Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: As expected, India’s political cockroaches, also known as the Left-liberal-secular cabal, have come out of hiding to denounce the Centre’s latest gazette notification reforming Jammu and Kashmir’s land laws as “an act of invasion”.
One Devika Mittal claimed that the new land laws are an “act of invasion” and, like Pakistan, also claimed that J&K is a “disputed” area.
The "Land Laws" that will allow any citizen of India to buy a piece of land in the disputed region of J&K is an act of invasion. It is an act by a fascist regime that does not believe in dialogue, democracy and human rights. #Landlaws #JammuAndKashmir #Kashmir #Article370
— Devika Mittal देविका मित्तल دیوِیکا مِتّل (@devikasmittal) October 27, 2020
Former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, in a desperate bid to re-launch his post-retirement political career, termed the amendment to the land ownership laws as “unacceptable”. He even claimed that “J&K was up for sale”.
He forgot that politicians like him were paving the way for selling the state to Pakistan since 1947.
Unacceptable amendments to the land ownership laws of J&K. Even the tokenism of domicile has been done away with when purchasing non-agricultural land & transfer of agricultural land has been made easier. J&K is now up for sale & the poorer small land holding owners will suffer.
— Omar Abdullah (@OmarAbdullah) October 27, 2020
Just before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, his father, Dr. Farooq Abdullah, as also Mehbooba Mufti, had dared Prime Minister Narendra Modi to repeal Article 370. He did, and they had to cool heels for months in-home quarantine. Clearly, the Abdullah family is still reeling from the shock due to the swift moves made by the Centre which made them and other politicians completely irrelevant in their own erstwhile fiefdom.
The Abdullahs’ foe-turned-friend, Mehbooba Mufti also tried to strike a strident posture. But she proved too-clever-by-half when she spoke about the issue of J&K’s separate flag. She lost three senior leaders of the rump called the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). What can she do? Excep tweeting her frustration:
Yet another step thats part of GOI’s nefarious designs to disempower & disenfranchise people of J&K. From the unconstitutional scrapping of Article 370 to facilitating loot of our natural resources & finally putting land in J&K up for sale.
— Mehbooba Mufti (@MehboobaMufti) October 27, 2020
Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Sitaram Yechuri, who conveniently overlooked China’s invasion of Ladakh six months ago, also came alive suddenly, with his hackneyed words:
This is highway robbery.
The loot of J&K's resources & beautiful landscape.
Having destroyed all people’s democratic structures, will the next step be forcible land acquisition to hand over to cronies & fatten the purses of the ruling party at centre?
This cannot be allowed. https://t.co/ObykyNy4Un— Sitaram Yechury (@SitaramYechury) October 27, 2020
After scrapping the “special status” accorded to J&K by the Constitution’s Articles 370 and 35-A in August 2019, the Centre had, on Tuesday, started the next phase of fully-integrating the state with the Union of India by launching the land reforms laws. It allowed all Indians to buy land and property in the Union Territory of J&K, barring agricultural land.
The reforms will finally bring much-needed development to the mountainous region. The Union Government, with gazette notification of new lands laws, brought an end to the exclusive rights of locals over the land granted under Article 370. The phrase “being a permanent resident of the state” as the criterion has been scrapped with immediate effect.
