Srinagar: Mobile internet was suspended in two districts of Pir Panjal region on Wednesday (February 7) in the aftermath of sporadic protests against the Lok Sabha’s approval to a controversial reservation bill that grants tribal status to Jammu and Kashmir’s Paharis, a linguistic minority.Witnesses said that security deployment was beefed up in Pir Panjal on Wednesday with gun-toting police and paramilitary personnel setting up checkpoints at some places in Poonch and Rajouri districts amid apprehensions of protests by the tribal Gujjar and Bakkerwal communities against the bill.Although there was no official announcement about the suspension of mobile internet service in the two districts, a PTI report quoting government sources said that the decision was a “precautionary measure to check rumour-mongering and prevent people from creating any law and order problem”.Gates closedThe Union territory administration also prevented the former J&K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah from addressing a party rally in the region on Wednesday, said Imran Nabi Dar, a National Conference (NC) spokesperson.Omar was scheduled to address a public rally in the Sunderbani area of Poonch where a crowd of about 3000 party workers and local leaders had gathered on Wednesday.A party source said that both the main gate and a controlled-access passage to Dr Farooq Abdullah’s residence Bhatindi locality of Jammu, from where Omar was scheduled to leave for Poonch on Wednesday morning, were locked from the outside.Witnesses said that many party workers and leaders who had gathered at Sunderbani were disappointed as the National Conference vice-president could not reach the venue.“Preventing political parties from reaching out to their workers is an undemocratic act and our party condemns the administration’s behaviour,” NC spokesperson Dar said.ProtestsAfter the Lok Sabha gave approval to the Constitution (Jammu and Kashmir) Scheduled Tribes Order Amendment Bill, 2023 on Tuesday, which has included the Pahari-speaking people in Jammu and Kashmir’s Scheduled Tribes list, sporadic protests broke out in parts of the Union territory.Witnesses said that a minor protest broke out at the University of Jammu after the bill got the Lok Sabha’s nod through voice vote on Tuesday. “Some tribal students raised slogans against the bill and tried to take out a protest from the university,” said Zahid Parwaz Choudhary, a tribal leader..Choudhary, who is the state president of Gujjar Bakkerwal Youth Welfare Conference, a non-profit which champions the cause of J&K’s tribal population, alleged that the authorities have prevented students and other tribals from raising their voice against the reservation bill.“Security personnel have been deployed at the university’s main gate to prevent the students from exercising their democratic rights. Some of us were detained at Kothi Bagh police station (in Srinagar) on Tuesday afternoon,” Choudhary, who also shared a video of the purported security built-up outside the university, said.Speaking with The Wire, the Vice-Chancellor in charge of Jammu University, Professor Anju Bhasin, said that she also noticed the security forces outside the university gate when she came to her office on Wednesday morning. “The UT administration may have done it to preempt any disturbance. Our university has no role in matters outside the campus,” she said.The Constitution (Jammu and Kashmir) Scheduled Tribes Order (Amendment) Bill, 2023, which was passed by the Lok Sabha on Tuesday amends the Constitution (Jammu and Kashmir) Scheduled Tribes Order, 1989 to create separate lists for Scheduled Tribes for Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh.It also adds four communities to the list of Scheduled Tribes in Jammu and Kashmir, including Gadda Brahmin, Koli, Paddari Tribe, and Pahari Ethnic Group.The lower house also passed the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order (Amendment) Bill, 2024 on Tuesday that adds Valmiki community as a synonym of Chura, Balmiki, Bhangi, and Mehtar communities in the list of Scheduled Castes in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir.‘Rights of tribals’Earlier, a group of lawyers staged a protest against the bill in Panama Chowk locality of Jammu on Tuesday. A video from the protest shows some J&K Police personnel bundling three lawyers into the back of one of their vehicles who raised slogans against the “illegal” and “unconstitutional” bill.“Gujjar and Bakkerwals make up the third largest population (of J&K),” one lawyer is heard screaming, “We will hit the streets and fight for our rights. We are not afraid of their tyranny. We have fought against militancy in the border areas. We have kept the flag of India flying high but we will not allow any fiddling with the rights of tribals.”Minor protests against the controversial bill were also reported from the summer capital Srinagar, and south Kashmir’s Shopian, Pulwama and Kulgam districts that serve as the temporary home for Gujjars and Bakkerwals who traverse the Pir Panjal region during the summer months along with their families and livestock.The two groups have been up in arms against the union government’s decision of granting tribal status to the culturally-moored and economically privileged Paharis, arguing that they will nibble away at the jobs and other opportunities reserved for their poor and downtrodden communities.Vote politicsThe government has however denied the charge, stating that the bill was one of the several measures taken by the Narendra Modi government to “empower the backward and downtrodden” sections of J&K after its special status was read down.Speaking in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday, NC’s Member of Parliament, Hasnain Masoodi, had demanded that the union government should guarantee that the quota for existing STs of J&K was protected following the passage of the new reservation bill.According to political experts, the bill is part of the saffron party’s plan to turn the socially-fragmented population of Paharis in J&K into a political vote bank at a time when it has struggled to make inroads in the Muslim-majority Kashmir.The party has been wooing the 12 lakh Pahari-speaking people of Jammu and Kashmir who can influence the outcome of assembly elections in more than two dozen constituencies since Article 370 was read down in 2019.In October 2022, Union home minister Amit Shah told a packed crowd in Rajouri town that the Pahari community was going to be included in the list of Scheduled Tribes in Jammu and Kashmir. The announcement came after J&K Reorganisation Act 2019 provided reservation for the Scheduled Tribes in Jammu and Kashmir assembly for the first time.
