The National Conference, the ruling party in Jammu and Kashmir, appears to be torn between a sad marriage to its historic ideological commitments and a new dalliance with the Hindu Right.

Four months have passed and a war has broken out since Chief Minister Farooq. Abdullah announced the release of the most important political document on the political future of Jammu and Kashmir since its accession to India on October 26, 1947. The Report of the State Autonomy Committee (SAC), which was set up shortly after the National Conference Government came to power in September 1996, promised to open a dialogue on Jammu and Kashmir's place in the Indian Union. But with more than a few voices on the Hindu Right calling for the repeal of Article 370 in the wake of the Kargil crisis, it remains to be seen whether the N.C. will find the courage to initiate a meaningful debate on the autonomy issue.

The SAC, whose Report was y-leased in April, has its origins in a promise the N.C. made in its manifesto released ahead of the State Assembly elections in 1996.The manifesto said the party would secure "dignified, undiluted and meaningful autonomy" for the State's people. The N.C., which had boycotted the previous round of Lok Sabha polls, agreed to participate in the 1996 Assembly elections only after the then Prime Minister, H.D. Deve Gowda, promised "maximum autonomy" for Jammu and Kashmir.

In the wake of the Kargil crisis, the SAC Report raises fundamental questions about India's policy on Jammu and Kashmir: What vision does India have of the State's future? Given that powerful forces within and outside India have advocated that the State be carved up on communal lines, what alternative terms of political dialogue for Jammu and Kashmir may there be?

In essence, the SAC Report outlines a series of constitutional and legislative measures to restore the political autonomy that Jammu and Kashmir was guaranteed at the time of its accession. Unlike any other princely state, and despite the pressures placed by Pakistan's invasion of its territory, Jammu and Kashmir negotiated the terms of its accession to India. A schedule to the Instrument of Accession listed just 16 areas, under the three heads of Defence, External Affairs and Communications, for which the legislature of the Dominion of India could make laws. A fourth head, Ancillary, enabled the Dominion to make laws on four subjects related to elections to its legislature.

Protracted negotiations between N.C. founder Sheikh Abdullah and Indian political leaders, principally Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, led to the institutionalisation of the relationship laid out in the Instrument of Accession ...

Article 370 of the Constitution emerged from this process of dialogue, and this fact is little understood by the assortment of figures who periodically attack it as the reason for the troubles in Jammu and Kashmir.

In essence, the Article makes six special provisions for the State, all of which emerged, from the terms of the Instrument of Accession. First, Jammu and Kashmir would have its own Constitution within the Union of India, thus exempting it from the provisions of the Indian Constitution for the governance of the States. Then, Parliament's authority to legislate for the State would be restricted to the three areas laid out in the Instrument of Accession. If any other constitutional mandates or Union powers were to be made applicable to the State, they required the assent of the State Government.

But, the SAC Report argues, Article 370(2) placed even bigger limitations on the Union's powers. It made clear that the State Government's concurrence with moves to extend constitutional provisions to Jammu and Kashmir would require the ratification of the State's Constituent Assembly. Once the Jammu and Kashmir Constituent Assembly completed its work, therefore, no government had the power to consent to any further extensions of the Union's powers. Finally, Article 370(3) enabled the President to abrogate or amend the entire Article, but only  on the basis of a recommendation by the State's Constituent Assembly.

In July 1952, even as the work of the Constituent Assembly was under way, Nehru and Sheikh Abdullah announced a 10-point agreement on Jammu and Kashmir's relationship with India. While residuary powers rested with the Centre in the case of other States, they would rest with the State in the case of Jammu and Kashmir. Citizens of the State would also be citizens of India, but pre-Independence State subject laws that barred outsiders from buying land in the State would still apply. The Indian flag would have primacy, and the power to grant prisoners reprieves and commute death sentences would rest with the President of India. The Union's power to impose a state of emergency was, however, severely restricted. ...

The Delhi Agreement of 1952, and the Constitution Order it led to, were to form the basis of the N.C.'s subsequent demands for autonomy, for reasons ...

... In February 1954, Qasim presented the Jammu and Kashmir Constituent Assembly with the reports of its Drafting Committee. The reports were to form the basis of the 1954 Constitution Order issued by the President of India, which transformed several important features of the Delhi Accord ...

The SAC Report bitterly attacks the 1954 Constitution Order ...

By 1986, some 42 Constitution Amendment Orders had been passed, restricting the powers of the State legislature and empowering Parliament to legislate on matters in the Concurrent List and even matters that ought to have been State concerns. Emergency powers that were applicable in all other States came into force in Jammu and Kashmir too. The All India Services gained entry, as did the Election Commission of India. Major reforms in the State Constitution were also brought about. "Not all these Orders can be objected to", the SAC Report accepts.

"For instance, none can object to provision for direct elections to Parliament in 1966, delimitation of Parliamentary constituencies, etc. (But) It is the principle that matters. Constitutional limits are there to be respected, not violated".

The SAC Report details just how deeply the special status envisaged in the Instrument of Accession and Article 370 has been transformed ...

It is this history that the SAC Report seeks to undo. At least two points are central to the debate that is certain to follow. The first is that the SAC Report must be seen as a basis for a rational debate, not as a theological manifesto, both by the party and by its critics. If, as the Report admits, some of the 'encroachments' by the Union's powers since 1950 have been desirable, a dogmatic insistence on restoring the Delhi Accord seems meaningless ...

Creative solutions to the troubled history of State autonomy need to be found in a manner that respects the unique heritage of Jammu and Kashmir and the equal imperative of protecting the democratic rights of citizens from a notoriously corrupt political elite.

... Parts of the SAC Report read suspiciously like a National Conference political broadcast, projecting the party as the sole authentic representative of popular aspiration in the State. The process of regaining autonomy must be an inclusive one. The N.C.'s support for the BJP-led government at the Centre has not helped its credibility on the issue, given the Hindu Right's commitment to a single monolithic nationhood ...

... The grant of autonomy will ensure an end to violence ... grounded in the real world ... Autonomy from New Delhi, if it is to serve any purpose, must be part of a broader process of devolving power to the people, something that Kashmir's ruling elite is conspicuously silent on.

But placing autonomy on the agenda will serve one, more fundamental, purpose. It will signal to the people of Jammu and Kashmir that despite the rise of a revanchist right wing elsewhere in India, the political and cultural rights of Muslims in the State will be secure ... However, such a debate seems wholly unlikely to come about. (Source: The Frondine, 30 July, 1999)