The crusade against the corruption in Jammu and Kashmirseems to have intensified since the day Bharatiya Janata Party led NDA 2.0 hasreturned to power with a thumping majority in the Centre.
During the past one and a half month anti-graft agencieshave become active in different states and Jammu and Kashmir has been a noexception. Recently, Jammu and Kashmir Governor Satya Pal Malik took pot shotsat the people who were in charges of the Forest department in Jammu andKashmir. The Governor Malik claimed that they made “millions” and own bigbungalows in posh colonies across New Delhi. He made it clear that theanti-graft agencies in J&K have been given all the powers and no one,including the “big fishes” will be spared.
“There is no vendetta (against anyone). In its naturalcourse, the way Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) is working now, we won’t let gobig fishes. No one will be spared – whether he belongs to any party or howeverbig he is. No one is big before the law. I am here. I am not going anywhere,” Maliktold reporters in Srinagar. (Greater Kashmir..July 9, 2019).
The Governor Malik talking tough and straight is a clearwarning to the corrupt elements that their days are numbered and anti-graftagencies would come hard on them.
Many people believe that corruption being rampant in Jammuand Kashmir is one of the major reasons about youth being disenchanted with thesystem. It looks like that the people at the helm have decided to root out thecorruption from the system so that the deserving get their share and they arenot left out.
Maximum people in Kashmir are happy about the “tough stand”taken by the Governor’s administration against the corrupt elements. They knowit very well that political dispensations in the past just made tallpromisesabout wiping out corruption from the system but these promises justremained confined to papers only. But in Governor’s rule things have changedand the anti-graft agencies which were called as “toothless tigers” have beenprovided enough teeth to deal with the corrupt elements.
New Delhi’s new Kashmir policy seems clear. There seems tobe no place for the people who used to thrive on slogans and rhetoric. Duringthe past one year even the leaders of the mainstream parties in Kashmir havebeen sidelined and people sitting in New Delhi seem to be in a no mood tolisten to them. On the other hand the “big people” who used to enjoy thepolitical patronage are looking for spaces to hide themselves.
The Centre’s new approach with a new Union Home Minister,Amit Shah, in chair has driven home a point that no “nonsense will betolerated” and New Delhi means business. Media reports suggest that majorcrackdown against the big fishes, including the political leaders is in offing,and it would prove to be a game changer in the Valley. It looks like that NewDelhi has expanded the ambit of its crackdown and the people who enjoyed allthe privileges for being a part of the mainstream politics in the Valley arealso feeling the heat.
It’s for the first time in the past thirty years that NewDelhi has reversed its Kashmir policy. New Delhi seems least interested inholding talks with the separatists, nor it wants to get involved with themainstream leaders in the Valley as many people in the national capital believethat they have been “over pampered” during all these years. The discourse andnarrative seem to have changed completely. It looks like that people at thehelm want to back only those leaders in Kashmir who toe a nationalist line anddon’t believe in double speak. The new crop of the leaders is emerging on thepolitical arena of Kashmir and it looks like that they could pose a seriousthreat to the traditional parties in the Valley.
Things in Kashmir are changing fast and it appears that inthe next few months we may find Kashmir an entirely changed place. Former UnionHome Minister, Rajnath Singh, few months ago had stated that the Government ofIndia (GoI) has fixed 2024 as the deadline to end all the problems in Kashmirand it looks like that the GoI this time around is serious about clearing theentire mess in the Valley.
(The writer is a Former Journalist member of JK YouthAlliance)