Restoration of Darbar move would hurt nation, Jammu

Omar Abdullah’s Jammu Declaration

On December 9, 2024, the Jammu Chamber of Commerce and Industry (JCCI), unlike the Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI), felicitated Omar Abdullah for assuming the office of Chief Minister. It also put forth a number of demands. One of them was restoration of bi-annual Darbar (Civil Secretariat) move between Jammu and Srinagar – a practice started by Dogra Maharaja Ranbir Singh way back in 1872 and abolished by Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) Lieutenant Governor (LG) Manoj Sinha on June 20, 2021, saying that “now both the Jammu and Srinagar secretariats can function normally for 12 months” and that “this will save the government Rs.200 crore per year, which will be used for the welfare of the deprived sections.”

The demand put forth by the JCCI thrilled Omar Abdullah for reasons not really difficult to fathom. Reflecting on the demand, he, inter-alia, said: “The hallmark of Jammu city was the bi-annual Darbar move. For six months, people from Srinagar would work here, creating a lively environment. It fostered interaction between people from both sides of the mountains (Pir Panjal), whether at Wave Mall, Residency Road, or Gole Market. I assure you that we will resume the Darbar move in the future. Unfortunately, time constraints prevented us from doing so this time.”[1]

Again, on December 11, Omar Abdullah said in Jammu that “Jammu’s uniqueness will not be allowed to diminish” and asserted that his government will restore Darbar move. “Darbar move is an issue which I fail to understand why it was not projected during campaigning (in Jammu) for Assembly polls. The issue gained momentum only after the election result although we have mentioned it in our manifesto and meetings…We assure you that the Darbar move will be restored. Jammu has its own importance and we will not allow its uniqueness to diminish,” he told reporters after chairing over a three-hour long meeting with “representatives of civil society” at his Residency official residence.

“The Darbar move symbolizes the unity and inclusivity of J&K. It is a tradition that ensures governance remains accessible to both regions…Our responsibility is to serve and ensure balanced development across regions. Ending the Darbar move would only alienate the people of the two regions from one another and harm the collective unity we strive to preserve,” he also said. Not just this. He, in addition, dismissed financial arguments against this 150-year-old practice stating “the role of the government is not to focus solely on profit.”[2]

Mixed reaction

The Chief Minister’s Jammu Declaration evoked a mixed response. Congress leader, former Sadar-e-Riyasat, and son of Maharaja Hari Singh, Karan Singh, was so happy and jubilant that he on December 12 congratulated Omar Abdullah for deciding to reintroduce Darbar move, opining it would be helpful to overcome cultural and linguistic differences between the two regions. “I congratulate the new Chief Minister for deciding to reintroduce the centuries-old tradition of the Darbar move, started decades ago by my great ancestor Maharaja Ranbir Singh…He realized that the differences linguistic, cultural, and geographical between J&K were so great that unless they were bridged, it would be difficult for them to stay together peacefully,” he said.

“The Darbar move was a brilliant project which enabled a large number of employees, including senior officers, to move every year from one capital to the other. This was particularly useful for Jammu because its economy depended to a large extent on the influx from Kashmir every winter. Now that only the two units remain from the original State of J&K, it is all the more necessary that the cultural and linguistic differences between Srinagar and Jammu should be bridged as far as possible, for which the Darbar move will be very helpful,” Karan Singh also said while commending the Chief Minister’s communally and politically motivated Jammu announcement.[3]

Contrarily, former Srinagar Municipal Corporation chairman and former NC leader Junaid Azim Mattu tore into Omar Abdullah and rightly said that the restoration of Darbar move will be an act of foolishness; it will only foster regional imbalance. “To link the Darbar move with a regional balance is foolish. If anything, it fosters regional imbalance in each region for six months. It’s an archaic, unimaginative, and financially wasteful exercise. A young Chief Minister should be more transformative and less traditional,” he, on December 15, said in a statement on social media platform X.[4]

