Misinformation and marginalization campaigns by Indian media against Muslims intend to create fake narratives
A A Latief u Zaman Dava
SNS KASHMIR
SRINAGAR ,DECEMBER,24:
In debates loaded with misinformation on electronic media about political discrimination with Dogras originating in delimitation of the J&K Constituent Assembly in 1951 itself, Dogras constitute 21% of UT population, the fallout of partition on demography and mishandling of the situation by Maharaja’s administration is not being taken on board. The features of 1941 census are reproduced in support of the imaginary discrimination.
In accordance with Census 1941 the population of Jammu and Kashmir provinces was 1981433 & 1728705 respectively.
The Distts of Mirpur and Punch had 386655 & 421828 population which included non- Muslims 75687 & 39014 respectively. In Muzafferabad from out of total population of 264617 the non- Muslims were 18268.while Mirpur in full fell on the other side of cease fire line, Punch substantially & Muzafferabad partly. There are 31619 families from POK registered with PRO Jammu and another about 5000 families are said to have settled in rest of the country. @ 5 Souls per family the number of refugees in the wake of partition and occurrence of subsequent developments in JK till 10.11.1947 from these 03 Distts works out to 1.80 lakhs even as the native minorities continued to live on Indian side in Uri and Karnah Tehsils of Muzafferabad Distt and in Meander, Punch and Surankot Tehsils of Punch Distt.while the total population of minorities in these 03 Distts didn’t exceed 1.33 lakhs the variation between births & deaths from 1941 to 1947 may increase the population upto 1.50 lakhs but how come 1.80 lakhs registered as refugees in 1947+ big chunk left on Indian side of Tehsils identified above & reported sizable casualties suffered at the hands of tribals and others.
The Muslim population in the Jammu, Samba and Kathwa tract was about 2.30 lakhs out of whom over 01 lakh persons are recorded as Mahajers in the records of Revenue and Relief Deptt of west Punjab in Pakistan and in Census 1961 the % of Muslim population in Jammu had fallen from 40% to 05% and in Kathua from 25% to 07%. On this paradigm not less than 01 lakh innocent people embraced martyrdom in 1947 in Jammu tract notwithstanding The Spectator in January 1948, Christopher Snedden in Kashmir: the unwritten History, Arjun Appaduri and Arien Mack in ” India’s World & Statesman pegging the number of casualties from 70000/ 02 lakhs to 05 lakhs.
Reducing the population of Mirpur in full , 75 % of Punch & 02 lakh from Jammu strip the population of Jammu Division on the basis of Census 1941 would have been 11. 20 + 1.55 refugees = 12.75 lakhs and not 20 lakhs as claimed.
Apart from the mismatch between the recorded population of minorities & their numbers as refugees in records of PRO Jammu( Form Alif) and certainty about the number of casualties; the population of truncated Jammu Division on Indian side with reference to Census 1941 would have been around 12.75+1.10= 13.85 lakhs in 1951 after accounting for 10% decadal growth rate on the basis of 1931 population of 3646243 which in 1941 was 4021616.From out of 17.28 lakh population of Jehlum Valley about 1.5 lakh remained back in Muzafferabad as its 40% population was in Uri Karnah, Gurez and in the strip between Kupwara & Muzafferabad. 17 lakh must have been the population of Valley in 1951. In face of huge differences between the population of the two Divisions the higher number of Assembly Segments rightly got apportioned to Kashmir Division for representing people in the Constituent Assembly.
The author is IAS (Retd ) and former Chairman of the J&K Public Services Commission who can be reached on aaluzdeva_221256@ymail.com .
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