National Conference on Wednesday said people of J&K see changes to land laws as a “double assault” on their political history as well as future, saying the party will continue to strive for restoring honor and dignity of people.
In a joint statement, the party’s General Secretary, Ali Muhammad Sagar and provincial President, Nasir Aslam Wani said made the remarks while presiding over a monthly review meeting with the party’s zone Presidents.
They led the party functionaries in paying homage to senior party member and former MLC, late Nasir Khan Sahib. While interacting with the functionaries, Sagar said new land laws clear the decks for revival of “neo-Jagirdari system” in J&K. He said with no bar on the maximum land holding, the government has opened the floodgates for big corporations to buy large chunks of land. The new land laws, he said, serve the purpose of big businesses at the cost of locals.
“New land law notification and nullification of state’s own land laws has become a pivot which has united people. From a socialistic political entity, J&K through successive executive orders and notifications has been shorn of its prized emancipative political history. The wanton curtailment of the rights of people of J&K is going unabated, the latest land laws is a point in case,” Sagar said.
He said the state’s own land laws represented the collective will of the people of J&K which they had exercised by choosing their legislatures. However, he said the 12 laws were done away with by a stroke of an executive order devoid of democratic bearings.
“The changes reveal the deflection of New Delhi on its solemn promises it had made to the people of J&K from time to time,” he said.
Wani, while addressing the functionaries said that a year after the “unconstitutional rescinding” of the state’s status, the socio-economic situation of its people has worsened as never before. He said the deteriorating governance and administration in J&K gives credence to the widespread belief of people that it was land only that matters to the incumbent ruling dispensation at New Delhi.
The new lands laws, he said reeks of discrimination. “Why is it that land safeguards are denied to people of J&K only, and granted elsewhere in other states?” he said.
He said the proposed development, job extravaganza and development was nowhere detectable on ground, and that the state has been thrown into an abyss of chaos. During the long meeting, the participants expressed dismay at the lack of development, electricity outages across Kashmir.