As election fever ran high in Kashmir, mainstream political
parties used their rallies, meetings, media etc. to repeatedly convey to the
people that they would take care of their basic needs and day to day
requirements if returned to power. This was their election plank. They meant to
say that necessities like drinking water, electric power, roads, jobs and
medical health etc. would be improved although the fundamental issue of the
state remained where it was. Unfortunately, sentimentality is the bane of our
people. They believed in these commitments and promise of the mainstream,
parties and cast their votes in full strength.
But only a few months back the ”ragda movement” resulted in
the martyrdom of no fewer than seventy-five youth. People forgot that only a
few months ago martyrs had sacrificed their precious lives. However, the
separatists, too, have to share the blame in the sense that they carried
forward the movement out of sheer sentimentality and without closing their
ranks and without forging unity among themselves. The result of this type of miss-management
is that despite making precious sacrifices, people get exhausted and prefer to
stay indoors.
People never asked the mainstream parties that while they
were promising to fulfill all the basic requirement of day to day life within
the next tenure of six years, what happened during the past six decades when
they had been enjoying power. When nothing could be achieved in this regard
during six decades, what magic wand is in their hands to accomplish the job in
six years?
In any case, under the leadership of Sonia Gandhi, a
coalition government of National Conference and Congress was formed and Omar
Abdullah was installed the Chief Minister. Many persons against whom
allegations of corruption and nepotism had come to light were re-inducted into
the new coalition ministry. About the chief minister, there was media hype that
as a young and energetic political leader he would no doubt solve all
outstanding problems of the people. Intense propaganda created a ray of hope in
all the three regions of the state that things would change for better. But
gradually all those expectations evaporated in thin air because just after one
year the longest ever strike took place in Kashmir which consumed nearly 111
precious lives including innocent children. State economy suffered nearly 84
thousand crores. Since the state has been deliberately made a consumer state,
therefore it is the common man in Kashmir who had to suffer this loss. This
brought a fatal blow to the state’s commercial health. Employees in private
sector have been shunted out; services of salesmen have been dispensed with.
According to one estimate, nearly a hundred thousand employees have been
rendered jobless. This is the reason why in the absence of any considered
planning by political parties and politicians, people have resorted to full
scale and long term strikes in schools, workshops, business centers and all
other institutions thereby bringing severe damage to their own economic
life.And strange to say that these very people themselves put a halt to the
strikes voluntarily. At that time I had said in very clear terms that by asking
for the strikes in schools for a long time, it would put a heavy burden on
society, which it may not be able to carry. Then there was durbar move and the
valley and Ladakh regions were left in lurch. Now people fail to understand
whether there is anybody representing the government and its administrative
institutions here. All that exists here is the presence of the police and
security forces, their tyranny, and their brutal attacks. In other words
nothing exists in the valley except the police and security forces. For
example, in the matter of supply of cooking gas, we have repeated official
announcements that there is no shortage of gas.
But the reality is that people keep standing in queues for hours at end
in the cold weather awaiting their turn to replace the cylinders. Retail shops
of various gas agencies usually remain closed. The gossip is that liquid gas is
not supplied only to commercial institutions, hotels and various state offices
but some gas agencies have appointed vegetable venders, general stores and
petty shop keepers also as their sales agents thus opening the scope for black
marketing of gas cylinders. It is alarming to note that in absence of necessary
safety precautions, a tragedy can happen at any of these vending sites for
liquid gas which would endanger human lives. In black market a cylinder is sold
for anything between 400 and 460 rupees. Food and Supplies Director has
switched off his telephone so that he is not pestered by calls from consumers
seeking redress of their grievances. This writer made scores of futile attempts
to reach him. But once when he lifted the receiver, he did not like my asking
why gas was not available in Bren, Nishat and Shalimar localities. He shot back
saying how come I had suddenly developed care for the masses of the people? Was
this the promise made by the political parties at the time of election?
The
situation of power supply is hopeless despite so many people having written
angrily on either lack or irregularity of electric power supply. Administration
has not paid any attention to this important grievance of the people. Instead
of building small power generating units, there are announcements of building
mega projects for generating power but these seldom get translated into reality.
