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BOYCOTTING the District Development Council (DDC) polls, the first electoral exercise after the scrapping of J&K’s particular standing, would have left “the field open for the BJP and its proxies,” stated former Chief Minister and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) president Mehbooba Mufti right here right now defending her occasion’s resolution to contest.
In an unique interview to The Indian Express, she stated that the formation of the People’s Alliance of Gupkar Declaration (PAGD), together with the PDP, National Conference and People’s Conference amongst different events, was the “beginning” of the combat for restoring J&Ok’s particular standing.
About why the PAGD was contesting the DDC polls, she stated, “What was the other option? To leave the field open for the BJP and its proxies and be labelled as Pakistani agents? A boycott would have only helped them spread their tentacles deeper into the system here, already controlled by an administration subservient to Delhi’s whims and fancies.”
Accusing the administration of stopping her from transferring out, she listed steps just like the domicile legislation, eviction of Gujjars and the shifts within the authorities’s stand on the alleged Roshni land rip-off, saying, “For the BJP, J&K is not a political but a religious problem that can only be solved by changing the religious composition, by ensuring Muslims become a minority in the only Muslim-majority state.”
The PDP chief added, “Our fears of demographic changes have never been exaggerated or misplaced. All the disruptive policies and actions are in full swing — be it domicile law, eviction of Gujjars, cancellation of lease of local hoteliers or outsourcing of natural resources like sand and stone. All these substantiate their motives to disempower locals and gradually ensure that outsiders outnumber the locals.”
On the federal government submitting a evaluate petition on the Roshni Act, in search of to distinguish between landless cultivators and people residing in dwellings in small areas and wealthy and rich land grabbers, Mufti stated it meant their “communal motive” and “fake and malicious propaganda” of projecting the scheme as a rip-off had failed. “Eventually, the fact that Jammu benefited more than the Valley (due to the Act) has become public. In Jammu 3,50,000 kanals (1 kanal is 0.125 acres) were transferred under the Roshni Act against 33,000 kanals in the Valley.”
Mufti stated it was vital for the PAGD to combat for the proper to marketing campaign within the DDC polls. “The only way to deal with bullies is by standing up to them… Every excuse under the sun is used to curb my movements. Tonight, I received a letter from the J&K Police citing security issues once again to defer my trip to Budgam until elections are over. If security is such a hassle, how are the top tier of BJP leaders and their proxies allowed to move around freely within Kashmir?”
Mufti stated PDP youth president Waheed ur Rehman Para had been arrested as he had refused “to join the BJP or their proxies”. “Despite being detained illegally for more than a year, he still placed his faith in democracy and decided to fight the DDC elections. His subsequent arrest reeks of political vendetta and is being used to strike fear in youth in the Valley,” she stated.
The PDP president accused the Centre of utilizing the NIA and Enforcement Directorate to “intimidate every section” of society in Kashmir. “Initially the GoI’s diabolical narrative was confined to pinning the blame on mainstream parties for every problem that ails J&K,” she stated. “But now they are harassing and intimidating every section of the society, be it businessmen, journalists or social activists. The idea is to stifle and choke all outlets of dissent and render people economically and emotionally vulnerable.”
About her latest declare that the federal government needs to ban the PDP, Mufti stated, “Despite the Centre engineering a split in the PDP and other pressure tactics, we are still resisting the illegal unconstitutional changes that took place on August 5, 2019.”
Mufti stated the formation of the PAGD was the beginning, and so they would chalk out “a peaceful and non-violent strategy” for retrieving “what was unlawfully snatched from the people of J&K”. “Resistance is a matter of choice and I have made that choice. Having said that, I alone, or even the PAGD, cannot fight this battle successfully unless people join this movement. Unfortunately by reducing it to binaries of mainstream versus the government of India, the media is doing a great disservice to the larger cause.”
She stated she was not shocked by the Congress distancing itself from the PAGD. “The Congress is a national party with its own constraints… But it is clear that mainstream local parties in Jammu and Kashmir will have to stand together for a larger cause… The aspirations of the people are what will serve as a glue to keep this alliance together.”
Mufti, who spent 14 months in jail after the scrapping of J&Ok’s particular standing and its cut up into two Union Territories, stated, “If there is one lesson I have learnt and re-learnt in the past two years, it is that one must not take their rights and personal liberties for granted. We might be the world’s largest democracy on paper but the truth is that we are heading towards a dictatorship where the Constitution is mangled every day. The truth is distorted to such an extent that lines are blurred between facts and fiction.”
© The Indian Express (P) Ltd
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