National Conference (NC) president Dr Farooq Abdullah is a shrewd politician, saying one thing in Srinagar in Kashmiri, another thing in Jammu in Urdu and a nuanced version in English when in Delhi. Being ambivalent on vital issues and dodging them is an art he has perfected over the past five decades of his public life. Raising irrelevant, petty issues means more serious issues of the bread and butter of masses get sidelined.
Now that his son Omar Abdullah has been Chief Minister of the Union Territory (UT) of Jammu & Kashmir for some time, one would have expected Farooq to speak about the government performance. The vision of the NC for the days ahead and how it planned to fulfil the promises made in party manifesto in the recent assembly elections. He spoke about none of these things but on Durbar Move, something which his government cannot do anything much about.
Speaking at a function in Jammu on Sunday, Dr Abdullah said that his government wants to revive the practice of Durbar Move. Incidentally, this was a practice under which the government offices and ministries functioned from Srinagar and Jammu, alternatively, for six months each. This biannual practice used to be effected by moving all files from Jammu to Srinagar at the end of April and from Srinagar back to Jammu in October end.
It was a tradition which was started almost 150 years ago by the then Dogra ruler and its logic was to remain close to the masses they governed. In that time and era, it made sense as means of communication, were primitive as compared to what they are today. In 1989, Dr Abdullah was the CM and he tried to abolish the entrenched practice. However, a very strong agitation in the entire Jammu region led to the idea being dropped.
It is amusing that the proponent of “Stop Durbar Move’’ 35 years ago has now done a volte face and is speaking in favour of the move. In 1989, it used to take 10 to 12 hours to travel between Jammu and Srinagar, the winter and summer capitals then, with disruptions fairly common on the highway connecting the two cities. In 2024, it takes less than five hours on an average for the same journey as the roads stand substantially upgraded.
In early 2025, it is expected that the Kashmir valley will get connected to the entire country through rail connectivity. In the realm of office management and movement of files, digitalisation has changed the entire scenario. Most of the file-work is now done digitally whereby it takes seconds and minutes to move a file from one place to another. No cumbersome, physical movement is needed at all.
Keeping all these things in view, and growing digitalisation of the office work, the government led by Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha had abolished Durbar Move in 2021. According to some conservative estimates, the abolition of the practice led to a saving of at least Rs 200 crore in one go for the exchequer. For obvious reasons, LG Sinha is not inclined to reverse his own decision taken in consultation with the Central government.
Can Omar restore Durbar Move practice? Does he have the powers to reverse something that was done by LG Sinha three years ago? The answers to both these questions is a resounding NO as the NC government does not have the authority to reverse LG’s decision/s. What does the NC gain then by Dr Abdullah raising the issue now? Well, raising a non-issue helps the party to mislead the masses and drive them away from substantial issues.
Dr Abdullah justified the Durbar Move as something which integrated the diverse Kashmir and Jammu regions together by closer interactions between people of the two regions. His claim that it will help equitable development of the two regions is a falsehood of first order. If equitable development of the two regions was what NC believed in, it would have created a Tertiary Care hospital like SKIMS in the Jammu region too. Incidentally, it bears mention here that SKIMS started functioning in Srinagar in 1982 and till date, no Tertiary Care Hospital in the government sector exists in the Jammu region.
Writing on X, Virendra Sahi (@sahi_virendra), an Army veteran, said: Durbar Move voiced for enjoying the luxury of best weather in J&K by top leaders/bureaucracy. They want to abandon people of both regions to the hardships of harsh weather when people need them most. Shun this Imperial Dehi/Shimla practice of Brits. Another veteran Brigadier Anil Gupta (@BrigadierAnil) wrote on X: `Durbar Move’ doesn’t promote unity and harmony but Kashmiri hegemony over Jammu. In case @JKNC was so concerned for Jammu, why did it shift the capital from Jammu to Srinaga? Why was SKIMS set up only in & Jammu always deprived of its due share by Kashmiri ldrs?
During the discussion on the issue in a WhatsApp group, Meenakshi Killam, a retired Professor of Jammu University, wrote: `Durbar Move’ can be there but its format should change. During harsh winters, all the ministers and bureaucrats should be based in Srinagar, to be available to people and come to their rescue. In summers, they should be available in Jammu when power shortages and water scarcity plague the region. What she essentially advocated was something that can be called “Reverse Durbar Move’’.
It bears mention here that Dr Abdullah’s raking up the non-issue of `Durbar Move’ is not something very different from the stance his party, the NC, had adopted on dead Article 370 in the recent assembly session. On all five days of the session, the issue of Article 370 dominated the proceedings. This despite the fact that the assembly can do nothing to restore it in the Indian Constitution. Other than misleading the masses regarding 370, the NC has done nothing after coming to power.
