Srinagar, May 19 : At a time when the people are seriously concerned about the spread of the Coronavirus, the BJP government is busy in redesigning the “union territory” of Jammu and Kashmir. The fresh domicile notification issued yesterday, while the region is under the grip of deadly COVID-19 pandemic, is extension of the unconstitutional and undemocratic assault carried out by the BJP government on August 5, 2019. Issuing the rules for domicile notification at this crucial time reveals a paranoid mindset of the BJP willfully violating the democratic aspirations of the people. Until Jammu and Kashmir was stripped of its special status granted under article 370 and bifurcated into two union territories last August, article 35A of the constitution empowered the assembly to define Jammu and Kashmir residents eligible to apply for jobs or own immovable property in the erstwhile state. The Modi government clearly lacks an institutional view and suffers from conceptual disarray, which makes it blind with regard to the essence of constitutional commitments when it comes to it dealing with Jammu and Kashmir. The government continues to concentrate on issues which are detrimental to the interests the people of Jammu and Kashmir.
The government doesn’t have anything substantial to provide to those who have lost jobs during the continued lockdown. It has nothing to offer to the unemployed youth, labourers, daily wagers, artisans and peasants. Instead they are using their energies to divide the ranks of the people on the basis of religion and region to divert the attention from the real issues.
The dominant perception across the erstwhile state remains that the new notification is a ploy of the BJP to continue its Hindutva political project and further dis-empower and dispossess the people of the J and K politically, economically and culturally. With such a decision the gulf between Jammu and Kashmir and the rest of the country will grow wider, and although BJP government has for now enforced calm, underneath, the uncertainty across the erstwhile state is increasing day by day.
