By Deepika Bhan New Delhi, Sep 4 : Two communities in Jammu and Kashmir will celebrate the Assembly elections, whichever take place in the Union Territory.
After many years of subjugation and oppression for decades, the West Pakistani Refugees (WPRs) and the Valmiki community have plenty to be proud of.
It took 75 years for the WPRs, and 65 years for the community of Valmiki to be able to vote in J&K and also live with dignity and respect.
The WPRs consist of people of Hindu and Sikh communities, who came from Pakistan following Partition in 1947.
According to official data, there are 5,400 families who have moved to the border regions of Jammu -in Kathua, Samba and Jammu districts.The community leaders claim that these families have grown to more than 22,000 families.
In addition to WPRs In addition, there is the Valmiki (Dalits) community.They were brought into J&K in 1957 from Punjab by the state government, headed by the Prime Minister Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad to quell an indefinite strike by the local sweepers union.
The Valmikis were transported to Jammu by free transport and were granted special permits to be admitted to the state.They were even given land to build houses however, they were not granted permanent residence certificates.
They were required to adhere to the condition that their next generations could remain in J&K in the event that they were scavengers or sanitation workers.
For the past 65 years, this community suffered discrimination at the hands of the state in Independent India.
They were stripped of voting rights in local and Assembly elections, the right to higher education, state scholarships as well as welfare schemes and also the right to work in the state.Although they were part of the SC category however, they were denied their status.
According to the leaders of the Valmiki Samaj, at present approximately 10,000 people from the community live in different colony in Jammu.
The community was able to participate in the polls for Parliament, but they were not able to participate or vote in the J&K Assembly elections.
All this changed following the repeal of Article 370 in August 2019 as well as the West Pakistani Refugees (WPRs) and the Valmiki community are now able to vote in the Assembly elections.They will be able to vote for the first time in the District Development Council (DDC) elections in 2020.
Both communities can now be eligible to apply for employment in J&K and also avail welfare programs, and vote and also run for office.
Both communities blame parties based in Kashmir, which were not happy with providing them with state subject certificates since they were concerned that this could alter the dynamics of the election.
Both the refugees and Valmikis have criticized the Kashmiri political parties for making them feel humiliated and discrimination for years.
“It was discrimination imposed by the state that was not discussed,” they said.
Labha Ram Gandhi, President of West Pakistan Refugees Action Committee Labha Ram Gandhi, President of the West Pakistan Refugees Action Committee, said, “We could not get jobs, and our children could not go to professional schools.The situation has changed.We can now vote and run for office.”
The areas in which they live have not seen much development.
Labha Ram said, “The local MLAs didn’t care about us as we weren’t an electoral voting bank for them.We were directed to the Centre to solve our issues.Now we can get our own sarpanches too.”
Now free of this bias the WPRs and Valmikis claim they will decide their own course.They participated in the DDC elections and are eagerly awaiting the Assembly elections where they can be a part of the other tens of thousands of J&K voters.
(Deepika Bhan can be reached via [email protected])
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