One of the major reasons behind the problem of rising drug abuse in the valley is the political conflict of the past over three decades which is taking its toll on the youth. According to latest figures, more than six lakh educated youth are without job in the  valley, writes Riaz Wani

In recent years, drug addiction has assumed enormous proportions in Kashmir. The scale of the problem is apparent from the fact that over 5,000 cases have been registered under anti-narcotics laws between 2019 and 2022. And overall, nearly a million people, or roughly 8 percent of the region’s population, reportedly use drugs, including cannabis, opioids, and sedatives.

According to a study conducted by the Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences-Kashmir (IMHANS-K), heroin addiction accounts for 2.23 percent of all substance dependence cases, affecting people from diverse backgrounds, including educated middle-class families and working-class households. The majority of addicts, aged between 20 and 30, initially start with medical opioids before transitioning to intravenous heroin use, often resulting in the contraction of hepatitis C virus due to needle sharing.

The study, titled “Prevalence and pattern of substance use in 10 districts of Kashmir,” reveals that the economic burden of heroin addiction is immense, with addicts spending an average of Rs 88,183 per month on heroin consumption alone. As their addiction deepens, the cost increases, forcing many to resort to desperate measures such as theft, selling personal belongings, and taking on debts. In their relentless pursuit of drugs, some individuals even engage in drug trafficking activities

Apart from the direct financial strain on individuals and their families, the healthcare costs associated with heroin addiction are substantial. The study highlights that only 35.1 percent of Injecting Drug Users (IDUs) have undergone screening for hepatitis C virus, primarily due to the high cost of approximately Rs 3,000 per test. This lack of awareness about free treatment for hepatitis C in government-run hospitals further exacerbates the problem.

The authorities have expressed concern over the inflow of drugs from Pakistan, facilitated by smugglers, touts, and even the use of drones. Additionally, drug dealers from Punjab and Himachal Pradesh are reportedly supplying drugs to the Valley through various channels. In 2022, Jammu and Kashmir police registered approximately 100 cases under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, leading to the arrest of 1,560 individuals.

On June 6, Jammu and Kashmir Police seized property worth lakhs of a drug peddler Khursheed Ahmad Waza alias Mandela at Bandipora. The property included a residential plot measuring 1 Kanal, 1.5 Marlas worth a market value of Rs 44 lakh and two vehicles worth Rs 12 lakh.

The past survey has revealed that 65 to 70 percent of the student community in Kashmir has taken to drugs and shockingly enough it includes 26 percent of female students too. More than 70 percent of addicts have been found to fall in the age group of 18-35 years.

Drugs being used include prescription medicines such as Codeine Phosphate syrup, Spasmo-Proxyvon, Benzodiazepine (Valium) and Alprax. Some even get their fix from sniffing commonly available solvents like Fevicol.

However, it is not difficult to see what is leading the youth towards the drugs. One major reason is the political conflict of the past over three decades which is taking its toll on the youth. According to unemployment figures, more than six lakh educated youth are without jobs. There is also a huge number of the uneducated and unskilled youth who are looking at  a bleak future. The reigning political uncertainty and the humanitarian fallout of the past three decades have only reinforced the sense of hopelessness, leading youth to ease their frustration through drugs.

Civil society groups are asking for increasing investments in job creation and skill development programmes which are expected to offer a sense of purpose and economic stability to the population. Individuals are less likely to turn to drugs as an escape, if root causes of addiction are addressed.

“Bolstering mental health services and providing accessible support systems will help individuals cope with trauma and reduce their susceptibility to substance abuse,” read an editorial in a local daily. “The sharp increase in the number of patients seeking treatment for drug addiction, from 10-15 cases a day a decade ago to 150-200 cases a day now, underlines the urgent need for action.”

Mercifully, the 100-odd families of Chinnakanal want Ari Komban back. They fear that driving a poor animal out of his home and hearth will bring a curse on their heads and take their peace and prosperity away.

