{"id":321663,"date":"2020-03-30T08:20:42","date_gmt":"2020-03-30T08:20:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/?p=321663"},"modified":"2020-03-30T08:20:44","modified_gmt":"2020-03-30T08:20:44","slug":"exclusive-rights-to-land-jobs-key-focus-of-apni-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/exclusive-rights-to-land-jobs-key-focus-of-apni-party\/","title":{"rendered":"Exclusive rights to land, jobs key focus of Apni Party"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/exclusive-rights-to-land-jobs-key-focus-of-apni-party\/41a\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-321706\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\" wp-image-321706 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/41a-300x236.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"535\" height=\"421\" srcset=\"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2020\/03\/41a-300x236.jpg 300w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2020\/03\/41a-534x420.jpg 534w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2020\/03\/41a.jpg 605w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 535px) 100vw, 535px\" \/><\/a>New Delhi is supposed to be mulling domicile rights for citizens of J&amp;K whereby they will have exclusive rights to land and jobs in the union territory. There have been several indications to this effect over the past two weeks.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif;\">First came the assurance of no demographic change by no less than Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the home minister Amit Shah during a meeting with a delegation of Apni Party led by Altaf Bukhari in the middle of this month. Later Bukhari, in a statement, said that the centre will announce a concrete plan for domicile rights for people of J&amp;K in a week.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif;\">Bukhari is focussing his politics largely around a demand for protection of land and job rights of the people of J&amp;K besides seeking restoration of the statehood.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif;\">The Apni Party leader is trying to tap into the anxiety among a majority of the people in J&amp;K about the vulnerability of the union territory to a demographic change following the revocation of Article 370. And this is why the Centre\u2019s recent noises on these issues are likely to strike a chord in Kashmir Valley.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif;\">But until these promises are actually implemented, they will count for little as in past too the BJP government has made them and then done exactly the opposite. For example, last year just two days before withdrawal of Article 370, the PM Modi had made a promise to a delegation led by Farooq Abdullah that J&amp;K\u2019s special status won\u2019t be removed.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif;\">As of now, most of the Centre\u2019s energy in Kashmir is focussed on maintaining law and order in the state and ensuring no mass protests take place against the nullification of J&amp;K\u2019s autonomy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif;\">It has yet to try a political outreach or signal it is ready to make some accommodation with Kashmiri demands. And considering the immense popularity of scrapping of Article 370 across the country, the space for New Delhi to make some political concessions to Kashmir is drastically limited. But the centre will certainly like to see the prominent mainstream political actors like the recently released Dr Farooq Abdullah, Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti back on Kashmir\u2019s political scene but on its terms.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif;\">The demand for statehood and some small concessions like letting jobs in the UT government remain restricted to residents only are likely to be acceptable to New Delhi. But as things stand, it is still premature to speculate about the course Kashmir politics will take in weeks and months to come.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif;\">Bukhari has a tough job on his hands. It won\u2019t be easy for him to credibly deliver on the tall promises he is making on Centre\u2019s behalf. More so, when New Delhi is due to implement 37 central laws envisaged in the Concurrent List \u2014 a list of 52 items given in the Seventh Schedule to the Constitution of India \u2014 in J&amp;K.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif;\">The Order of the implementation of these laws will be called the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation (Adaptation of Central Laws) Order, 2020. The laws are designed to ensure complete merger of J&amp;K into Indian Union.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif;\">These simultaneous moves are making the shape of a post-Article 370 J&amp;K still a work in progress. This has created a lot of political uncertainty as also the anxiety about the future.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif;\">At a time when the major leaders of the established parties remain in jail, people view\u00a0 activity of the politicians like Bukhari and his cohort with suspicion. The attention they are getting springs largely from the absence of the recognized parties and also from their promise to ensure demography and domicile rights of the people of J&amp;K are secured.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif;\">letters@tehelka.com<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New Delhi is supposed to be mulling domicile rights for citizens of J&amp;K whereby they will have exclusive rights to land and jobs in the union territory. There have been several indications to this effect over the past two weeks. First came the assurance of no demographic change by no less than Prime Minister Narendra [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":321706,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23,2205],"tags":[10645,12840,1141],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321663"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=321663"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321663\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":321709,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321663\/revisions\/321709"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media\/321706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=321663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=321663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=321663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}