The Jammu Chamber of Commerce and Industry has called for a “Jammu bandh” on September 22 to protest against the “atrocities of the governm...
The Jammu Chamber of Commerce and Industry has called for a “Jammu bandh” on September 22 to protest against the “atrocities of the government on the business class” and the “discrimination” against traders in the region.
This is the first time that Jammu’s business community has made a show of their discontent since August 5, 2019, when the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Centre split the state of Jammu and Kashmir into two Union Territories and stripped it of autonomy and the protections guaranteed to it under Article 370 of the Constitution.
The traders’ body listed a number of “anti-Jammu” steps taken by the government: the e-auction of liquor shops earlier this year, which left local vendors in the lurch, the proposal to open 100 Reliance stores against which small traders will find it difficult to compete and the allocation of mining contracts to “outsiders”, which had cost thousands their livelihoods.
Among the list of grievances was the end of the 149-year-old practice called the “darbar move”, a leftover of the days when Jammu and Kashmir was ruled by the Dogra kings. Every winter, the government and the entire administrative machinery of the state would shift from the summer capital of Srinagar in the Kashmir Valley to...
