Starving for issues to raise or speak about in public to disparage the government or, as their critics have alleged, to justify their very existence, the Kashmiri separatists are out to sound alarm bells about the “real motive” behind holding the Census in the restive state.
While hardliner Syed Ali Shah Geelani sees a “conspiracy” hatched by New Delhi in the reported enumeration of non-locals during the Census 2011, which started across Jammu and Kashmir on May 15, the so-called moderates among the separatists, including Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, have asked the people to be “vigilant” and ensure that only genuine statistics were recorded by the concerned officials.
The last Census in major parts of the restive state, particularly the Kashmir Valley, were done in a haphazard fashion as the separatists had then asked the people to boycott the exercise. This time, they initially urged the people to participate “effusively” in the exercise but soon a section of them started smelling rat in it.
Mr Geelani has even announced to spearhead a campaign over the issue. “We ought to rise to the occasion and counter all those conspiracies hatched by India against Muslim majority character of Jammu and Kashmir and the interests of its people,” the octogenarian leader said. He accused the ruling National Conference (NC) and its leadership of lending a helping hand to “usurpers” of Kashmiris’ rights. “We’ll protest against this and, at the same time, educated the people on the implications.”
Against the background of wariness and suspicion thus created, members of Kashmir’s civil society have formed a special group which will create awareness at the grassroots level about the Census-2011 particularly over the issues related to population growth rate and migrant population enumeration.
After discussing the matter threadbare at a meeting held here, the Centre for Social and Development Studies (KCSDS) activists “resolved to analyse the implications of Census projections on Jammu and Kashmir based on validation techniques,” said Dr Hameeda Nayeem, a well-known academic and one of the founding members of the group. In view of the importance of the demographic indicators for the state’s socio-economic development and future political status, the Census process and the data analysis need a greater level of civil society understanding and scrutiny, it was resolved unanimously at the meeting.
While the separatists are cynical about the exercise, the BJP on Monday accused them of “misleading the Census enumerators with wrong details”.