While the Darbar Move restored after a gap of four years has brought cheers to the business community of Jammu, there is a section both in Kashmir and Jammu that is criticizing the move and terming it wasteful.
Two stark views were witnessed on X when some users with followers in thousands stoke up the issue of Darbar Move.
An X user Ajay Raina wrote in a post- “So, the Durbar ‘opens’ in Jammu on Monday after shutting on Friday in Srinagar. Marvellous…isn’t it? Now, the fact is that unwelcome babus and their staff from Srinagar have been given a week-long paid holiday in addition to 25K per head as advance of travelling allowance; they are supposed to ‘settle down’ during this period. And if the offices could do any work today, it was because of already available Jammu staff (it won’t be so when they move next time) and a fully functional e-office, so painstakingly executed by the LG. Out in the city, there is a chaos”.
He said that there were no traffic lights and a sudden increase in traffic has caused massive jams, something Jammu is not used to. “Adding to the chaos are the ‘VIPs’ moving around with escorts and bullying commoners to make way for the commoners. The flyover on the Satwari road has been shut for some vIp whose butt may be shot by someone if others are allowed to commutee on the flyover during the peak hour. Today, if a patient has to reach any of the hospitals in the city, he or she got to be lucky to make it. All this for one seat in the Rajya Sabha? Shame on you, @BJP4India and @BJPJammuKashmir”
On the other hand a user, Vikas Amin, from Kashmir wrote, “What is there for Kashmiris to celebrate in “DARBAR MOVE” to Jammu? Do @OmarAbdullah want Kashmiris to celebrate his decision of restoring the dogra legacy? Does Omar want us to celebrate something that he took from Kashmir & shifted to Jammu? Omar Abdullah is putting the entire Kashmiris, which gave him 38 seats under the bus just to appease Jammu, which gave him only 7. For the appeasement of Jammu vote bank, Omar Abdullah is going lengths & breadths, but for Kashmir, he isn’t even addressing the basic pain – Reservation Issue, Meter issue, Unemployment issue, Prisoners issue & what not”.
Amin said “Omar Abdullah led NC charged people in Kashmir during elections in the name of restoring the dignity of people – Article 370, Reservation, Land rights and prisoners, but now he has dragged that entire struggle to a point where moving the Darbar to Jammu is being celebrated as if all the problems of Kashmir have been solved. The reality, however, is that the Darbar move only gives birth to more problems. The ‘Darbar Move’ has never served the people of Kashmir rather it only drains us economically. It has always been a royal ritual for the elites, a winter vacation for the powerful, while ordinary Kashmiris are left orphaned in freezing temperatures, facing electricity cuts, poor healthcare, and countless emergencies alone”.
Meanwhile, former Mayor of Srinagar MC, Junaid Mattu in a post on social media said that Darbar Move was, is and will remain a medieval and wasteful practice, a legacy of monarchical and imperial elitism. “You would have expected a young leader to offer innovative solutions to meet challenges of governance. One capital, decentralized administrative structures and 12 month, multi-tier administrative connect in both Provinces. Shimla used to be the Summer Capital of the British Raj. And that had nothing to do with governance or outreach. It was an arrangement based out of convenience for the imperial administrators. Delhi got too hot in the summers. The dual capital legacy in J&K is not any different. The monarchs moved their seat of power to Jammu in the winters to escape the vagaries of Kashmir’s winter — leaving people in Kashmir to fend for themselves when they needed governance the most” he said.