Power generating units are given on contract and according to agreements made;
the state receives only 12 to 16 per cent of total power produced. PDP accused
the chief minister of having received kickbacks to the tune of 500 crore rupees
for allotting the contracts to the bidders for power generating projects.
Kashmir has the capacity to produce twenty thousand megawatts of electric power
but actually not more than 1200 to 1300 megawatts electricity is produced.
Keeping in sight the flip side of our national character, it
has to be said that there is pilfering of electric power not only by the poor
and needy but also by the affluent sections of population. It is reported that
there are numerous cases of perforation at night by getting a direct connection
with the main line. I have myself seen people hooking up to the main supply
line and pilfering power to boil water. And many of these pilferers usually sit
in the front row in the mosque to pose as honest and pure persons. In many hot
baths attached to the mosques, water
boilers are being used to heat water for performing ablution and then offering
names. In most of private houses, not only are heaters used but big boilers
have been installed for heating water for daily use. This has been the reason why
transformers in many localities are burnt and need to be replaced.
True that people here need electricity and they have a right
to keep and use devices and gadgets that run on electric power. But the
condition is that electric charges have to be paid as we find in European
countries. That is not happening and not only that the electric department is
not receiving full revenue nor can the department purchase more electricity. It
has to be said that the employees of the electric department are 80 per cent
responsible for power pilferage. It is
these employees who teach consumers how to do the theft and not only that, it
is also reported that it is they who give unauthorized connections to some of
the people who grease their palms with monthly cash doles. These corrupt
employees ensure that in case any team from electric department comes up for
spot checking, their clients are pre-informed and they take precautionary
measures to hoodwink the checking teams. And anybody does not oblige them with
“chai”, and then he is doomed to pay a perforated electric power consumption
bill.
The unfortunate thing about this nation is that those who
claim to be highly religious, too, consider bribery something permissible. A
middleman at the marriage facilitating bureau exaggerates the income of the
girl’s parents by saying that apart from regular salary, the father of the girl
or her ward has superfluous (pethwaen) income as well, meaning the money gotten
through bribery. Bribery is much more polluted than a pig. It would be advised
the bribe takers eat something very dirty rather than eat up the rights of the
people by extracting bribe money from them. Government’s anti-corruption policy
is to catch a peon red handed for taking a bribe of just paltry sum of forty or
fifty rupees. But nearly three hundred files incriminating some top ranking
government officers during the days of ex-Vigilance Commissioner are gathering
dust in the cupboards of the Vigilance Department. When corruption is rampant
from top to bottom, then who will evince even the faintest interest in
eradicating it. It is not at all difficult to get hold of a corrupt person, by
finding out his life style, the house he lives in, the vehicle he uses, where
are his siblings receiving education and in his normal income and from what
source. Corruption destroys society and
ill gotten money leads to scramble for competing others in amassing wealth and
the rights of deserving parsons are trampled under foot.
Department of Food is a case in point. Gunny bags full of rice
are provided for distribution among the poor people but these are sold in black
markets. The site clerks (ghaate munush) of Food Department have been seen
driving expensive vehicles, they have mansions to live in and they have
purchased landed properties in different names of their relatives. This is true
of ordinary clerks and what bizarre loot is made by the officers and senior of
the Department is anybody’s guess.
This is also true of PHE Department. Our sisters have to
cover three or four miles in this bitter cold to fetch water for drinking and
cooking purposes and that too polluted and unfit for use. What happened to the
promises made at the time of voting? The case of the roads is no better. If a
road is made once, it is left unattended till all of its traces become
invisible. Newly built roads have to be maintained on yearly basis. Then alone
can we say that there is dependable connectivity. If a VIP of the ruling group
happens to pass through a road, the department hastily fills it potholes with
raw earth just to let his car pass.
The ruling party has invariably given contracts pertaining
to building roads, filling nullahs and raising buildings to the brothers and
the kith and kin of MLAs or top ranking office bearers of the ruling party. It
is found that they do not spend eve one–fort of the total amount for the
specific work allotted to them. This is how this department, too, eats muck
instead of serving the people and providing them relief.
About the condition of the Department of Health the less
said the better. There is only one maternity hospital in Srinagar called Lalded
Memorial Hospital. While expectant mothers give birth to the future generations
in this hospital, it has been found that dogs and cats roaming freely around
also give birth to their new progeny simultaneously. In this hospital, every
mother giving birth to a live or dead infant has to give the bribe in any case.
