other institutions had not been compromised; it happened because the CMs were all along Muslims whose loyalties lay with Pakistan unbreakably bonded by Religion.

The Reality and the Requirement:

A survey by a student- not a resident of J&K - in September 2022 revealed that 40% of Kashmiri Muslims prefer Pakistan over India while another 40% prefer independent Kashmir and the rest 20% form a part of elite who prefer Kashmir being a part of India. Why I am citing this survey is because it was not due to any media initiative or politically motivated institutions. Therefore, it can be taken as an unbiased survey with all its implicit accuracies that may arise due to the chosen sample size.

While the % of population which prefers independent Kashmir may not be taken seriously as it won't get any support from Pakistan or any Muslim country; it is well known how Pakistan dumped JKLF having supported it initially for two years because it didn't cater to Pakistan's political plan of annexation of Kashmir from India.

But, the % of population which supports accession to Pakistan is the real challenge that the Indian State and its political leadership has to contend with. And, this challenge is there to stay unless Pakistan disintegrates. That the secessionist forces are there to stay, is evident from the Lok Sabha election speeches of the leaders of “mainstream” political outfits- like reviving Article 370 and imagined fears of impending demographic change in Kashmir.

 Farooq Abdullah became very vocal and unambiguous when he told his followers that it's the time for Shahadat! Connect it with the public statement of Asaddudin Owaisi “I am Gazi and shall die as Gazi" and the picture is unambiguously clear because the Muslim politics has a Pan-India character in that the political leaders and the Clergy unequivocally support each other across the borders of the Indian states. And, then there is Al- Zazeera and publications like New York Times, Global Times and of course our own Urdu media in Hyderabad and elsewhere.  

Therefore, to keep the secessionists at bay the government in the UT of J&K is to headed by a nationalist conglomerate which a Muslim CM doesn't qualify for as is known through the history of last 76 years.

The Indian political leadership will have to take a huge call if only to ensure integrity of Indian borders.