KASHMIR SITUATION
US: Frank G. Wisner, Ambassador to India on Kashmir
Quetta (Pakistan), 10 July, 1996
The list of disagreements between India and Pakistan is long. No issue is more vexing than Kashmir. The challenge that (India-Pakistan) face is how to overcome passion in the cause of peace, in the interests of your people and the generations to come. Neither of you has a monopoly on pride, character, or strength of feeling and principle.
A solution does not lie in re-visiting the troubled history of the Kashmir dispute.
A new government in Delhi has spoken of its desire to offer "maximum autonomy" to the people of Kashmir. This is a positive step forward, one that challenges Indians of good will to accept that the unique, character of Kashmir requires unusually creative solutions. The Indian government's offer speaks volumes about the spirit of the Kashmiri people, who have demanded their voice be heard.
An incipient dialogue has begun between political leaders from Kashmir and the government in Delhi. Prime Minister Deve Gowda has lent his support to dialogue, meeting with political parties and former militants in Delhi and travelling to Kashmir. Growing numbers of Kashmiris are engaged and hopefully more will join. This new disposition to communicate can serve to develop confidence between the parties, an essential element if a reconciliation and peace are to emerge. This dialogue gives us hope that while India and Pakistan talk, one day Kashmiris on both sides of the border may speak to one another and add their voice to the quest for peace.
Elections in the state... I am realistic enough to know that in circumstances of continuing violence a perfect poll is difficult to achieve. But it must be aspired to.
The elections, by the Election Commission's own account, were imperfect and still they contributed to the empowerment of the Kashmiri people and to the beginning of a political process in the state. That, after all, is the objective. Elections are not an end in themselves. They contribute to a political process. Elections that could now take place for a state government in Jammu and Kashmir represent an alternative to the conflict that has produced six years of suffering and impoverishment for the people of Kashmir.
Elections in Indian Kashmir address a long-standing concern of Pakistan's-that the Indian government seeks to impose a solution to the conflict in the state from outside. The United States has long maintained a binding solution in Kashmir can flow only from an understanding reached between India and Pakistan, one reached by taking into account the wishes of the Kashmiri people.
Finally, elections in Indian Kashmir pose no threat to Pakistan, to (its) borders, (its) sovereignty, (its) principles, or to (its) claims to Kashmir. A political process that enjoys broad participation is the single best antidote to the violence that plagues the Valley. It will rejuvenate a weary people and revitalize a moribund economy.
All concerned (must) acknowledge that, after nearly 50 years, there are certain fundamental realities that will not be changed. Acceptance of reality as it exists may provide a useful point of departure when serious discussion of the state's future begins, at the governmental level between India and Pakistan, and in talks between the Indian government and Kashmiri interlocutors, and one day between Kashmiris. No thoughtful Indian... argues that the reality of partition should be ignored or reversed.
CPI(M): Statement on J&K Elections, 29 July, 1996
The elections for J&K assembly in September will be the next step towards restoring the democratic process in the state after the Lok Sabha elections. It is necessary that the conditions be created for the widest participation and those groups who have been fighting for the identity of all political forces including the National Conference declare in parliament its commitment to provide. of the Kashmiri people. The central government should maximum autonomy to J&K on the basis of... Common Minimum Programme. Successful elections will be a rebuff to hose extremist forces backed by Pakistan.
WAKF
Supreme Court on Propagation of Religion
Sri Sri Sri Lakshamans Yatendrulu and others etc. etc., Petitioners v. State of Andhra Pradesh and another, Respondents.
K. Ramaswamy and B.L. Hansaria, JJ
Constitution of India, Article 25 Scope Propagation of religious beliefs - Protected under Article 25.
Article 25, as its language amplifies, assures to every person subject to public order, health and morality. freedom not only to entertain his religious beliefs, as may be approved of by his judgement and conscience, but also to exhibit his belief in such outwardly act as he thinks proper and to propagate or disseminate his ideas for the edification of others. Mahant as head of the spiritual fraternity and by virtue of his office has to perform the duties of a religious teacher. It is the duty of Mahant to practice and propagate the religious tenets of which he is an adherent and if any provision of law prevents him protagonists and antagonists of contemplated rationalization. Given the hardline position of the large majority of the ulema and leaders of conservative Muslim opinion who find and use the Muslim personal law issue as a means of consolidating the community and whose political interest such rationalization would threaten substantially, strong opposition and resistance from them against any attempt towards rationalization and/or reform is to be anticipated. Hence, also the necessity for a dialogue.