A disjointed electric wire is hidden under the tape of plaster. Dirt and filth
lie in heaps inside and outside the hospital. A glance on SKIMS, SMHS, and JP
Panth hospitals tells the story of ruination of this nation’s health centers.
Many pharmacies have sprung around the hospitals, and usually, drugs meant for
the patients in government hospitals are stolen from the stores and sold to
these pharmacies on cheaper price. Poor patients are forced to purchase drugs
from open market and go through medical tests at private clinics where they
have to pay.
Doctors have almost forgotten the sense of responsibility to
the nation. They come to the hospitals at noon and leave the hospital two and
half an hours later to continue their private practice at private clinics. This
is how a patient is virtually looted. Many modern and sophisticated machines in
the hospitals are dysfunctional and are not fixed for years at end. May be
those whose duty is to get these repaired misappropriate the money meant for
repairs. The lifts in hospital vital for patients, who can move with
difficulty, are out of work. Lift boys have become office bearers of labour
unions only to blackmail the administration. Thus patients or their caretakers
have to go up and down to seventh or eighth floor almost panting for breath.
Almost every department of the hospital seems paralyzed. As a result private
nursing homes and clinics have mushroomed in the valley. Doctors of government
health department are found conducting operations in private clinics and
nursing homes. It is the sweet will of the owners of nursing homes how much fee
they would charge from a patient admitted. Along with these privet clinics
private pathological unites too have mushroomed extensively. If a patient goes
to any so-called well reputed clinic for tests, he is charged exorbitant fee
running into several thousands of rupees. The test fee is to be paid in
advance. Imagine a poor patient coming from a far off village for tests has
five hundred or a thousand rupees in his pocket but needs the test the same
day. He cannot proceed because he has not the full amount available with him to
pay on the same day. He has to go back to his home and arrange the requisite
money and come back to get himself medically tested. The practice in all big
cities in India is that the patient pays some advance for clinical tests and
the balance is paid at the time of receiving the complete report. Apart from
this, the fees charged for various tests here in Kashmir are usually four times
more than the amount of fees charged anywhere in any city of India. What can be
said about this state of affairs? The Health Minister of the State has only one
job to perform and that is of trifurcating the state.
The condition of the department of education is no better in
any way. A cursory look at the matriculation examination result will show the
status of our education as it stands today. I was fortunate to have very
respectable teachers when I was a school child. Among them were late Abdul
Ghani Zargar, late Abdul Aziz Dar, Kashinath Kaul, Kashinath Raina, Shamboo
Nath, Khadim Sahib and Kamili Sahib. They considered teaching no less than
praying to God. In schools we find the teachers usually coming at 11 AM and
leaving around 2.30 PM. We learn that some of the influential teachers have
contracted assignments with the All India Radio Kashmir. This state of affairs
in government schools has encouraged private entrepreneurs to open private
educational institutions which have become blood suckers. They demand anything
from twenty thousand to fifty thousand as admission fee. They pretend that they
have no vacancy for fresh admission and in this way they are perpetrating
general loot of people who want their wards to receive education. These
institutions have devised novel ways of extracting money from students or increasing
the fees,Thus we find that in Kashmir, an ordinary man is faced with immense
hurdles in finding treatment in hospitals, in finding admission to his ward in
schools, in having civic facilitates like drinking water and electricity and
day to day necessities of life and survival. Prices are touching skies and
there is no control on prices anywhere. If the government thinks that by
forcing people to take to thefts, burglaries, bribes and general loot it will
get rid of the nuisance of good governance, let me say that this is
foolhardiness. Effective revolution ultimately surges from the hungry stomach.
Omar Abdullah and the Indian leadership should scan the pages of the history of
France and China.
Finally we would like the young chief minister to answer one
question. Do you or your government not see all that has been stated in this
piece and happening with ordinary man in Kashmir? Why should your government
turn a deaf ear to the lament of the people? Where have the election promises
made by National Conference and Congress evaporated in thin air? Maybe Omar
Abdullah has become a poet and strictly follows what the poet says:
Wuh waada
hi kya Jo wofa kya j aye.......
This article was published in daily 'Greater Kashmir' on 25th January 2011.