J&K HC ruling on Darbar move

Junaid Mattu, in fact, said what the J&K High Court had said on May 5, 2020, while delivering a historic judgment on the Darbar move practice. The ruling given by a division bench consisting of Chief Justice, Gita Mittal, and Justice Rajnesh Oswal, inter-alia, read like this: “Both the Jammu as well as the Srinagar regions equally require administration and governance round the year without interruption. It is unfair and opposed to public interest to deprive either region completely of access to government machinery for six months at a time…For a period of almost six weeks annually, the entire governance and administration in the Union Territory comes to a grinding halt creating a governance deficit. The sensitivity of the issues with which the Union Territory government is engaged can ill afford this governance gap…Valuable documents and resources of the Union Territory in the nature of important and sensitive government documents are put at tremendous risk in the process of their transportation as they are packed in trunks and carried in hired trucks over a distance of 300 kilometers. This practice may have the consequence of imperiling State and National security…On account of technological advancements and the availability of electronic modes, maintenance of records, and communication, there is no need for physical conveyance of assets…Thousands of government employees are compelled to live apart from their families for six months at a time resulting in physical and emotional pressure not only on the employees but spouses, parents, children, and dependants…The administrative requirement of the biannual shifting of the employees year after year as part of their conditions of service to effectuate the Darbar move was manifestly arbitrary and against Article 14 of the Constitution. The Darbar move places a huge burden on the police, and security forces in the Union Territory…Valuable resources of the State – financial and physical – cannot be diverted to completely non-essential usage…There is unwarranted disruption of the movement of traffic and personnel on the National Highway for four days on each Darbar move…Jammu and Kashmir is already suffering from a high fiscal deficit…The expenditure on the Darbar move is an unwarranted burden on the depleted resources of the Union Territory and a drain on the public exchequer and taxpayer’s money…The Darbar move results in a waste of time, effort, and energy on inefficient and unnecessary activity- packing of records. The same nurtures inefficiency and leads to a lack of governance…It also has a huge financial cost in terms of salary paid to employees who spend weeks on this unproductive work. It is a practice which works to the detriment of the larger interest of all the people…The Darbar move caused the delay in justice dispensation as government records were not available to the pleaders in one region for six months at a time…Non- availability of the record with the government pleaders in the Wing other than the Main Wing, compels them to seek repeated adjournments as they are unable to file their responses in civil cases or conduct criminal prosecutions for want of government record. The Darbar move therefore adversely affects the fundamental right of access to justice of the public as guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution…”

Not only this. The division bench also asked the Union Home Ministry and J&K government to examine the issues, saying that the Darbar move practice was not desirable. It suggested that the Centre must take a decision keeping in view huge financial and other implications.[5]

Darbar move lacks legislative backing

Earlier on April 22, 2020, former Finance Minister, an ardent believer in the concepts of subversive self-rule and supra-state measures and one of the architects of March 1, 2015, PDP-BJP agenda of alliance, also termed as “agenda of subversion”, Haseeb Drabu, had suggested that Jammu be made the capital of the Union Territory and Srinagar be accorded the status of commercial capital and asserted, and very rightly, that the Darbar move had no legislative backing.

Among other things, Drabu had said: “Srinagar became the capital of J&K in 1948 because it had been the epicenter of the political expression which was shaped by a societal collectivity…To be sure, the Darbar move had no legislative backing. It was only in 1992 that Jammu was formally made the winter capital…The reality today is that Jammu is the salient space of public authority and non-governmental action. In line with such a change, whatever the de jure status, the de facto capital has changed…As such, by continuing the dual capital system, essentially as a placation, an illusion of a localized presence of political authority is being created. And a non-existent participative feeling constructed. The seemingly important event of Darbar move is nothing but pointless political appeasement…At a more practical level, given the fact that Srinagar is a nerve center of economic production and distribution, it might be worthwhile to have Srinagar as the commercial capital of J&K…”

“Contrary to the belief, the reason for Darbar move was not climatology: to escape the harsh winters of Kashmir Valley or scorching summers of Jammu. Nor was it clairvoyance; the vision of Ranbir Singh. It was a compulsion; of the British to protect their Indian Empire…”[6]

What Drabu said was what I had said again and again for years to explain the reasons for the introduction of the Darbar move practice in 1872. What I repeatedly said? I, among other things, repeatedly said: “The practice of Darbar move was introduced by the Dogra Maharaja, Ranbir Singh, in 1872. There were potent, cogent, and political reasons for that. One was to check the conspiratorial activities indulged in by certain disgruntled elements in Kashmir and imperialist Britain, which had signed the Treaty of Amritsar with Raja Gulab Singh of Jammu in March 1846 under compulsion. Had Punjab fallen before 1846 as other Princely States across India fell before the canny and intriguing British Imperialists, the powers-that-be in London would not have signed the Treaty with Maharaja Gulab Singh or would not have added Kashmir to the Dogra Kingdom. Punjab fell only in 1849. London wanted to destabilize the Dogra rule to promote its interest in frontier Ladakh by constructing military roads and checking the Russians, who had been trying their best to establish a strong foothold in Afghanistan. The other was the movement in Kashmir aimed at getting ‘freedom from the Dogra rule’. The religious leadership in Kashmir had been consistently opposing the Treaty of Amritsar since 1847 and urging the British Government to cancel it, saying ‘they sold the life, dignity, and honour of Kashmiri Muslims to the Dogras of Jammu for Rs.75 lakh’. Under the Treaty, Maharaja Gulab Singh had to pay Rs.75 lakh in lieu of Kashmir.”

