Sonia to open Gujjar Center today

Shabir Dar
Jammu, May 28: When the UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi would inaugurate the state-of-art Gurjar Centre for Culture and Heritage (GCCH) here Saturday, movement for improving the condition of tribal community of the State will be born.
The centre, built by Gurjar Desh Charitable Trust (GDCT), a voluntary non-political organisation, has mandated itself to work for the upliftment of Gujjars and other underprivileged classes of the State.
The purpose of establishing GCCH was to deal effectively with backwardness and socio-economic deprivation of the Gujjar community.
The centre is mandated to formulate programmes and policies and creating a wave of awareness among the members of the community to become active agents of their own socio-economic reformation.
“By the establishment of Aligarh Muslim University in 1875 by Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, the condition of Muslims improved considerably. It was a movement toward educational, economic and political awakening of Muslims. Likewise, the establishment of Gurjar Centre for Culture and Heritage is a movement to improve socio, economic and political conditions of Gujjars,” Masud Ahmad Chaudhary, Chairman of GDCT told Rising Kashmir.
Chaudhary said the Gurjar Centre was state-of-art structure, which houses facilities like Researchers Retrieve, Art, Culture and Language centre, workshop, auditorium, conference hall, publishing hall, gallery, museum and Begum Akbar Jehan Foundation and Research Library.
“The traditional dress, culture and even language of Gujjars is on decline. Even the social condition of Gujiars is not good. So I am sure that the centre will have a very positive impact on the society. It is empowerment of Jammu and Kashmir Muslims,” Chaudhary, who is also the vice-chairman of Baba Ghulam Shah Badsha University, Rajouri said.
Not only members of Gujjar community, even the head of the state have expressed hope that the centre would help preserve culture and heritage of the tribal community.
“I wish and pray that the complex becomes a centre of activities aimed at preservation and showcasing of rich culture of the Gujjar community,” Chief Minister Omar Abdullah writes in his message to the tribal community. The CM’s message is published in the broacher to be released by Sonia Gandhi on Saturday.
It took almost two decades for the GDCT to complete the work on Gurjar Centre for Culture and Heritage (GCCH), the work for which started in 1991.
Two former chief ministers Farooq Abdullah and Ghulam Nabi Azad had provided enough financial help from the State resources to the centre in its present form.
Besides, GDCT has received financial help from the Government of India and other Gujjar bodies of India.
“By establishing GCCH we have added beauty to Jammu city and also registered our identity,” Chaudhary said.
The Gujjar members say their community, which lives in extreme poverty, has been exploited by successive regimes in Jammu and Kashmir.
To substantiate their argument, the Gujjar community members quote the first prime minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru as saying in 1940: “Gujjars have continually been exploited and have lived in extreme poverty.”
“I don’t think there is much improvement in the situation of Gujjars since then,” said Chaudhary.
Now the coming of Sonia Gandhi to Jammu for inaugurating the GCCH is being viewed as a new beginning of relationship between the Gandhi family and the Gujjar and Bakerwal community of the State.
The Gujjar community members are optimistic that after a long gap of over 25 years, a member of the Gandhi family will revive the relationship between the two which will have a forereaching impact on the movement of Gujjars, who are struggling hard since 1947 for their recognition as a vibrant and powerful ethno-political tribal identity.
“Former Prime Ministers Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Ghandi were great advocates and sympathisers of Gujjars of J&K but after the assassination of Indira Gandhi, the links were snapped. Now the visit of Sonia Gandhi will see a new saga of revival of age old relations between a community that always sacrificed a lot for upholding the unity and integrity of the State,” said a Gujjar community leader.