People’s Conference MLA Sajjad Lone speaks during the Budget session of Assembly, in Jammu, on March 13, 2025.
| Photo Credit: PTI
J&K People’s Conference (JKPC) chief and MLA Sajad Lone on Thursday (March 13, 2025) said the current reservation policy was being used as a tool “to exclude Kashmiri-speaking population from power structure and reorder the social supremacy” in the Union Territory (UT).
Speaking in the J&K Assembly, Mr. Lone, who is an MLA from Handwara, said, “Attempts are being made to change the social supremacy by disempowerment. It looks like reordering through the current reservation policy. After 20 years, very few Kashmiri-speaking people will be seen in the Secretariat of J&K.”
Referring to the Kashmiri-speaking population, comprising Muslims and Hindus, as a “distinct ethnic group”, Mr. Lone highlighted the figures that show lower representation of the Kashmiri-speaking population in competitive examinations like J&K Administrative Services (JKAS) in recent years.
“Each passing day, Kashmiri-speaking candidates figure less in the results of competitive examinations. This is not because they are incompetent but because the space was being squeezed. They are being crowded out from the competitive space by virtue of system of reservation, which is totally rigged against them by the current 60% reservation policy,” Mr. Lone said.
Figures suggest that the Kashmiri-speaking population who qualified for the JKAS examination was 19% in 2023, 25% in 2022 and 21% in 2021. “An internal survey needs to be carried out to check the net loss to Kashmiri-speaking population if this reservation policy did not exist in J&K,” Mr. Lone said.
The Centre reworked the reservation policy in J&K in the past five years, which grants 20% reservation to Scheduled Tribes (ST), 8% to Scheduled Castes (SC), 10% to Reserved Backward Areas, 8% to Other Backward Classes, 4% to Local Area Candidates/Integrated Borders, 10% to Economically Weaker Section and 10% to children of defence personnel, sports, CDP, PWD etc. The policy pushes open merit to around 40% in admissions and jobs in J&K.
Urging the elected government to rationalise the current reservation policy, Mr. Lone said, “Kashmir region has no SC population. In the Kashmir region, ST population is 40% and in the Jammu region, it is 60%. ST living in the Jammu region are comparatively marginalised and scattered unlike Kashmir region where entire constituencies belong to the ST communities. ST communities should be allowed to compete more within the Jammu region.”
He said Kashmir being a conflict State should ideally see special measures but “reverse is happening”. “For 30 years, discourse from Delhi was ‘teach them a lesson’ and ‘show them this place’. This is a post-dated cheque for disaster. The last 30 years Kashmir region has seen turmoil and violence. Overall mental makeup has gone through a lot. That script was written by enemies and this script is written by us,” the JKPC chief said.
He said those bureaucrats who drafted the reservation policy will leave J&K “but we will face a social disorder”. “If you are going to push merit to the wall and not give them admission in colleges, it will cause disorder that our children will have to face. It is something generational,” Mr. Lone said.
Published – March 13, 2025 08:06 pm IST