In Kashmir, integrate Kashmiris
The national project is complete. The democratic project now needs work
It has been a year since Parliament changed the constitutional status of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), effectively nullifying Article 370, and reorganising the state into two Union territories of J&K and Ladakh. This newspaper supported the quest for integrating Kashmir with the rest of India, constitutionally and legally, with the dilution of Article 370 — while raising questions about the process followed to achieve it, and emphasised the need for outreach to the Kashmiri people.
A year later, there is little doubt that the entire constitutional, legal and administrative rejig of J&K has cemented the control of the State over the territory. It has armed Indian security forces with greater room to tackle Pakistan-sponsored terrorism and crack down on violence. And it has shown the futility of the
slogan of those who harbour ambitions of secession. At the same time, the challenge of integrating Kashmiris with the Union persists. The detention of mainstream leaders, the curtailment of civil liberties, including mobility and connectivity, and the restrictions on political activity (all of which this newspaper has consistently opposed) has left the Kashmiri street alienated. The dilution of statehood has been met with hostility. There has been tremendous disruption to the everyday lives of people.
The government must note these sentiments and not brush aside the democratic dissent of citizens, even as it battles the violence. Restoring democracy fully — by removing restrictions on connectivity, releasing detained leaders, initiating a political dialogue, making security forces more accountable for excesses — and restoring statehood to J&K (while keeping Ladakh as a separate unit) is the best way to restart the political process. Kashmir has been won over, now win over the Kashmiris.
On August 5 and 6 last year, the Narendra Modi administration took two steps that fundamentally altered the lives of the people of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). First, it removed the special status that the state enjoyed in the Indian Union under Article 370 of the Indian Constitution. Then, Parliament enacted the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, which demoted and divided the state into two Union territories.
To ensure that there was no protest against these steps, the Modi administration arrested all the state’s political leaders the day before, except those belonging to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), imposed Section 144, and snapped all communications in and with the state.
The BJP claimed these measures would improve security, and give the people of J&K the same rights as prevailed in the rest of India. One year has passed. How do we assess those claims? Take security first. There has been a sharp rise in insecurity on the borders, but some improvement internally. We are still struggling to reverse the Chinese incursions into Ladakh, and cross-border firing by Pakistan has risen sharply. Internally, however, there has been a drop of around 30% in casualties comparing August 2019-July 2020 with the same period in the preceding year. But we also find a rising trend in casualties from April 2020, which is worrying. The reduction in casualties was achieved at considerable human cost. According to figures given by the J&K administration, this came at the cost of the detention of 6,600 people — including children — under the draconian Public Safety Act, the continuous imposition of Section 144 to date, the restriction of mobile telephony and Internet to 2G services, and a new media policy that allows security agencies to censor media outlets.
Most of the detainees have been gradually released, but the majority of political leaders spent anywhere between eight-to-11 months in detention. Many of them were released only after agreeing that they would not criticise the August actions. Former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti is still under detention and there is controversy over whether Congress leader Saifuddin Soz is under house arrest or not.
Since the August lockdown was only gradually being relaxed when the Covid-19 lockdown was imposed, J&K has suffered one year of closures. According to the Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry, businesses across all sectors of the economy have lost close to ~40,000 crore in the Valley alone. Even discounting these figures, the economic cost to the former state as a whole must be even larger.
Losses in education and health are similarly grave. Schools had just reopened after the August lockdown and winter vacations, when the pandemic struck. Online classes barely worked on 2G networks. In a recent report issued by the Forum for Human Rights in Jammu and Kashmir, of which I am a member, teachers, students and researchers spoke in the same voice about the damage done to human development, of which education is a critical pillar. University students often missed college admissions, teachers and researchers could not participate in conferences or send papers for publication.
Health care professionals faced the same problems. Doctors could not seek specialist advice on serious illnesses or participate in exchanges of the latest information on Covid-19. In the first few months after August, pharmacies could not get deliveries of medicine and clinics were closed.
Because of the ban on 4G networks and the continuous imposition of Section 144, most of these problems persist, along with a host of others. The media has been deeply affected, both editorially and financially. Anyone who reads the local papers can see the difference before and after August 2019. There is some reporting but no comment on either the August actions or their implementation over the past year.
Though challenges to the removal of special status and reorganisation of the state are pending in the Supreme Court, the Modi administration has proceeded to implement both. New domicile rules have replaced the permanent resident certificates, raising fears of further job and industry losses as well as long-term fears of losses of land and other privileges. The latter impact Jammu more than the Valley; reportedly 2.9 lakh applications for domicile certificates have been made in Jammu as against 73,000 in the Valley.
The past year has been one of a terrible loss for the people of Jammu and Kashmir. Not only has development been rolled back and incomes fallen, political rights to representation, civic rights to information and communication, and human rights to freedom of expression, protection against arrest and attendant rights, to bail or a speedy trial, have all been denied.
