Kashmir ki 'Ghar Wapsi'

Social Media nowadays has become a ‘Prime Time Central’ for reporting, representing and expressing all our grieves. We may stay uneducated or uninformed but are never without an opinion. Being opinionated is one of the most important things, but sometimes wrong information or misinformation leads us to form a wrong opinion.

The Jammu & Kashmir Reorganization Bill, 2019 passed by Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha led to a series of misinformation among us. Some of us are super happy and some of us are ‘dramatically’ worried about the constitution of Kashmir. 

A constitution is a script, a set of principles which provides and ensures our basic human rights to be intact. 

The Jammu & Kashmir Constitution didn’t recognize Education as a basic right to Children which more than 130 countries of the world do. What will we receive guarding such a constitution that failed a 6 year, unable to guarantee free and compulsory education?

The higher education was suffering too, Indians could not buy land there and that resulted in Professors and Educators saying no to Kashmir as they could not settle there despite teaching and working there. 

Jammu and Kashmir stood 30th on the list of states’ literacy rate in India, having 67.16% literacy in comparison to India’s 74.14%. (The list includes UT’s as well). The state has one of the worst employment rates too, The unemployment rate of J&K is 17.4% against India’s 7.6%. 

Being the fifth largest state, J&K has one of the lowest State GDP with 23 states and UTs ahead, and just ₹94,992 per capita income against India’s ₹1,26,406. Kashmir Valley is often considered as ‘Heaven on Earth’ but heaven is suffering from a tragic time without tourists. Having the potential to attract every heart and eye on earth the state is not even in the list of top ten states for tourism in India, neither by Indians nor by people who travel to India. 

Integration of Kashmir as Union Territory will ensure implementation of Right to Education, Goods & Services Tax and many more laws that will ensure a speedy and all-round growth of the UT. 

These are still forecast and results may differ, but 70 years of J&K constitution didn’t result well too. Kashmir has been the land of terror producing the likes of Burhan Wani and Afzal Guru.

We as Indians are responsible for what happens in & to Kashmir and let’s take the opportunity to appreciate the ‘Ghar Wapsi’ of Jammu & Kashmir. 


- Harsh Aditya Vatsa