By TwoCircles.net news desk,
New Delhi: If we wish to retain Kashmir as part of our country we should stop treating the Kashmiri people as aliens and let them decide what to do with their land, said noted academicians from across the country reacting over the Amarnath Shrine land deal.
The have expressed grave concern at how the dispute over grant of land to the Amarnath Board in Kashmir is being handled by our political authorities.
Over four weeks the agitators in Jammu were allowed by the administration to impose a blockade of Kashmir, which, despite official denials practically continued till the end of August. Those whom Mr LK Advani and others call “nationalists”, committed crime, arson and mayhem in Jammu, while waving the national flag reads a statement issued by Irfan Habib, Professor Emeritus, Aligarh Muslim University, on behalf of about two dozen professors from across the country.
Giving details of discrimination to the people of Valley during the agitation, the academicians said that by blockading Valley for a month, the nationalists have themselves proved to be the most effective separatists since they entirely separated Kashmir from the rest of the country, and tried to starve out the people of the very area they are never tired of pronouncing an integral part of India.
By allowing them to do so and by making concession after concession to them, the Government of India cannot escape the stigma of colluding with them, they said.
The professors have denounced the deal by which the Governor’s own order of 29 June has been revoked and the re-allotment of the 800 kanals of land “exclusively” to the Amarnath Shrine Board has been made.
The deal’s details made it clear that limitation to “the duration of yatra” is a mere formality, since no power is given to the Government of Jammu and Kashmir over how the Shrine Board deals with the land “from time to time”. It is also clear that the special concessions, under paras 9 and 10 of the agreement, about withdrawal of cases and compensation to agitators are confined to Jammu and not made applicable to the Kashmir Division.
No persons sincerely interested in opposing the movement for Kashmir’s secession can support this deal, which is naturally seen in Kashmir as an unjust and provocative act, the professors said while calling upon all fellow-citizens to join them in demanding a revocation of the deal and the establishment of a proper rule of law in the whole State of Jammu and Kashmir.
The signatories to the statement included Professor R.S. Sharma (Patna), Professor Suvira Jaiswal (Hyderabad), Professor Keshavan Veluthat (Mangalore), Professor R.L. Shukla (Delhi), Professor Irfan Habib (Aligarh), Professor H.C. Satyarthi (Muzaffarpur), Professor Shireen Moosvi (Aligarh), Professor D.N. Jha (Delhi), Professor Pradeep Saxena (Aligarh), Professor Iqtidar Alam Khan (Aligarh), Dr Ramesh Rawat (Aligarh), Professor Sayera I. Habib (Aligarh) and Dr Prabhat Shukla (New Delhi).