A 32-year-old male elephant, Ari Komban, has been in the news for various reasons. First, it was due to his raids of ration shops in the hamlets close to the forest in Chinnakanal in the Idukki district of Kerala in search of rice, resulting in him being nicknamed Ari Komban (ari means rice and Komban means bull elephant in Malayalam) by the residents of the area. Later it was due to the fact that he began raiding homes after the ration shops were moved to a distant location so that the tusker could not get to them. Ari Komban is also accused of having killed seven people during his forays into the areas adjoining the forests in search of his favourite food. However, there is no proof to substantiate these claims that were mainly made by a local politician in order to buttress his case against the voiceless animal that has no means to defend itself.

This saga of man-elephant conflict had been going on for over five years and ultimately after the villagers, egged on by the land mafia and encouraged by the local politicians, raised a major hue and cry against the marauding elephant, Ari Komban was shifted to the forests of Tamil Nadu. But over there, too, Ari Komban found his way to human habitats, either in a bid to return to his beloved forest home in Chinnakanal or in search of his comfort food, rice. In the end, after that he was tranquilised and captured and left deep into the Upper Kodayar area of Muthukuzhi forest near the Tamil Nadu-Kerala border with a satellite radio collar around his neck to begin a “new life.”

However, this new life is easier said than done! If he stays there in the Tamil Nadu forests, he will have to fight for territory with younger male elephants. As it is, Ari Komban is blind in one eye, has a severe cut on his trunk, and has sustained injuries during multiple attempts to translocate him.

Even though, the government officials at the moment are gung ho about the fact that Ari Komban is settling down in his new habitat and PR photos are being released to the Press showing how “happy” he is in his new “tranquil” haven I don’t think that we have heard the last of Ari Komban.

Remember, elephants are complex social creatures just like us humans. They have families, relationships, a complex social structure and last but not the least they have “elephantine memories.” So, it is not very likely that Ari Komban is going to forget about his family and friends anytime soon. He will try and make his way back to his family as he has many children that he sired in the forests of Chinnakanal. Though male elephants leave their herd once they enter their teens, they do keep coming back to meet their family as they have lasting bonds just like us humans. They mourn their dead, miss their loved ones and suffer separation anxiety just like us humans.

So this is the life we humans have decided for Ari Komban for no fault of his own? And I say for no fault of his own because despite all the media reports, and what the local politicians and villagers said, it was not Ari Komban who ventured into human habitats because it was the other way round. The humans had encroached on his home. In fact, media reports quote locals as saying that though humans had encroached on the forest area where the majestic elephant and his herd and ancestors had lived for centuries, Ari Komban did not mind sharing his habitat with humans till they built their homes with bamboo and mud. But he definitely took a stand to protect his turf once the humans began building brick and mortar homes, as he started raiding and destroying shops. His behaviour is akin to a human who is trying to drive encroachers off his property.    

There was no need to drive Ari Komban out of his own home. The 100-odd families who had encroached on his forest could have been relocated and if media reports are to be believed they were actually willing to do so. But the land mafia and the local politicians engineered a situation to suit their nefarious purposes and painted the tusker as a villain and got him removed from his own ancestral home. What a travesty of justice.

I don’t think that the Kerala Forest Department or the people living in Chinnakanal have seen the last of Ari Komban because he used to return to the spot where his mother died in 1984 when he was just a few months old. Just like a human visits a grave site of a loved one on their anniversaries, this orphaned tusker visits the place where his mother died, every year. He is bound to try and find his way back to that spot that is etched forever in his heart and memory. Plus, he has his herd, his family, his children and his friends there. That is his ancestral land and he is bound to try and return to his homeland.

Man-animal conflict is on the rise across the country and uprooting one elephant and sending him into exile away from all that he loves is not going to solve the problem. According to the last elephant census that was held in the country in 2017, India has close to 30,000 wild elephants and around 60 per cent of all wild Asian elephants. Loss of habitat, fragmentation and relentless encroachments by humans in forest lands often forces them to enter human habitats and raid crops, homes and plantations, leading to conflicts like the one that Ari Komban is caught in the middle of.

