The main opposition National Conference famous for double standard and double speak is now linking issue of state subject with the deportation of Rohingya muslims in Jammu region only to carry forward the party’s agenda of disintegration tendencies at the cost of the political aspirations of the people of the state. To create yet another controversy to make an unwanted issue out of an issue concerning the property rights of the people of the state the National Conference legislator Devender Singh Rana also a key aid of party’s working president and former chief minister Omar Abdullah has called for deportation of Rohingya refugees without raising a similar demand over the future of West Pakistan Refugees (WPRs). Even within the National Conference none of the top leaders dares to ask Rana that he is not within his rights to take two contradictory position on the future of refugees in Jammu. Refugees from one country or the other have to treated equally and one rule can’t be set for refugees of one country and the other for refugees of another country. When Rana speaks of the deportation of Rohingya muslim from Jammu region then he has to raise the demand for deportation of West Pakistan Refugees (WPRs) to ensure that two sets of refugees are offered equal rights and equal treatment. Saying that presence of Rohingya muslim refugees but not the West Pakistan Refugees (WPRs) is a threat to interests of Dogra hindu in Jammu regions is conveys a message of dividing two sets of refugees on communal lines. When a responsible leader representing a constituency in the state assembly talks about applying two different yardsticks for two different sets of refugees, it shows the intents of Rana on the religious demography of the muslim majority state of the country. If Rohingya muslims in the words of Devender Singh Rana are a threat to the religious demography to Dogras’ in Jammu region then what about the West Pakistan Refugees’ (WPRs’) whose presence can change the religious demography of the muslim majority community in the only muslim majority state of the country.
True it is that Jammu will face the main brunt in the event of scrapping Article 35A but this does not give a licenseto Jammu centric leaders of Jammu division to demand deportation of the refugees of one country and oppose the application of same law to West Pakistan Refugees who are a bigger threat to the religious demography in the only muslim majority state of the country.
Though National Conference should have sought an explanation from Devender Singh Rana for needlessly raising the demand for the deportation of Rohingya muslim already raised by BJP and Jammu centric parties but National Conference did not bother to do so for the purposes of its own political conveniences at the cost of the interests of the muslim majority community in the only muslim majority state of the country. Rana needs to be reminded that state subject law under Article 35A is as good a commitment of the Constitution of India to people of Kashmir as it is to the Dogras . True it is that Jammu will face the main brunt in the event of scrapping Article 35A but this does not give a licenseto Jammu centric leaders of Jammu division to demand deportation of the refugees of one country and oppose the application of same law to West Pakistan Refugees who are a bigger threat to the religious demography in the only muslim majority state of the country.
