Is Ghost Of Emergency Raising Its Head In Kashmir?

It looks as though international criticism post abrogation of Article 370 on August 5 in Kashmir has had a telling effect on the Central Government. Otherwise the leadership would not have deputed 36 NDA ministers to “carpet bomb” the state for six days to deliver an overdose of development to the beleaguered populace and to indicate to the outside world that everything is normal. Such telescoped high-level visits create security and infrastructural nightmare not only for the hapless bureaucrats and security forces, but also for the bewildered public. Even as the ministers are streaming into the state, a signal that it was not safe to hold an investors conference in Srinagar was unwittingly beamed by the administration.

Thus Lieutenant Governor G.C. Murmu, a bureaucrat, had to hold an event in New Delhi on January 20, said to be the run-up to the three-day global summit planned in Srinagar and Jammu in April. Harsh Dev Singh, Chairman of the J&K Panther Party, called these visits a “publicity stunt” and a “survival mantra in the face of fast dissipating credibility of the BJP”. National dailies echoed allegations that the ministers were “cutting ribbons” even on old projects, including one multipurpose hall in Government College, Billawar which was approved in 2011-12.

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