Defeat to Mehbboba’s anti-dissent posturing

The moving of a bill on property damage act in the state assembly was by all standards of understandabilities showing the anti-dissent posturing of the incumbent Mehbooba Mufti led PDP-BJP coalition government and as such the opposition by blocking its passage in the assembly defeat the government’s intents of enforcing more legal curbs on dissenting voices in Kashmir. Since both the central and the state governments are facing a lot of criticism and condemnation from the human rights groups both within and outside the state for the actions they are taking to restrict the movements of the separatist leaders and silence the dissenting voices in Jammu & Kashmir, the tabling of a controversial bill on restrictions over violent protests and demonstrations not cleared for tabling in the parliament by the central government was by all standards of understandabilities a politically unsound decision. Already the use of a deadly lethal weapon like pellets without the mandate of the state legislature has brought the government into disrepute and the human rights groups both within and outside Jammu & Kashmir are insisting on ban over the use of this deadly weapon for crowd control policing and as such political wisdom did not demand the introduction of a bill for penalizing the people calling for protests and demonstration against the government for one reason or the other. Though government in view of the united opposition to the bill by the entire opposition in the assembly was left with no other choice but to agree to the demand of the opposition for referring the draft legislation to the select committee of the assembly but better it would have been if the government would have withdrawn this controversial bill keeping in view the reservations of the opposition over the issue and the larger public interest.
Now when the bill has been referred to the select committee of the assembly the intents of the government over the right to protest and demonstration would be litmus for the PDP running a coalition government in alliance with B JP the party which has forced the incumbent Mehbooba government to shrink the political space for the separatists in Kashmir valley. The referring of the bill to the select committee instead of withdrawing it as demanded by the entire opposition is by all standards of understandabilities exposes the helplessness of PDP before BJP even over issues which are overtly and covertly connected to freedom of speech and expression guaranteed to people of the state by both the constitution of India and as well as the constitution of Jammu & Kashmir.