By Latief U Zaman Deva
Institutional framework, so assiduously built by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and nurtured by his successors, is crumbling. But sadly, this evokes scant concern from people of the country whose intervention would have halted the brazen onslaught let loose in Jammu and Kashmir by an Institution undermining the very idea of India romanticized by our legendary leader during partition of the sub-continent.
The plain, sub- mountain and semi- mountainous tract extending from Udhampur to Kathua borders Punjab and this broken mass of foothills is at the base of Himalayan Mountain ranges with height of about 2000 feet except Lohi Malhar in Bani Sub- Division, in the outer Hills the lower Hills to the south west of Peer Panchal encompass Poonch-Rajouri region at an altitude ranging between 2000 to 4000 feet in the background of lofty mountainous range of Peer Panchal. But in Chenab Valley the territory falls at an altitude of 5540 feet to 15000 feet making it tougher and roughest terrain.
The Kashmir Valley is on an average altitude of 5000 ft to 7000 ft with mountains 12000 to 14000 ft surrounding it and almost 35% population residing in middle and lower foothills.
Given the size of population, terrain, connectivity especially road length in Kms, the two Districts of Kathua and Samba don’t qualify for additional Assembly seats but having proposed one each for them the case for similar dispensation for districts of Poonch and Ramban can’t be denied as their cases, on the basis of criteria applied to plain territory bordering Punjab, are far stronger. Only an authoritarian body can have gumption to deny the additional seats to them, but it has happened.
The Kashmir valley altogether ignored by mischievous inter-play of factors highlighted for Jammu plains and adopting a criteria contrary to constitution, statutory laws, precedents at national level especially the one adopted recently in Uttarakhand where departure from average population per Assembly Segment has been made @ 20 % for hilly areas.
The primary criteria of population reduced to secondary levels by linking it with the number of voters registered and exceptions to the Principal law in the circumstances of hilly areas generalised by wrong interpretation of geographical features and nature of terrain.
The areas forming separate geographical entities and remaining cut off from the district headquarters for months together instead of forming independent Constituencies on the analogy of Gurez in Bandipora and Karnah in Kupwara district have been extended to territories falling quite outside the inhabiting geographical features and lacking direct connectivity with the inside territories separated by mountains.
Jammu plains as the reference would entitle Kashmir Division to not less than five seats, Chenab Valley to three to four and Poonch to one.
By virtue of the flawed criteria the one additional seat earmarked for Kathua district should have been utilised for Lohi Malhar but used for Kathua bordering neighbourhood of Punjab. Total arbitrariness perhaps on the basis of exclusive content they are charged with but the abnoxious interpretation of law accompanied with disregard for precedents, faultlines visible in the procedures laid down and criteria adopted even not uniformly applied may provide window for approaching the Apex court much before the final Award is notified which can’t be questioned subsequently as the courts are barred from doing so.
The seemingly saffronised institution (Delimitation Commission) hasn’t listened to the opposition parties and civil society dispassionately and isn’t amenable to law, precedents, ground realities and parallels in parliamentary democracies.
The outcome of gerrymandering is that 28% population will end up by getting 28 seats on the basis of territorial cum linguistic unity, three by contrived, but de-horse logic, inclusions/ exclusions of patwar Circles/ municipal wards and another three due to contrived wafer-thin difference between the population of Dogras including their co-religonists and non- Dogras in these Constituencies in the backdrop of widespread polarisation.
In six of these Constituencies (28+6=34) the factors of geographical compactness and elements of roughness of terrain, connectivity and indivisibility of administrative units at least upto the level of Tehsils are biggest casualties. What kind of representative democracy and value of single transferable vote in the domain of franchise would it be when 28% population is bestowed with 34.44 % to 37.77% seats in the legislative Assembly?
There are about two lakh migrants outside Kashmir Valley but are registered as voters in their respective pre- migration home constituencies but the data of population based on Census 2011 adopted in the proposals doesn’t include migrant population and instead 1.20 lakh migrants counted in the population of Jammu, Samba, Kathua, Udhampur & others. The remaining migrant population is in rest of the country.
Nothing wrong in having a trans- Peer Panchal Parliamentary Constituency but should have round the year intra- constituency connectivity supplemented preferably by ethnic and linguistic commonalities. On this plank, Chenab Valley qualifies for inclusion in now truncated Anantnag Parliamentary Constituency as the region has 65.74% Kashmiri population followed by 5.56% Gujjar, 4.45% Pahari and 11.24 % Dogra and all the three Districts from the region connected with Anantnag via NH 44, Daksum- Simthan road and Doda-Kaprun-Verinag bridle path. On the other hand, the single artery between Shopian and Poonch-Rajouri remains out of bounds for about four to six months. This will also be reiteration of the recommendation already made by parliamentary Delimitation Commission way back in 1960 and 1970 as the case may be.
The existing proposal otherwise aims at preventing in 2026 delimitation the reservation of Jammu-Poonch Parliamentary seat for Scheduled Tribes.
Even a direct interface with the so called biased constitutional body can’t abate our pangs, rightly dubbed by main local opposition political parties as a frontal organization of Hindutva, unless the ruling party scripted proposals adopted by the DC are done away with which incidentally are paper works long back the buzzword of votaries of imaginary discrimination.
Should the criterion evolved by Delimitation Commission headed by Justice Desai stand how can it be overlooked during 2026 delimitation exercise for Parliament and State legislative Assemblies and would the political spectrum in UP, Bihar, Bengal, Delhi, Dravida and other provinces reconcile with considerable reduction in the number of seats in the respective states from the existing positions for accretion to Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Odisha and others shall remain a mystery till the D-Day.