JCCI, Karan Singh need to review their stand

One thing is clear: Both the JCCI and Karan Singh wittingly or unwittingly ignored the grave evils that would follow on the re-introduction of the Darbar move. They ignored the fact that Omar Abdullah and ilk in Kashmir want the revival of the bi-annual Darbar move practice because they want to further:

• Change the Jammu province’s demography to accomplish their sinister agenda.
• Grab contracts and jobs.
• Further control trade, commerce, industry, and transport in the region.
• Set up new colonies/ townships in and around Jammu City meant exclusively for the followers of one particular religion.
• Help overtly and covertly Kashmir-based anti-State actors expand their area of activities and influence in this strategically vital region.
• Create a Kashmir-like situation in Jammu, or convert it like the Islamists converted Kashmir 100 percent in 1990.

The JCCI and Karan Singh also ignored the fact that Omar Abdullah and ilk in Kashmir want the revival of the bi-annual Darbar move practice because they want the re-rise of a situation that helped them change Jammu’s face beyond recognition – a process which was started by the Farooq Abdullah-led government after 1996.

It needs to be underlined that it was none other than Farooq Abdullah himself who started the demographic invasion by grabbing the State and Forest Lands in Jammu’s Bathindi area and constructing on it a palatial bungalow. Thereafter, almost four dozen colonies were constructed in different parts of Jammu district. Not just this, the Jammu district also witnessed the setting up of a number of markets with the followers of one particular religion from Kashmir playing the lead role. All this happened due to the official patronage and under the nose of the concerned departments.

The JCCI and Karan Singh would do well to review their stand on the Darbar move tradition taking into consideration all these grave evils and why Omar Abdullah and ilk want restoration of the Darbar move. They would also do well to compare the pre-1995 Jammu with post-1995 Jammu to know and understand the nature of damage the Kashmiri ruling elite and its followers and friends and other Kashmiri Islamists caused to Jammu’s demographics, society, economy, and polity between 1947 and 2018. They would also do well to demand full state status for Jammu province, which is rich in green gold and other natural resources, including precious Chenab waters and minerals, and ask the Narendra Modi Government to promote tourism in the region and convert Jammu into an industrial hub. What will they and others in Jammu, who toy with the idea of the Darbar move, do if their region turned into another Kashmir?

To be more precise, the solution to the Jammu socio-economic and political woes, problems, and grievances lies in Jammu’s political redemption, and not in any kind of truck with the Kashmiri leaders. It’s not a secret that the Kashmiri Muslim ruling elite’s single-point agenda all along has been to enslave, loot and fleece, exploit and humiliate the Dogras of Jammu; render them unreal; create a situation similar to the one that left the Kashmiri Hindus, the Jammu Dogras and thousands of Punjabis with no other option but to quit Kashmir in January 1990 to save their lives, dignity, culture and religion; and hurt the nation by accomplishing the unfinished agenda of partition.

Note:
1. Text in Blue points to additional data on the topic.
2. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of PGurus.

References:

[1] J-K CM Omar Abdullah reaffirms support for revival of industrial sector – Dec 9, 2024, Business Standard

[2] Darbar move will be restored, won’t allow Jammu’s uniqueness to shrink: CM Omar – Dec 12, 2024, The Hindustan Times,

[3] Karan Singh Congratulates J&K CM For Deciding To Reintroduce ‘Darbar Move’ In J&K – Dec 12, 2024, Daily Excelsior

[4] CM Omar Abdullah faces criticism over poll promises within two months of govt formation – Dec 16, 2024, The Tribune

[5] No Justification For Shifting Capital Between Srinagar & Jammu Every 6 Months: J&K HC Calls For Review Of 148 Year Old ‘Darbar Move’ – May 5, 2020, Live Law

[6] Decoding Darbar Move – Apr 23, 2020, Greater Kashmir

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