When news of raids or killings by elephants is splashed across TV channels and newspapers, few realize that it is we who have forced the animals into this situation through rampant exploitation of their habitat. They are pushed to the wall by our greed and senseless sanctioning of development projects by Governments who don’t pause to think about the consequences of their action on the animal kingdom.

Few realize that in this poignant saga of a marauding elephant, Ari Komban is actually the victim and not the villain that he is being painted out to be. It would have been better to leave Ari Komban in his part of the world and relocate the 100-odd families to another place. However, the Kerala Forest Department seems to have played right into the hands of the rich and powerful and did not show real will to ensure that Ari Komban his land rights. But, at the end of the day, do the rights of a voiceless animal really matter to the vast majority?

The Kerala Forest Department could have taken a page out of the Chhattisgarh Forest Department’s book which has developed an artificial intelligence (AI)-based application which can alert users about the movement of elephants in their vicinity. The ‘Chhattisgarh Elephant Tracking and Alert’ app that is being used in Udanti-Sitanadi tiger reserve on a pilot basis uses inputs provided by the ‘Hathi Mitra Dal’ (groups of local volunteers) which keeps tabs on the movement of jumbos to send alert calls and messages. This will help prevent incidents of human-elephant conflict in the reserve that is spread across Gariaband and Dhamtari districts and has been witnessing incidents of these conflicts for nearly a decade.

The ‘Hathi Mitra Dal’ has been using Open Data Kit (ODK- an open source application) for the last one year to feed data about location and movement of elephants in the affected years. This ODK app works both in online mode (in real time) and offline mode (when trackers are outside the mobile network area). The App will use inputs fed into the ODK App to send automated alert messages and calls to those whose mobile numbers and GPS location are stored in the app. Whenever an elephant is within 10 km of any village, its residents will get automated calls, text messages and WhatsApp alerts if their mobile numbers are registered with the system. The app can also be used for sending alerts about the presence of other wild animals like leopards, bears and wild buffaloes.

In a similar way, Karnataka also set up a task force headed by the Deputy Conservator of Forests in Hassan, Chikmagalur, Mysore and Kodagu districts to reduce man-elephant conflict. The task force patrols areas inhabited by elephants, monitors the movements of lone elephants or herds in human habitation, fields or coffee estates, and drives them back into forests under the direction of the Deputy Conservator of Forests. They share information about the movement of wild elephants and warn people not to move in the forest areas. Karnataka has also set up a control room in the headquarters of every task force and shared the contact number with people residing near the forest areas. Plus the task force members have been provided with walkie-talkies, guns and crackers to drive the wild jumbos back into the forests.

We have to find more humane ways to deal with man animal conflict that is growing with each passing day due to the burgeoning human population. India has become the most populous nation in the world, surpassing even China. One wonders how many more animals will have their lives uprooted and even give up their lives in order to support human lives. How is it that we presume that our lives are more important than animal lives? What is it that we have given to the planet? Each and every microorganism, bacteria, insect, animal, bird, fish and plant plays a significant role in keeping this planet alive and healthy. Humans are the only ones who play a hugely destructive role and have destroyed the delicate balance of nature. Our populations continue to grow mindlessly and we push other species inhabiting this planet closer and closer to the brink of extinction, without realising the paradox that in destroying other beneficial species we are actually signing our own death warrant.    

It is heartening to note that the 100 families of Chinnakanal want Ari Komban back. They fear that driving a poor animal out of his home and hearth will bring a curse on their heads, and take their peace and prosperity away. Driven by their guilt and remorse over causing this trauma and separation to the tusker and his family they staged a road roko on the Suryanelli – Bodimettu road recently demanding that the elephant be brought back home. I just hope that the forest department and the politicians of Kerala see reason and reunite the beautiful tusker with his family and friends. After his mother’s death, Ari Komban became an orphan. Let’s not make him homeless and take his family and friends away from him too.