As this campaign is under way, concerned Muslims as a collectivity or any group among them should set up a committee of Muslim jurists, lawyers, willing ulema, law teachers, social scientists, professionals and members of the middle classes to work out in detail the precise form the rationalized provisions should take. In other words, the precise wording of the provisions should be worked out. The provisions could then be codified. Once such piecemeal codification has been achieved. the groundwork for codification of the entire corpus of Muslim personal law would have been laid.
Nishtha Desai on Common Civil Code in Goa and Muslims
From 1968 onwards, the Government of India had set up various commissions to examine the feasibility of extending personal laws prevalent in the rest of India to Goa. This would have meant replacing the Portuguese Civil Code (PCC) which applies uniformly to all the communities.
The Personal Law Committee, appointed in 1981 asked the heads of all the religious communities to forward their views regarding the extension of personal laws operational in the rest of India to Goa. Only the Muslim community responded to the committee's request.
The Muslim Youth Welfare Association and the Goa Muslim Women's Association led by Rashida Mujawar, a law student at that time, campaigned for continuance of the PCC and claimed that they had support from a majority of the jamats in Goa.
Opposing the PCC were various organizations that came together under the banner of the Goa Muslim Shariat Organization. The issue fizzled out as the government, faced with stiff resistance from a significant section of Muslims, and a lack of enthusiasm from other communities, abandoned any attempt to change the family laws operational in Goa.
What is the attitude of the Muslim community to the PCC 10 years after the great debate has died down?... Many Muslim women believe they are fortunate to be in Goa.
In addition to deterring men from practicing polygamy and pronouncing talaq, the civil code is also viewed by many in the younger generation as contributing to a more rational way of life... BJP: L.K. Advani's Opening Remarks at the National Executive, Bhopal, 21 June, 1996
Repeated pronouncements of the Supreme Court admonishing successive Congress Governments for disregarding the Constitutional mandate for a uniform civil code are not just glossed over, Shri Rao has had the temerity to cite BJP's advocacy of such a code as evidence of its non-secular character!
In fact, compressed to essentials, the only two aspects of BJP's manifesto dealt with by Shri Rao in his speech to substantiate why a secular party like his was "diametrically opposed" to the BJP were:
a) BJP advocates a uniform civil code; and
b) BJP wants Article 370 to be scrapped.
BJP is committed to both these issues, we hold that opposition to these issues is pure vote-bank politics, and we challenge our adversaries for a national debate on these issues.
In a recently published brochure, "Uniform Civil Code for India", veteran jurist and author of the 18- volume commentary on the Indian Constitution Shri Durga Das Basu has said:
"The question whether India should adopt a uniform (or common) civil code is a legal question because it is a mandate addressed to the 'State" by Article 44 of the Constitution, which is the highest law of the land.
"Unfortunately, however, in India, legal questions are often politicized and thereby confused particularly political party and, particularly, when it affects the when the issue relates to the election prospects of each Muslim vote bank on which most of the Parties have to rely.
"For the same reason, even an academician who writes on such Constitutional provisions has the risk of being dubbed a 'communalist' by interested politicians. A crucial instance of this sort is the topic of a Uniform Civil Code".
Whether the demand for a separate Muslim personal law is an outsider's demand is worthy of examination.
Enforcement of the law is possibly the crux of the issue. The women who spoke in favor of the PCC also strongly asserted their identity as Muslims.
Is the experience of the Muslim women in Goa indicative of the fact that laws can become a part of culture over time? In Goa, the CC in general and the become an important component of peoples' culture. At registration of marriage in particular appears to have particular to their own religious traditions. Shaikh the same time, people continue to observe the customs colonial and outmoded, but vigorously asserts that the Hassan, a former law minister, characterizes the PCC as prevalence of the PCC has in no way undermined the cultural identity of Muslims in Goa.
(Source: The Times of India, 30 June, 1996)
