Hill villages ignored, migration risen: Airy

BD Kasniyal

Pithoragarh, November 8

UKD leader and top statehood agitation leader Kashi Singh Airy is dissatisfied with the performance of Uttarakhand in the past 15 years of its coming into being. He says the state has deviated from the vision and dreams of the statehood activists and has failed to check migration from hill villages that lack even basic facilities. Airy spoke to this correspondent about his assessment of the performance of the state in the last 15 years.

Airy says the geographical, social, cultural and economic conditions of Uttarakhand hills and their disconnect with the rest of Uttar Pradesh plains and other development issues were the main reasons for the agitation for a separate state of Uttarakhand. “Moreover, the Uttar Pradesh government was thrusting quota politics on hill people, sparking the statehood agitation,” he adds.

He says that it was the vision of Dr DD Pant, renowned physicist, and SS Bhatnagar, professor of Kumaon University, which took shape of an organization that was named Uttarakhand Kranti Dal in 1979 to take the struggle for a separate state of Uttarakhand forward. “It was after 1980 when the agitation being led by the UKD became a mass movement and people from all walks of life joined it,” adds Airy.

He says police atrocities on statehood activists and women during the struggle, big agitations and marches, indefinite fasts and protests led to the formation of Uttarakhand. “Forty-two of our comrades lost their lives in police firings while thousands of others lost limbs in police lathicharge and firings,” says the UKD leader.

Airy adds that the state fell into the hands of mainstream political parties BJP and Congress, which enjoyed power and exploited it rather than taking care of underdeveloped society and give justice to backward regions of the state. This successive governments in the state failed to fulfil the vision of statehood activists. “The high commands of these two parties that guide them from New Delhi have no understanding of the needs of people residing in distant hill areas,” says the UKD leader.

Airy says successive governments of the BJP and the Congress after the formation of the state should have on priority taken care of the basic facilities in agriculture and craft sectors in hill villages. This would have created employment opportunities in villages, thus helped in checking migration from hill villages. “To enjoy power has been the priority of the mainstream parties that easily formed governments in the state without much effort,” adds Airy.

Asked about the achievements of the state in the last 15 years, Airy says sarcastically that increase in the number of government officers and netas, their facilities and the pathetic condition of the common people, especially those in remote hill villages, are the main gains.