The protracted delay in conducting polls has caused widespread resentment among the people. Though the Centre has passed the buck to ECI arguing the responsibility for holding elections lies with the latter, political parties take this explanation with pinch of a salt, writes Riyaz Wani

During his visit to Jammu on June 6, Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri highlighted the progress made in Jammu and Kashmir, attributing it to improved law and order and security situations. Puri also emphasized the significant infrastructure development in Jammu and Kashmir since the abrogation of Article 370 and Article 35A. However, when asked about the Assembly elections, Puri vaguely mentioned that the region is going through a transition phase, leaving the decision up to the people themselves.

Jammu and Kashmir has been without an Assembly since November 2018 when the legislative assembly was dissolved by the then-governor Satyapal Malik. The imposition of governor’s rule in June 2018 followed the BJP’s withdrawal from the PDP-BJP coalition government led by Mehbooba Mufti.

The last Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir took place in 2014. The current Assembly term was originally set to end in 2020 but was extended by the central government in 2019. Despite this extension, the central government has not yet announced a date for the next Assembly elections in the union territory.

After fresh delimitation last year, the new Jammu and Kashmir Assembly has 114 seats, of which 24 are in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. Of the rest 90 where elections could be held, 47 are in the Kashmir Valley and the rest 43 in the Jammu region.

The BJP public outreach

The BJP recently organized a series of rallies in Jammu and Kashmir to showcase what it perceives as the achievements of its nine-year rule at the Centre. The party highlighted unprecedented development in the region, but conspicuously avoided addressing the pressing question of holding Assembly polls.
Considering the fresh delimitation that gave six more seats to Jammu, the BJP is likely to play a dominant role in the elected government in J&K in future. So its reluctance to hold polls in the union territory is seen as intriguing by many.
The party argues that the responsibility for holding elections lies with the Election Commission of India (ECI). However, the local parties take the BJP’s defence with a pinch of salt, accusing the party itself of delaying the polls.

“The election commission should respond to this question (about when the election will be held in J&K). We want to hear it from the election commission,” former J&K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said. “The Chief Election Commissioner said there is a vacuum in J&K and that vacuum needs to be filled. If the CEC realizes that there is a vacuum in Jammu and Kashmir due to the lack of elections, why is he not fulfilling it?”

Omar pointedly asked the Election Commission as to what were its “compulsions” for not holding elections. “Let the ECI show courage and tell why they are not holding the polls,” he said.
On the other hand, the J&K Peoples Conference (JKPC) led by Sajad Lone, has expressed anguish over denial of democracy in the union territory, saying it had been relegated to mere “tokenism”.
“It is with great sorrow that we observe the continuous denial of democracy and statehood in J&K. It is disheartening that amidst a population of 1.4 billion people in our nation, not a single soul outside the state seems visibly perturbed by the denial of democracy and statehood to J&K,” the party said following a meeting in Srinagar.

Memorandum to ECI

On March 6, 2023, a delegation comprising representatives from all political parties, led by Dr. Farooq Abdullah, met with the Election Commission of India, urging it to fulfill its constitutional obligation and hold the assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir. The delegation stressed that any further delay or denial of elections would infringe upon the democratic rights of the people.

The political leaders also submitted a memorandum to the ECI, in which they called for the restoration of the democratic process in the UT. The memorandum also mentioned that union home minister Amit Shah has stated many times that the government is ready to facilitate assembly elections, but final call has to be taken by the Commission.

Significantly, the signatories of the memorandum included Abdullah, Congress national president Mallikarjun Kharge, CPI (M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury, NCP chief Sharad Pawar and other senior leaders of national political parties. Other signatories were DMK, TMC, CPIM, RJD, SP and  AAP. They have also decided to visit Srinagar in May to assure people of their support.  This was the first such attempt by leaders from Jammu and Kashmir to seek support from opposition parties from across the country for the restoration of statehood and democracy in the region. And this initiative followed immediately after Abdullah rallied opposition leaders from Jammu division where they decided to jointly approach the poll panel.

