Dismissed

For the first time in last three decades, the government took the ambitious decision of terminating its own employees for fomenting trouble. There is a strong probability of the government versus employees show-off once the trade union leaders are out of jails, reports Masood Hussain

File photo: Employees protest.

With 12 dismissal orders issued separately and many heads of employees on the chopping block, the government is pushing the state to yet another crisis. This is one of the follow-ups by the government to the ongoing unrest that is about to be four-months old. Almost coinciding with the conclusion of the tense stint of durbar in Srinagar, dismissal decision saw the leaders of the employees being arrested formally. So when the situation improves, a general expectation is that employees will react, which by all probabilities could trigger another crisis.

State government’s employees have remained key player of governance structure. Their numbers – 484910 plus casuals, daily-wagers and need based, and the costs that government pays (Rs 23013 crore – 36% of the overall spending in 2016-17) for keeping such a huge army to run its system, has created an impression that government in J&K is by the employees and for the employees. With some of the employees joining politics as part of their post-retirement careers, the connection between the two areas has gone stronger.

But the employees have occasionally reacted to certain situations involving the larger society they are part of. It happened last time in 1990 when the repression on people reached unprecedented levels. Feeling the heat at the subordinate levels, the top officers felt the simmering discontent and issued an appeal on civil liberties front. It was the era of unprecedented terror and torture. Demonstrations for Azaadi were the order of the day. Once, the participation in such procession touched a million. That procession was led by people in their Kafan, the funeral shrouds. Even the police marched to the UNMOGIP office at Sonawar and sought settling Kashmir issue.

“The agitation was triggered by the worst human rights violations,” Naeem Akhter, who was one of the ring leaders of the employees agitation, said. “The one incident that shocked the employees and literally motivated them to fight it out was the kidnapping and raping of a bride the moment she left her father’s home in south Kashmir.”

Employees protesting in Kashmir.

It was May 16, 1990 when Rashid Malik of Chawalgam left to get his bride Mubina from Hillar, a village barely 7 kms away. For him and his 20 guests, the family had arranged prior permission from the BSF that was deployed in the belt. They went in a bus at around 9 PM, they reached the destination, had the nikkah and then the wazwaan. Then the bus leaves with bride and her chamberlain.

As the bus crawled, it came to an abrupt stop after covering two kilometers. CRPF was deployed and they sought the permission. Groom’s brother, who worked as a railway cop, showed. The bus started again and after covering a few more kilometers it came to another halt, this time at a crossing near Hakoora. It was BSF asking the marriage party why it is around. Instead of bothering to see the permission they had issued in the day, they surrounded the bus and opened fire. Groom and his cousin Sabzar were hit by a single bullet. Another of his cousins, Asadullah was hit in his chest and died instantly.

Post-firing BSF barged into the bus and asked passengers to get down. As they started, it was revealed that 10 persons were injured: bride had received three bullets and the groom five. As the soldiers started beating the guests, some of them dragged the two women – bride and her chambermaid to fields, where an innumerable number gang-raped them. It was another BSF party that rescued the wedding party and drove them to the hospital. In hospital, the government sent its Deputy Commissioner who recorded their statements and gave the couple a relief of Rs 3000 which they refused.

Rashid was not operated upon because that could have immobilized him. He still carried the bullets in his spine. Their first child was inborn. They had to struggle against committing suicide. Then they were bestowed by a daughter.

Two employees of Joinery Mills Pampore attempted suicide in 2001 after their wives succumbed to different diseases.

This incident took place at a time when reporters in Srinagar could not manage reaching Islamabad. Some correspondents did meet the couple later. Reported with sketchy details in vernacular press, it had an impact. After July 13, the employees issued an appeal to the world conscience; tensions were more visible in the civil secretariat. Employees had constituted a Raabita Committee that drafted the appeal to the Citizens of the World seeking a plebiscite under the UN resolution. It was basically signed by 137 officers of the government including five top IAS babus: Hindal Haider Tayyabji, Ashok Jaitley, M L, Kaul, Mohammad Shafi Pandit and Iqbal Khanday.

As the appeal was released, the government said it will act against the Rabitta kingpins. This triggered the two day strike in reaction on July 23 and 24. Soon after the government dismissed five officers who were running the Raabita: Abdul Hamid Mattoo, Naeem Akhter, Muzaffar Ahmad Khan, Abdul Salam Bhat and Abdul Rashid Mubraki. To counter this action, the Raabita leaders asked employees not to work. It was one of the protracted strikes by the state employees that continued for 72 days. The government had a case against few of them if not all. Mattoo, for instance, had advised Peer Ghulam Hasan Shah against accepting Jagmohan’s offer of being his adviser. It embarrassed Raj Bhawan because orders were issued after Shah had consented but alter backed off.

