Jammu and Kashmir's long quest of autonomy was dramatically climaxed in the endorsement of the recommendations of the State Autonomy Report by the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly on 26 June, 2000. The climax was almost immediately followed by the anti-climax - its abrupt and summary rejection en limine by the Union Cabinet. The State Government's proposal was thrown out of Court without reference to other political parties or to the people of the country, without bilateral discussion with the Government of Jammu and Kashmir or the National Conference, without internal discussion, even without detailed examination by the Ministry of Home Affairs! Suddenly autonomy became a dirty word in our political lexicon. It became synonymous with secession and separatism with Partition and Balkanization. Nothing could be more undignified for the Union and more humiliating for the State.
The Union Cabinet was in fact preponed, without circulation of agenda or a working paper or analytical
note, contrary to the earlier indications by the Prime Minister and the Home Minister. All this was done under pressure from the RSS. For one thing, the episode shows who really rules the country. Certainly not the Prime Minister, nor his Home Minister, nor the Council of Ministers, not the Parliament but an extra-constitutional authority - called the RSS - which Vajpayee calls his mother and to whom Advani attributes all his 'goodness and greatness'!
Over the years the people have been conditioned to think of Jammu and Kashmir as a State with a special status and to appreciate its consistent demand of autonomy, supported by history and the Constitution. For long, the issue has not been the grant of autonomy, in principles but its quantum. Most of us recall 'sky is the limit' formulation of P.V. Narasimha Rao and of 'maximum autonomy' of H.D. Deve Gowda and of I.K. Gujral. Many remember the Accord of 1975 though most of us might have forgotten the Delhi Agreement of 1953. Just as we have forgotten that Jammu and Kashmir was not part of the Union on 15 August, 1947 and that it did not participate in the deliberations of the Constituent Assembly except in the last phase, towards the end of its labours. Just as we have forgotten that Jammu and Kashmir is the only princely State which, on accession, and that too conditional, was not merged and which, therefore, did not lose its identity when it became a State of the Union. Just as we have forgotten that the National Conference, established by Sheikh Mohd. Abdullah, on breaking away from the Muslim Conference, was, by its very title, an assertion of Kashmiri Nationalism which was, by inference, accepted by the Freedom Movement, represented by the Indian National Congress and more particularly by the All States People's Congress, even before Independence. Just as we have forgotten that Jammu and Kashmir is the only state with a Constitution of its own and to which the legislative authority of the Union Parliament does not apply automatically under Article 370. Just as we have forgotten that the residents of Jammu and Kashmir enjoy double citizenship. Just as we have forgotten that Jammu and Kashmir cannot, therefore, be treated on par with any other State of the Union and that it has a unique constitutional status.
Of course, we prefer to ignore that in similar situations other countries have tried to protect their territorial integrity though constitutional compromise. The most recent example is the grant of autonomy to Scotland by the United Kingdom. Another example is the regime envisaged for Northern Island. On the other hand, we have been nibbling at the autonomy and special status enjoyed by Jammu and Kashmir from the word go. We have been diluting and eroding Article 37Q to the' point of meaninglessness, when the average citizen of Jammu and Kashmir feels that he is not governed by the democratically elected State Government but by a military administration; that his life, honour and property, his human rights, cannot be protected by his representatives against depredations and violations by the armed forces and the paramilitary forces, the Special Task Force of the Jammu and Kashmir Police, under its command, not to speak of the counter-insurgents and the militants masquerading as freedom fighters. As a result, he feels alienated and disenchanted with our democratic system and our secular order.
There is no doubt in my mind that Farooq Abdullah had a political motive and purpose (and why not?) in bringing the question of autonomy out of the freezer and pushing it under the nose of the Union Government, of which his party (and his son) form a part. For that reason he perhaps expected the Union Government to join the game and to play ball. There could have been committ ... consultations, bilateral talks till the time comes for the next elections. Then Farooq Abdullah would move into the arena as the knight in shining armour, the defender of the legitimate rights and aspirations of the people and, with a little rigging here and there, win the crown. He had another purpose: to trump the possibility of direct negotiations by the Union with the Hurriyat and of the latter's entry into the electoral arena. Farooq Abdullah is indeed insecure; he knows the people no longer have any regard, far less, any love, for him. But he is also ever apprehensive that the Union Government, having used him, may throw him into the dustbin, if the situation so demands. That is why his opportunism has no limits. His party contests not only Assembly but Parliamentary elections against the BJP and then joins the NDA and his son, who had defeated a BJP candidate, becomes a Minister of State in the BJP-led Government! One sees how, in the wake of his 'unexpected' move, the RSS and the BJP lost no time in denouncing him as anti-national, communal, fundamentalist, even pro-Pakistan and threatening him with the dismissal of his government and the dissolution of the State Assembly! Of course, the tune changed, once Farooq Abdullah decided to lump his humiliation, forget his brave words and his valiant references to the dignity of his people.
Presently Farooq Abdullah is engaged in yet another charade of bilateral discussion on 'devolution' with the Union. Kashmiris had little trust in him then and have less now. He has lost the little prestige he had regained since he ordered magisterial inquiry in the killing of 5 innocent men by the armed forces in the wake of Chattisinghpora Massacre and voiced the demand for autonomy.