But the ECI gave no specific timeline to the delegation for the election, although it assured them of its seriousness to hold the exercise.

BJP’s reassurance

BJP secretary Arun Chugh accused the regional political parties of sowing confusion about the polls saying the Panchayat and District Development Council polls have already been held in the union territory.

But another leader Ashok Kaul, however, batted for Assembly polls saying the Assembly is the only forum to make laws which the local bodies or district development councils (DDCs) cannot.
“Assembly is a forum where laws are made. A DDC chairman will not make laws, panchs will not make laws,” General Secretary (organisation), J&K BJP, Ashok Kaul, told reporters.

But nothing appears set to change on the ground. More so, when the only excuse that the union government peddled to justify postponement of elections in the UT- the fresh delimitation of the electoral constituencies – no longer exists. In May 2022, the Delimitation Commission completed the task of redrawing the electoral map of Jammu and Kashmir. Subsequently, the ECI also worked on the revised voter list, which was published in November 2022, adding over seven lakh new voters. Despite these developments, the Assembly elections have not been scheduled, leading various political parties to exert pressure for the polls to be held.

The protracted delay in conducting the polls in Jammu and Kashmir has caused widespread resentment among the people. Although the central government has time and again expressed its intention to hold the elections as soon as possible, there is no clear timeline for when that will happen.
Around nine Assembly elections are scheduled to be held in the country before the general elections. Among them, the elections in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Telangana will be very crucial. But J&K is not one of them.

“The centre has maintained a studied silence on the issue,” said a local political analyst not wanting to be named. “The occasional utterance by a senior BJP leader has passed the buck on to the ECI. The ECI, in turn, has gone silent on the issue. So, nothing is likely to change.”.

 

For Indian students, it was a rude shock when they received deportation notices from the authorities after they were found to have been granted visas on the basis of fake offer letters

The stay on their deportation from Canada has provided temporary relief to Indian students who had completed their degree courses and secured work permits but were subsequently found to have allegedly been granted visas on the basis of fake admission offer letters. This leads to a question on the role of the Canadian embassy officials who issued visas without verifying the authenticity of the letters.

However, there are more questions as to why this brain drain is happening when jobs and other opportunities are shrinking overseas. A recent viral video originating from Kitchener, located 100 kms west of Toronto, showed long lines of Indian international students and graduates at a part-time job fair. Though this one instance has exploded on social media and garnered millions of views, it is by no means the only one: similar reports are emerging from throughout Canada.

For Indian students, it was a rude shock when they received deportation notices from the Canadian Border Security Agency. The deportations have temporarily been stalled after the Indian government took up the matter with the Canadian authorities. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has emphasised the need for fair treatment of the aggrieved students, while Leader of the Opposition Pierre Poilievre has demanded that the fraudsters be prosecuted and ‘honest students’ be allowed to ‘stay, work and contribute to Canada.’

The fact remains students are making a significant contribution of revenue to Canada and its economy. It’s not easy for parents to send their children abroad for studies. Some of them even have to mortgage their immovable property and dip heavily into their life savings. No wonder, hundreds of students facing deportation due to forged offer letters had hit the streets in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) in Canada.

International students coming to Canada not only bear the burden of high tuition fees – over five times what local Canadian students pay – but also have to invest a minimum of $10,000 in a mandatory Guaranteed Investment Certificate.

Students say, “Landlords are arbitrarily raising rents, even threatening eviction if we fail to pay increased amounts. Beds are renting for 800 dollars a pop in overcrowded accommodations. Some students have been forced to rely on food banks”. Canada is projected to welcome 753,000 international students this year, an increase from 550,000 last year. These students contribute about 25 billion dollars annually to the economy. Brampton, Ontario, and Surrey, British Columbia, are typically the cities associated with the Indian diaspora in Canada. They have permeated the Punjabi consciousness so thoroughly – through movies, songs and literature – that they are considered extensions of Punjab as well as integral parts of Canada.

