Peoples Conference president Sajad Lone on Monday said Jammu and Kashmir was witnessing disempowerment as a continuous process and it was achieved incrementally with unfailing frequency. He blamed the “alien administration” for this.
“The situation in J&K is unambiguously extraordinary. People are in pain and there is helplessness all around. The process of disempowerment that started on August 5 refuses to abate. Disempowerment has become a continuous process and is achieved incrementally with unfailing frequency,” Mr. Lone, who quit the Gupkar alliance earlier this year, stated.
Mr. Lone had convened a meeting of the party’s central working committee “to discuss contemporary political situation".
“Rarely a day passes when there is not some sort of law aimed at belittling the Kashmiris, humiliating them and further disempowering them. To compound the problems further, there is an alien administration, which has nothing in common with the people of J&K. Resolution of basic issues of day to day survival faced by masses are matters of prime luxury and a rarity,” he observed.
The leadership in these challenging times should rise up to the occasion and rescue the Kashmiris instead of feeding them to hungry lions. “The Peoples Conference will do everything in its power to protect a common Kashmiri from being victimised,” he asserted.
Politics of confrontation
Without naming any party, he warned against politics of confrontation. “Every confrontation ends up with a victim and a victor. A confrontation needs victims, someone who is willing to die. Someone who is willing to go to jail. Someone who is willing to be thrown out of his job. Someone who is willing to be beaten up, interrogated. Will it be from the political elite, will it be from their families or will it as per tradition be the poor man’s son?”, he remarked.
The Peoples Conference, he pointed out, may have a million disagreements with the ruling regime and its leadership “but the harsh reality is that they wield unbridled powers to further erode and hurt the interest of Kashmir”. “The irrational and theatrical provocations of a section of our leadership are only becoming a catalyst for new changes and erosions. It is our firm belief that true to the age-old Kashmiri adage that the bravado of allowing something to be taken away needs the skills of a magician to get it back. We believe there is no space for further bravado.”
The Peoples Conference, on its part, would create an enabling environment for deliverance by Delhi. “We are in a hurry that democracy is restored, we are in a hurry that whatever has been taken away be restored. New Delhi is not in any hurry,” he added.