Taking a serious note of the action of the Jammu and Kashmir government to “thrust” Kashmiri language in the colleges of the Dogri speaking Jammu region, the Bar Association and various other literary and social organisations on Sunday warned of serious consequences if the government did not rescind the “mischievous” notification that aims to “alter” the demography of Jammu.
These organisations in a seminar joined hands to launch an agitation against, what they called, radicalisation of the peaceful Jammu on the lines of the Kashmir valley.
Prominent among those who spoke on the occasion were, Prof Lalit Magotra, a member of the Sahitya Akademi; BS Salathia, President of the Jammu Bar Association; Chattrapal, President of the Dogri Sanstha; Zorawar Singh Jamwal, chairman of the Team Jammu; and Anil Sharma, president of the All J&K Panchayat Association.
Cutting across ethnic lines, even the Dogra Muslims criticised the government for thrusting Kashmiri and neglecting Dogri that is the mother tongue of the Jammu region.
They urged the government to withdraw the order of appointing teachers of Kashmiri language in all 47 government colleges in the Jammu region and instead fill the vacancies of Dogri teachers.
Prof Magotra said there was no justification of appointing 49 teachers of Kashmiri in all 47 colleges of Jammu while only 19 teachers of Dogri have been appointed in these colleges.
He saw a design in the two government orders in a row, one creating posts of Kashmiri teachers and the other asking all universities in the state to take effective steps to promote the Kashmiri language.
He described it as a “deep rooted conspiracy” to manipulate the linguistic statistics of the state and to give an impression that Kashmiri was the spoken language of entire state. This was also an attack on the composite culture of the Dogras, he alleged.
A prominent Muslim lawyer of Jammu, Mohammad Usman Salaria, accused the government of discriminating with the Jammu region in all spheres. He also criticized the BJP ministers of having miserably failed to protect the interests of the Jammu region.
BS Salathia said that the people of Jammu were not against the Kashmiri language but it should not be promoted at the cost of Dogri.
He warned that the Bar would thwart attempts of the government to radicalise Jammu where the Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and others were living in harmony. Youth of Jammu was also being discriminated by the state Public Service Commission.
Zorawar Singh described it as “cultural invasion” and warned that the youth would come out on the streets against attempts of the government to annihilate Dogri and promote Kashmiri in Jammu.