However, the narrative of the Indo-Canadian community extends beyond these two cities. Owing to factors such as a booming economy and relative affordability, Calgary, specifically the north-eastern part of Canada’s third-largest city proper, has emerged as a prominent South Asian hub over the past decade.  The incumbent mayor of Calgary is Punjabi, Jyoti Gondek. Her predecessor, Naheed Nenshi, an Ismaili of Gujarati origin, was the first Muslim mayor of a large North American city. Moreover, the mayor of Alberta’s capital, Edmonton, Amarjeet Sohi, is also of Punjabi descent. Calgary’s relative affordability, cheaper housing compared to the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) and the Greater Vancouver Area (GVA), is attracting a substantial number of Desi newcomers. This includes both new immigrants and those migrating from the GTA and GVA.

A Canada-based Friends of Canada & India Foundation had come out in support of these students. The foundation had written a letter to Sean Fraser, Minister of Immigration, requesting an immediate stay on the proceedings to deport the students.  “We urge you to intervene in this matter and stop the deportation process immediately as this incident demands a broad investigation. The student visas and work permits were granted on the basis of forged documents pertaining to the Canadian institutions, this fact raises serious questions on the efficiency and competence of the Canadian immigration regime. It is understandable that protecting the integrity of the Canadian immigration regime is one of your priorities, but this special case demands a compassionate approach,” the letter read. It added, “The students have invested their life’s earnings in getting higher education in Canada. A number of them come from poor and marginalised families. They have invested their time, money, and youth in Canada. They have done everything to prove themselves as good students and hard workers. The deportation will prove to be catastrophic to these young lives and it will also impact Canada’s image as a preferred destination for higher studies globally”.  The allegations that student visas and work permits were granted on the basis of forged documents pertaining to the Canadian institutions, raises serious questions on the efficiency and competence of the Canadian immigration regime.

Several leaders, including MP for Mississauga-Malton Iqwinder S Gaheer, Saskatoon West MP Brad Redekopp, MPP (Member of Provincial Parliament) for Brampton South Prabmeet Sarkaria, MPP for Brampton West Amarjot Sandhu and Brampton East MPP Hardeep Grewal, have extended support to the protesting Indian students. NRI Minister Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal had also written a letter to the MEA asking it to take up the matter with the Canadian authorities and stop the deportation. Punjabi singers Sherry Mann and Elly Mangat had also visited the students’ protest in Canada.

However, the serious issue is brain drain. No other region in India has a more pronounced effect of it than Punjab. Everyone in the state knows someone who lives and works abroad.  Mass exodus of youngsters from Punjab to Canada in search of a better life is a known fact now. Most emigrate to Canada as students, since it’s the quickest route, but marriages with Canadian residents and family or friend sponsorships are also common.  The age bracket of emigrants is 22-28, with the majority holding undergraduate degrees and some even having work experience in their respective fields of study. Unfortunately, the work that they find here in Canada seldom matches their academic qualifications. They usually end up going into logistics, driving trucks or working in other less glamorous professions such as taxi drivers, salesmen, factory workers and so on.  

Canadian GDP is about 68 per cent the size of Indian GDP, the Canadian population is, however, only 2.6 per cent the size of Indian population — to make sense of the difference in standard of living and available opportunities in the two countries. Punjabi, for example, is the second-most spoken language in the town of Surrey, a city of some 6,00,000, and it is also one of the most widely spoken languages in the Greater Toronto Area , the biggest urban agglomeration in the country with more than six million people. 

In the meanwhile, in another major shock for India, the Australian authorities and universities have reportedly rejected the application of students from Punjab and Haryana. According to reports Australian officials from the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) had warned international education operators about soaring numbers of “low-quality applications”.