“Naeem Akhter was brain behind the agitation,” one of his colleagues in the Raabita, said, adding, “We never questioned his wisdom and capacity.” As the government presence on the streets reduced to mere soldiering after civilian face faded away, the government started negotiating with the employees. “Initially it was Wajahat Habibullah who would talk to us,” the erstwhile Raabita member said. “But he eventually gave up.” Some efforts were made by Sheikh Ghulam Rasool as well but they failed.

The change in Delhi’s approach was dictated by the change of guard in Delhi when Chandra Shekhar replaced V P Singh on November 10. “It was done by Dr Farooq Abdullah who visited the Prime Minister on this issue. We reliably learnt that Prime Minister had told Dr Abdullah that the Raabita was almost on the breaking point. He had been briefed by governor G C Saxena and Chief Secretary R K Takkar. Former Chief Minister had told the Prime Minister that he should decide as a politician whether he would accept broken Raabita or a united Raabita.” It was after that meeting that Prime Minister deputed Prof Saif-ud-Din Soz who actually settled the issue.

“The effort at that time was to try and win them back,” Wajahat Habibullah was quoted saying in a recent report. “To get them to accept being part of India, being part of the government and working for the government. That was the objective.”

One night, the Raj Bhawan rang the Raabita leaders for talks. It was mutually decided by both sides that the government will undo the dismissals and would keenly look into their grievances, mostly the human rights. Next morning, the Raabita leaders were speaking to a huge gathering of employees in the Iqbal Park. They listed their achievements and called off the strike on November 26. The government got its civilian face back. For employees, it was a rare victory as government did not revoke any of the four dismissals that Jagmohan did in his earlier stint. That included Prof Abdul Gani Bhat, dismissed on February 27, 1986, paving way for constituting the Muslim United Front.

But everybody knows that neither the state government nor the civil society did anything for the unfortunate family of the Islamabad bride. Her case is closed in a file cover in records of Deputy Commissioner Islamabad. “In May 1990, a newly-married woman Mubina Gani was taken off a bus by BSF men on the Anantnag-Korenag road along with her maid,” journalist Siddharth Varadarajan reported in Times of India on April 21, 2002. “Both were raped. The case created a furore and the BSF’s attempts to hush it up failed. As a result of a court martial, two constables were sentenced to just five years imprisonment and dismissed from service, while two head constables punished with forfeiture of seniority and reduction in rank.”

The Raabita agitation eventually laid the foundation of a strong liaison between the separatist block and the employees. It apparently was so strong that in April 1993 when the All Party Hurriyat Conference was constituted, it had an employee union as its constituent members. They would participate in the meetings of the alliance. The government never objected to it, perhaps because it exercised some kind of influence on the other side of ideological divide too.

Khursheed Alam, one of the trade union leaders, now a lawmaker, would attend the meeting and sometimes make the decisions public. One such event was in 2008 when as members of the separatist-managed coordination committee, they decided to contribute a day long salary of its members for the sufferers of the agitation, and it was Alam announcing it. When government took a serious note of it, they backed off.

But this liaison did not prevent government from acting against its staffers who were adversely reported by the security grid. “Never ever were the employees dismissed in a huge number,” one administrative secretaries aware of the development said. “It was always in ones and twos.” In 1995, Raj Bhawan had dismissed 20 employees but the orders were revoked in wake of tensions that could have impacted elections.

In 2008 and 2010 agitations, there was a view in the government about taking action against the employees who participated in protests but it was eventually not accepted by the ruling parties. Even during the ongoing unrest, newspaper reports suggest the secret agencies have identified as many as 180 employees including a few from the police. Employees Joint Action Committee (EJAC) has claimed that more than 350 employees were suspended by the government, so far. However, the action was taken against a handful, mostly working against inferior positions. Reports suggest political parties; mostly the ruling party has stopped action because most of the accused belong to south Kashmir, its erstwhile base.

Trade union leaders were arrested well before they could react or mobilize its members. The only major trade union that had not reacted is that of civil secretariat. It had tensions with the government for around two months till in the last cabinet meeting, its demands were met. There are least chances of secretariat getting involved in the battle that government may have to fight with the employees once the situation improves.

 

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