Why’s U’khand govt, confronted with so many challenges, spending time on bad ideas that’re also unconstitutional?
Uttarakhand seems to be on fire even before forest-fire season’s begun. Protests over a 2022 murder have erupted again in multiple cities. Unease remains over the racist attack that killed Tripura student Anjel Chakma in Dehradun – a charming city with a sleepy colonial hangover, now the blingy bustling capital of a 25-year-old state. Sporadic stirs over the last year have come to a head with renewed agitation over the 2022 murder of 19-year-old hotel staff Ankita Bhandari by hotel manager Pulkit Arya, for refusing to render ‘sexual favours’ to a ‘VIP’ guest, allegedly a person linked to BJP. Pulkit was sentenced to life. But Uttarakhand residents, and political opposition, are agitating against state’s “failure to nab the alleged ‘VIP’ guest”. The protest narrative has included a lament for lack of jobs that results in trapping people, like Ankita, in unsafe workplaces. Uttarakhand has India’s highest unemployment rate – 8.9% per PLFS data shared in Rajya Sabha last Dec.
Uttarakhand does not report high rates of crimes against women, so the outrage isn’t surprising. For 10 years now, its share of women aged 18-23 in higher education has been equal to or higher than the all-India average. Women self-help groups have evolved empowering women, but male outmigration, especially rural, remains high. Yet, the state’s ‘ghost villages’ aren’t a result of economic migration alone. Deforestation and expansion of tourism infra, the latter paying no attention to ecological balance, have pushed Uttarakhand into precarity, vulnerable to extreme weather impacts. Upshot: high distress migration from rural Uttarakhand, 64% of the state per Niti estimates for 2023. That’s the reason finance commissions increased the state’s share in disaster management funds from 1.9% (14th FC) to 4.2% (15th FC). Meanwhile, Uttarakhand HC is hearing the case of 7,375 missing forest boundary pillars, linked to alleged increase in forest officers’ assets of Mussoorie division – prime real estate.
Given this, protests in Ankita’s name aren’t happening in a vacuum. They’re an outpouring of a pile-up of several challenges the otherwise mild-mannered locals are facing. Yet, govt has other priorities – incrementally legislating for social control. One such was UCC that included at least one unimplementable clause – mandatory ‘registration’ of live-in couples. Its latest proposal to ban non-Hindus from 105 Haridwar ghats is patently unconstitutional – public spaces are for all. Public protests are not for Ankita alone. They are a desperate cry asking govt to prioritise what matters – law & order, employment, and sanctity of the Himalayas at the very least.
Disclaimer
Views expressed above are the author’s own.
END OF ARTICLE
