‘ROSHNI ACT HAS NOT BENEFITED JAMMU MUSLIMS'

JAMMU MUSLIMS’ Gujjar activist Talib Hussain who went to jail for his activism in Kathua is finally contesting the DDC election from Kokernag in South Kashmir. In an interview, Hussain tells Umar Mukhtar that the government is evicting nomads from their natural habitats by design and with ulterior motives

- Talib Hussain

KASHMIR LIFE (KL) : How do you look at the recent demolition of nomad hutments ?

TALIB HUSSAIN (TH): You need to understand (that) this is being done in a planned manner. The government is playing a divisive hand. They want to pitch communities against each other. When they say that at someplace they have retrieved the lands that were grabbed by some community, obviously another community judges them and will definitely create a bad notion about that particular community. In Pahalgam, the same has happened. They said they have retrieved this much of illegally occupied land from the tribes. They want to create a gulf between the Gujjars and non-Gujjars. I saw many people commenting about why they are grabbing forest land which is not the case. Also, when Kathua incident happened, the Kashmiri community supported us so now they are after them.

KL: Has it made nomadic community fearful?

TH: When I along with other members visited Pahalgam after the demolition of the hutments, the whole village ran away. They thought probably some team had come to demolish their homes. I am contesting in the Kokernag area, where people have been given the notices to evict from their lands and homes. There is deep fear among the community.

KL: What about the Jammu region. How is the situation there?

TH: In the last two to three years, government machinery was used to malign the image of our tribe, like we are land grabbers, cattle smugglers, and forest encroachers. Once a narrative was created, our community was harassed by members of the RSS.