October 1 was a historic day for the Valmikis as they got to exercise their democratic rights for the first time since 1957 in the Union Territory (UT) of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) for the Assembly elections.
The Valmiki community originally came to J&K in 1957 from Punjab’s Gurdaspur district as the then state government required sanitation workers.
A man standing in a long queue at a polling station told reporters that he was happy to be one of the first persons from his community to vote.
“For decades, our community, brought here for sanitation work, was denied its basic rights, including the right to vote and citizenship of J&K. This is a historic moment for the entire Valmiki community.”
The Valmikis, with refugees from West Pakistan and Gurkhas form a group with a sizeable population of around 1.5 lakh people in the UT.
Approximately 12,000 Valmikis live in the Gandhi Nagar and Dogra Hall areas in Jammu.
They were previously deprived of voting rights, education, job opportunities, and land ownership due to the absence of a state subject certificate.
The group demands improvement in living conditions.
With their newfound voting rights community members are also hopeful of getting better accommodation, education for children and employment opportunities like members of other communities.
These refugee groups got the right to vote for the first time only when Article 370 was abrogated from the erstwhile state of J&K, which gave the state the right to define the residents according to 35-A, which was previously in place in J&K.
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