Farooq Abdullah, in any case, is a Man of all Seasons - the darling of the Indian elite, the chatterati, the academicians and even political leaders. And why not? He is the last and the orly bet for them and he is malleable and ductile enough to be moulded or cut into any shape!
But what about the people of the State? For one thing, having been in the limelight for 50 years and having waded through rivers of blood, they are, each one of them, more politically conscious than the average citizen of the country. Their political antenna quivers to any change in political weather. They have known, for ages, how to survive and during the last decade, contrary to their cultural ethos, even learnt the ways of violence. Today the Valley all over is resounding with cries of 'Azadi'.
The cry of 'Azadi', if interpreted as Freedom has a meaning but if interpreted as Independence, may be ill- conceived because the people of the other two regions Jammu & Ladakh do not join it and because neither India nor Pakistan will countenance it. Nor will it be in the larger interest of the people of the Sub-continent, nor even in the long-term interest of the people of the Valley- deficient, as it is, in food and energy. Autonomy - not fake but real - amounting to internal self-government under its own Constitution - with a special relationship with the Union - could. I am deliberately not saying, would, have been a substitute for the peace loving, war-weary, spiritually exhausted, mentally alienated and physicallyravaged people. But their hopes for peace and development lie dashed, between the hasty demand and its hastier rejection! They are angrier than ever before.
Farooq Abdullah has, however, succeeded in reinstating himself as the favourite child and pushing the Hurriyat out of the arena. The moderates within the Hurriyat have lost to the extremists. To everyone of them the Union's offer of talks appears to be malafide. How can a Government which is not prepared to discuss autonomy, negotiate on 'Azadi'? The Union has lost its credibility.
To that extent the government has provided Pakistan with a propaganda advantage on a platter!
It is universally accepted that the Kashmir problem cannot be resolved by force. The Kashmiris cannot be silenced by guns. They cannot be liquidated nor pushed out of their land. Kashmir cannot be demographically transformed. So the only possible solution, in keeping with our national sovereignty and territorial integrity, was and is to evolve a workable regime based on autonomy.
But they are four oft-repeated objections: The clock cannot be turned back to 1947 or 1950 or 1952. Sheikh Abdullah had a historic chance in 1975. He and his successor frittered it away because they never made a move for the implementation of the Accord of 1975 in its entirety. In any case the extension of the jurisdiction of national institutions like the Supreme Court of India, the Election Commission of India, the C.A.G., the Reserve Bank of India and even the National Commissions on Human Rights and on Minorities cannot be rolled back because they are in the interest of the people of the State who cannot be left to the tender mercies of a local 'nabob' and his henchmen. A frank discussion can always open the path for setting the parameters of autonomy, through the restoration of the authority of the Jammu and Kashmir Constitution and reasonable limitation on the power of the Union of intervene in the State only in case of external aggression or internal rebellion.
The second objection relates to the aspirations of Jammu and Ladakh which do not share the dream of autonomy. The reason lies in that the more the autonomy, the more powerful will be the State Government, with its demographic base in the Valley. The more dominant the Kashmiris are, the more insecure will be the people of the other regions. It is for the State Government and the Kashmiri people to find ways of taking the people of Jammu and Ladakh, partially or wholly, with them. The Union cannot and should not negotiate with Ladakh and Jammu, behind the back of the State. Nor has the Parliament any authority to trifurcate the State. But, in good faith, if the State Government cannot persuade the two regions to remain part of the State despite all possible decentralization of power and devolution of resources and structural equality and all possible, even statutory, assurances, it should allow them to go their way and wish them Godspeed. But why shouldn't the Kashmiris, defined by all possible parameters of ethnicity and by geography and history, have their special status and be autonomous, only because Jammu and Ladakh do not want it?
The third argument against autonomy - the Domino Effect - the fear of Balkanization is sheer politics. The Union is prepared to concede a measure of devolution to all other States. Then all the States including Kashmir will stay together in their own self-interest, not because the Sultan of Delhi wields a larger army then they can muster! India shall not be Balkanized; in fact, autonomous Kashmir will not secede. Perhaps all states in South Asia will one day join together to form the United States of South Asia which shall be one of the political, economic and technological poles of the world in the next millennium. The joy and the glory of belonging to the USSA shall inseparably bind them.
The fourth is the threat of Hindu upsurge, which may destroy the Secular Order. The foundations of the secular order, which does not serve the religious minorities alone but the Hindu majority as well are strong enough. Hindutva which is another name for chauvinism, obscurantism and revivalism, which is trying to row us back against the stream of time; it shall not overwhelm the Indian State. After all, autonomous Kashmir will remain a part of the Union - if it enjoys the substance of freedom, inter alia, as the Muslim Indians would like it to be.
So, let us boldly reiterate our past commitments. Let us not fight shy of the word autonomy. Let us trust our Kashmiri brothers. Let us respect their dignity. Let us work out a new framework of the Associated State of Jammu and Kashmir, assuming that Jammu and Ladakh, with some vital structural and fiscal safeguards, will not be averse to it.
And what about Pakistan? If we give the Kashmir people what Pakistan cannot match in the POK or the Northern Areas, will any Kashmiri, given the substance of 'Azadi', respond to their territorial aggrandizement, even if presented as 'liberation' and 'jihad'? And if they do not, will Pakistan be able to keep the fires of insurgency burning?
New Delhi,
1s August, 2000