The only gain has been in counter-insurgency, and that too small in absolute numbers. We should, of course, be glad that even a couple of hundred lives have been saved — but we should equally ask whether banning 4G has really contributed to it, and how a drastic curtailment of rights can possibly be justified in the name of counter-insurgency.
Worst still, we are yet to hear the voices of the people. One year has passed, but we do not know what they feel about losing their special status under Article 370 and its implementation, or what they feel about being divided and turned into two Union Territories. We don’t even know whether these government actions are constitutionally valid.
Many ask, what can be done now to win Kashmiri hearts and minds. After what they have undergone, I am doubtful whether forgiveness will come so easy. But the first step would be to restore special status as well as statehood, hold elections and open a dialogue based on the promises made within the Instrument of Accession. The fact that the Modi administration is unlikely to take these steps does not make them any the less necessary.
Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi visited Srinagar in May 2018. It was Ramzan and the Union home ministry had announced a unilateral ceasefire in the state. The prime minister was there to inaugurate several development projects.
“My appeal to these misguided youth is to return to the national mainstream, which is their own family, and participate in the development of Jammu and Kashmir,” he said in his address at the Sher-ikashmir International Conference Centre. “Every stone or weapon picked up by the youth of this state is only meant to destabilise their own state,” he cautioned. During an earlier visit in 2016, he had laid out his development agenda by invoking former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee — “Atal Bihari Vajpayee gave the mantra — Insaniyat, Jamhooriyat, Kashmiriyat. He based Jammu&kashmir’s development on this. We need to take it forward”.
The twin themes of peace and development have guided the PM’S Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) policies. The abrogation of Articles 370 and 35A was a corollary of that. The so-called mainstream parties in J&K were used to a different kind of emotional politics pitched around separatist agendas. They knew well that Article 370 had been hollowed out by successive governments starting with Jawaharlal Nehru. Yet, they used the chimera of special status to mislead people, breed separatism and perpetuate their rule.
One year after the abrogation of Articles 370 and 35A, one thing stands out: The separatist and emotional narrative is no longer working. When some Kashmiri politicians rue the fact that they have been made irrelevant, it should be understood that they are unable to pursue the old agendas. Also gone were the days when Opposition leaders, from N T Rama Rao to Biju Patnaik to Jyoti Basu, would stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Farooq Abdullah to form a national alliance against the Congress. Not a single political party, including the Left parties, which used to argue that Kashmiris was a separate nation, is ready to stand with them on the question of Article 370.
The political leadership in the Union Territory (UT) must realise that Naya Kashmir needs a new politics and agenda. Those who want to persist with the old agendas of separatism and rhetoric of “resistance” would do well to quit mainstream politics and choose one of the Hurriyat factions. The people of the state are not in the least interested in this language of violence and intimidation. There is almost an 80% dip in the number of violent incidents in the Union territories after the abrogation of Article 370. There has been a 40% drop in the terror incidents. There was not a single civilian casualty at the hands of the security forces in the last one year, whereas terrorists killed 22 civilians in the last six months. The security forces have succeeded in neutralising over 180 terrorists in the last year. New recruitments are low. Interestingly, even the terrorists are scared to initiate incidents. The number of attacks has come down drastically to 21 compared to 51 last year.
The people’s choice is clear — a new politics without violence and emotions — on the lines of Vajpayee’s three principles. Kashmiriyat was originally a concept denoting the state’s harmonious pluralism, Sufi, Buddhist and Shivaite tolerance, multiplicity of languages, customs, cuisines and cultures, coexisting peacefully. It was converted into a separatist political hyperbole in the 1960s. Real Kashmiriyat, together with insaniyat — humanism, and jamhooriyat — democratic politics, will form the core of the new politics.
The march in that direction has already begun. New parties and leaders are emerging with an ambition to pursue a constructive agenda of development and peace. With the extension of Article 73 and 74 of the Constitution, local bodies from panchayats upwards have secured more powers. These empowered grassroots political institutions are going to throw up a new leadership. The end of Article 370 has also ended the injustice to many sections of society. Scheduled Tribes, Scheduled Castes, women, refugees, the LGBTQ community — all of them secured their civic and political rights including reservations. The dominance of a couple of families in politics will end and a Dogra, a Pahari, and a Gujjar can aspire to the highest positions now.
Contrary to the propaganda about demographic change, the new domicile law actually safeguards the interests of the people of J&K. Under the new domicile policy, all the jobs in the state have been reserved for domiciles only. The job markets are opening up with the government announcing a recruitment for 10,000 vacancies. With over ~13,500 crore worth of memorandums of understanding already signed, private investment inflows have also started giving more boost to employment. Infrastructure projects such as roads, power projects, irrigation works and entertainment projects have picked up momentum; 50% of the Prime Minister’s Development Package of ~80,000 crore, lying unspent, is being utilised by the administration to expedite several projects for the public good.
With the delimitation commission in place and elections to the UT legislature slated post the delimitation, UT will soon return into the political leadership’s hands. Naya Kashmir is embarking on a new journey of progress, prosperity and development. Leaders with a vision for development and those fired by the nationalist mission will lead the destiny of J&K.