People’s Conference president and legislator Sajad Lone on Wednesday sought an “amicable divorce” between the regions of Jammu and Kashmir, making him the first prominent voice from the Valley in recent times to propose such a split amid growing calls in Jammu for a separate state.
“Maybe the time has come for an amicable divorce. It is not only about development matters. Jammu has become the proverbial stick to beat the Kashmiri with,” Handwara MLA Lone, who served as a minister in the previous PDP-BJP government, said in a statement.
Lone was reacting to what he called Jammu’s “obsessive” opposition to development initiatives in Kashmir.
Jammu’s BJP politicians and the Right-wing ecosystem have in recent weeks launched protests on multiple occasions, starting with the opposition to the admission of Muslims to Mata Vaishno Devi University, to a larger Muslim presence in the Union Territory’s football team for the Santosh Trophy and the Under-14 cricket team and the setting up of a law university in Kashmir.
Lone on Wednesday asked chief minister Omar Abdullah to honour his promise of setting up a law university in Kashmir’s Budgam district, saying “sanctity of CM’s office demands follow-through”.
Emphasising the need for institutional integrity, he said: “The sanctity of the institution of CM demands that he live up to his promise and keep it there.”
“And this Jammu thing. I hope Jammu prospers. But this obsession with having everything and anything that Kashmir wants is more of an issue of lunacy. They have an IIM. What is wrong if a law university comes to Kashmir?” he added.
The Handwara MLA suggested the time had come for reconsidering the administrative arrangement between the two regions, seeking an amicable “divorce” as a solution.
The PC president accused Jammu-based voices of selective courage, alleging they remained silent when the Centre “took away everything from them, diverted business, even took away the Darbar move”, but demonstrated “valour only against their own Kashmir region”.
Lone argued that Kashmir’s integration with the rest of India could not be facilitated through what he called intermediaries who continuously maligned the region.
“If Kashmir is to integrate with the rest of the country, it will have to be done without the service of touts. We cannot have a region slandering Kashmiris non-stop and petitioning the rest of the country that only one region in Jammu and Kashmir is with the country and that the other is a terrorist region,” he said.
Lone claimed the Kashmiri sentiment on regional relations had shifted significantly.
“I think the people of Kashmir, too, can’t take it anymore. Talk of reservations and the Kashmiris are crowded out. I am sure the desire for divorce is much, much higher in Kashmir than it ever was. Need the leadership to call a spade a spade,” he said.
Prominent voices in Jammu have been calling for statehood, although the BJP as a party has said it was against the decision.
Senior BJP legislator Sham Lal Sharma recently supported the call for Jammu’s statehood.