J&K land row: No Dialogue due to militancy, politics

LANDLESS IN JAMMU & KASHMIR: For many Kashmiris, land is their pride and their identity.

          

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Keywords: PDP, Congress

New Delhi: With militancy and political turmoil in the Valley, right-wing politics are grabbing center-stage in Jammu and have steadily drawn the two regions apart. Dialogue has all but died.

Political scientist Rekha Choudhary says, "There was a lot of talk about intra-state and intra-regional dialogue, but that was not addressed."

What surprised many people during the agitation in Kashmir was the sheer scale of the protests.

Thousands came on to the streets to demand that the land be taken back. And their voices revealed just how sensitive an issue land is in this part of the country.

For many Kashmiris, land is much more than property. It is pride, it is identity.

When part of Mohammed Yousuf Dar's apple orchard in Baramulla was taken over by the Army in 1990s, he was devastated. Land he once owned across the road is out of bounds for him.

"We are suffering losses, huge losses. In my area alone, the Army has taken so many acres of land. We want the government to tell them to leave," says he.

The Army occupies over 16,000 acres in Jammu, over 2,000 in Srinagar, and close to 4,000 acres in Baramulla. In fact over 85,000 acres across J&K are occupied by the army.

In April, the Army raised the rents it paid for the land. However, the President of the Valley's Fruit Growers Association, Ghulam Rasool Bhat, says many are still suffering.

"The rents are not proportional to the land that the Army have occupied," says he.

Two years ago, when the state government said it would lease out land in Gulmarg to build facilities for tourists, protests broke out across the Valley and the government was forced to withdraw the proposal.

Hurriyat Conference leader, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq says, "The land The land thing was just an offshoot of the inhibitions and fears people have in their mind - that this is the only thing which we are left with, our land. Our land is our identity."

(With inputs from Pawan Bali, Mufti Islah, Aasim Khan and Nilanjana Bose)