On 5th August, 2019 Indian Government has made a historic decision of abrogating Article 370 and reorganized the state of UT of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh. Now in 2021, on the eve of completing almost two years of this significant decision in the history of India there is a section of media, leftists liberals and human rights activists who are leveling charges against the Government for its decision and projecting India as human rights violator in various international forums.
The mainstream political parties in J&K even wanted the central Government to consider Pakistan as a party to this issue and holds talks with it before taking any decision with regard to J&K. They also threatened about grave consequences and large scale violence if the centre did not revoke the abrogation of article 370.
Most importantly, what we fail to realize here is that the special status
granted to J&K was never permanent. It was a temporary provision granted when J&K acceded with India as per the instrument of accession signed by the erstwhile ruler of J&K state and former Indian PM Jawaharlal Nehru. This status was given to J&K with the hope of realizing a prosperous and peaceful existence of J&K along with rest of India.
On the contrary, during the last 70 odd years, it has only alienated the people of J&K from rest of India, creating an artificial divide and aided in purporting the anti national sentiments. The main objective of growth and development was sidelined and religious fanaticism and terrorism established deep roots in the soil of J&K. The youth were not given any positive opportunity to grow and excel in life but were
brainwashed to pick up arms and wage jihad against their own country. It functioned more like a proxy for supporting and spreading the separatist ideology of Pakistan.
It is in this context, there is a critical need to examine the policy of
abrogation of article 370 and discuss its positive impacts on the life of the people of J&K. Any constitutional provision that empowers a common man is either not completely applicable or were only partly applicable in the state of J&K. This special status has crippled the personal liberties of non permanent residents of J&K and even permanent residents on certain grounds.
This article 370 was a huge impediment against the Right to equality which forms the basic structure of the constitution. To name a few, women of J&K who married men from other states were denied the property and inheritance rights which any other common Indian women enjoyed. When the residents of J&K could acquire property and reside in other states, other citizens of India could never own property or reside in J&K. With the abrogation of article 370, it has placed all citizens of India on equal status by giving them the
rights which were denied to them for a long period of time. Now the people from other states are able to invest and buy land in J&K thereby resulting in development of local economy and generation of jobs for youth. This also has other positive spillover effects in reducing terror related activities in the state.
As per the reports from MHA, there is 36% decrease in violence levels, the number of terror activities reported were reduced from 188 in 2019 to 120 in 2020 and around 40% decrease in youth joining terror outfits in the last one year.
This has resulted in significant reduction of deaths of security personnel and civilians from 75 and 35 in 2019 to 35 and 22 in 2020
respectively. This establishment of peace in the region is the first step in the right direction which will help the Government to focus its efforts in other constructive tasks. In pursuance of this, the central Government has issued domicile certificates to around 4 lakh people from lower strata of society.
This was being denied to them for all these years and prevented their upliftment. This has enabled them to apply for Government jobs and has upheld social justice in the society of J&K. Today, all central laws are applicable to J&K without any modification and the benefits are reaching to every common man.
To this effect, the schemes introduced by the centre focuses on different sectors like health, education, tourism, agriculture, trade promotion, power generation etc to spur all round development and growth.
Kashmir, though blessed with immense natural resources and potential for tourism, it could not be tapped to its full extent. Since the annexation of J&K, the sector has remained underdeveloped because of the constant terror activities taking place in the region. The state was unable to attract investments and tourists because of its fragile security situation.
With current peaceful situation in the valley, the tourism sector is blooming. The centre has taken wide range of steps like reopening of Tulip gardens and Bardawan gardens for public before the spring festival. It has also commenced the operation of first night flight from Srinagar to rest of India to improve connectivity.
Around 20 religious sites in J&K are being developed under smart cities mission and a proposal to open up a part of Siachen glacier to
public for adventure sports is also under consideration. These measures surely will leave a huge impact on development of tourism thereby contributing to the development of the region.
The center is focusing on improving the education sector with
investments from public and private sectors and also extending the
scholarship scheme for a number of other excluded groups like dalits and gorkhas in the remote regions of the state in higher educational institutions.
The establishment of new central institutions like NITS, AIIMS in the UTS is also under consideration. Apart from education, the center has also focused its efforts in developing the sports culture in the UTs. Recently 2nd edition of khelo India winter games was carried out in Gulmarg, J&K to create a spirit of nationalism and promote the sports among J&K youth.
The Government is planning to build two centers of excellence in Jammu and Srinagar and 20 Khelo India centres across J&K to train youths for national level and international level competitions. This will help in diverting youth population from terror related activities and focus their energy in positive activities.
The new Industrial policy 2021 (IPIR-2021) for J&K proposes spending
28,400 crores the largest incentive to date in the industrial development of the state. It strives to make J&K investor friendly and achieve creation of job opportunities for local youths. The ease of doing business reforms are being carried out and land laws are being revised to facilitate faster acquisition and starting of business. J&K govt has earned around 100 crores from stamp duty and registration after these land reforms were carried out.
The new policy also has plans to form more number of SEZs with improved connectivity infrastructure in J&K to attract investments by providing 5% working capital support over a period 5 years, Center has also accepted proposals from 30 different companies in different sectors for investing in various parts of J&K for ensuring all round development of the region. It is expected to generate an investment of 20,000 crores and employment for 4.5 lakh youths.
On the infrastructure front, the defence minister has recently inaugurated six bridges in border areas of J&K and the the world’s highest bridge over Chenab river providing train connectivity to Srinagar for the first time is also under construction. Around 54 schemes had been proposed for implementation under PM Development Program.
Along with this, the Government is also taking various initiatives to promote social security in the region. The Center has introduced SEHAT scheme in 2020, which provides health insurance cover of Rs.5 lakhs for all families of J&K on floater basis for secondary and tertiary care completely free of cost. The allocation of 920 crores for the construction of accommodations for kashmiri migrants employed under PMRPY-2015. The insurance schemes for agriculture sector
like PMFBY, PMKISAN have been implemented along with an investment of Rs.6000 crores for improving irrigation facilities in the region.
Special attention in agriculture exports also been made through NAFED by procuring 70.45 crores of apples directly from growers and dispatched 18.34 lakh MTs of apples. Thereby increasing Farmer’s income which is in line with Government’s policy doubling income by 2022.
All these sums up the plan and vision of the Government driven
towards the development of J&K through a wide variety of schemes and supporting activities in various spheres. The efforts had already started paying dividends with noticed reduction in terror activities with more number of youths willing to take up jobs rather than taking up arms.
It has truly revolutionized the state by changing its course from the history of waging jihad against India to truly being an integral part of India and contributing to its growth.
