R L Bhat
Even after the comprehensive amendment, 370 is not going to go away any sooner. One can, in fact, see narratives being built around it. As all narratives go, there is selective omission of facts and sly sequencing of happenings to build choice factoids, to perpetuate perceptions away from reality. These are then bandied around to delude the masses and confuse the concerned. Probably, that is one huge drawback of democracy; it allows the demagogue to distract people. Democracy assumes a perfect level of awareness and activism, but that ideal is rarely reached. The democratic field, by its very logic open to all, become the ground for opinionated to play ball. To sure, that ball is being kicked around at a furious pace, wrapped in the useful cover of state subjects.
Now, 370 was not only to protect of the state subjects, whom it renamed permanent residents. State Subject/pr law was only one, a minor one at that, in the huge body of state laws protected and promulgated under 370 and 35A. A signal arrangement, very crucial for the last thirty years (which, incidentally, is nearly half of the life of JK under the coi), deriving directly from the proviso has been the unified command to control the anti-terrorist operations, chaired by the elected head of the state. Terrorism is not whistled away by getting it called ‘militancy’. The toll it has taken in the tiny 16,000 square kilometers of the valley is nearly as much as the Corona virus has done all over the globe. As it was, the people, who in their chair commanded the unified operations, were as willing, if not more enthusiastic, to participate in the funeral processions of the slain terrorists, where they were called ‘mujaahids’. Discerning people in the valley have pointed to this dichotomy, but their voices have been swept aside. Unfortunately, dichotomy has been the bane of the Kashmir polity all along.
Those who negotiated article 370 with Sardar Patel over long summer months of 1949 (yes, it was Sardar Patel, not Jawahar Lal Nehru, who formulated, discussed and finally approved the inclusion of article 370 in the Constitution of India), as a concession from the Indian nation for the cultural preservation of JK, touted it as an instrument of identity and later secessionism, presenting it to be ‘a step away’ from India. The polity that kept demanding more powers under the plea of autonomy, denied the constituents of JK much lee way in powers; the people who sang paeans to self rule opposed the promulgation of Panchayat Law to foster local self Government within the state. Again, no party had any qualms joining Congress and BJP, alike, for reaping the profits of power, but ganged up together against the Supreme Court examining the patent gender bias which the article 35A promulgated in the state by protecting the archaic State Subject a.k.a. Permanent Resident Law. It is not without significance that this duplicity remained confined to the valley of Kashmir. The rest were spared this duplicity as no political profit could come there. Indeed, there the politicos disavowed this double speak, while they made Kashmir into an votary of the exclusivism by presenting the concession of care as a cudgel with which to bash everyone beyond its confine.
Amendment of 370 involves critical constitutional issues, for the future polity of India, including JK, of which the highest court of the land is duly seized. But the play on the ground is not on these serious issues. It is moved by the old duplicitous concerns. This duplicity sees the amendment of the article 370, mainly as a blow to the SS/PR Law because of the confinement carries the promise of the same delusionary dividends as did the article itself. The PR law has a context and concern. This history runs in tandem to the present-day concerns being raised for and against it. These voices are again distracting the masses from the reality. Very concerned looking people, appear to be tormented by the discomfiting straits into which the changed position has put the Kashmiri Pandits. That concern is true, and needs by corrected. However, the bleeding voices betray not a concern but a cunningness to use the plight of kps for ulterior ends. For, these now-bleeding voices weren’t much aggrieved by the actual extirpation of the aboriginal Pandit community of Kashmir, decades back. For the last thirty years and more, the article 370 and the prerogatives granted by it, were with this very class of people, yet they did little to ameliorate it. They never worked to turn the homilies of ‘return with honour and dignity’ into workable plans of ‘return and retention’ of the Kashmiri Pandit aborigines to their land and home.
This apathy was not confined to the Kashmiri Pandit community. For the seven decades of its rule, the Kashmiri Muslims dominating the polity denied the 50,000 odd 1947 refugees from Pakistan any rights in Jammu and Kashmir. They once brought a bill to grant citizenship in absentia to states people living in Pakistan, but the refugees sitting right in their sights remained persona non grata. No cares were shown there, no hearts bled for them. Ever. Instead, the ‘state subjects’ from PoK, which was included in the Kashmir province under Maharaja’s state, were slyly pushed out of the valley. Having been allied more with Kashmir, all through, than with Jammu part, they naturally went to settle down in that part of the state, but were forced to move to Jammu. At the same time, a stream of Kashmiri Pandits was similarly constrained to move to Jammu and other parts of the country. Forty years later the rest of the non-Muslims got ejected out to join the earlier ‘state subjects’, now as refugees. The powers, holding the helm in JK, insisted on calling them ‘migrants’ to deny their exile from their homeland. Like the PoK returnees from pok, the Pandits today abide in Jammu and other parts of the nation, while bleeding hearts rue their loss of ‘state subject’ under the amended law.
Though State Subject/Permanent Resident was just one of the laws protected under 370/35A, it has been the most milked bit in it. Shaikh Abdullah won the mandate of 1977 over ‘fazi hund izzat/ tre hath tu’ satath’ (370 is dignity of Muslim women i.e. protects their rights). No Muslim intellect pointed out – none has done so till now – that the dispensation under article 370 actually deprived Fazi (and all other women of JK) of their very State Subject making it contingent on that of their spouses. But that is not the only omission there. As it is, few intellectuals care to ask how Kashmiri Muslims came to oppose the State Subject law in 1920’s and have fought for its retention after independence. That brings in another duplicity. In 1924, Lord Reading, the then viceroy, visited JK. A reception was held for him in Srinagar by Mirwaiz Yusuf Shah, Ghulam Muhammad Ashai, Sadrudiin Shawl and other prominent Muslims. Mirwaiz read out the charter of Muslim demands, with good focus on the jobs. Recognizing that there were few Muslims adequately qualified for Government jobs, item 8 of the charter demanded that Muslims from Punjab be called in to fill their quota of jobs in the state.
The demand was clearly communal, seeing people as Hindus and Muslims, not equal citizens in the state. It did not ken the demography, nor care for preservation of the culture and ethnicity, which became shrill credos after independence. They pitched for Muslims – give it to Muslims of Punjab. This alarmed not only the Pandits of Kashmir, but also Hindus and Muslims of Jammu province. There was a very vocal call for protecting the subjects of the state and define the state subject. Though, like all then states, JK had a definition of its citizens it was neither clear nor comprehensive. The agitation demanded a clear definition. Two years, after the Kashmiri Muslims had made a pitch for Muslims of Punjab, Hari Singh was forced to enact the ssl. Though State Subject Law may not have directly been intended to protect the Muslims of the state, yet in retrospect there is no denying that Kashmiri Muslims have benefited the most from it. They have also exploited it to the hilt.
Being contrary to their visions of seeing hordes of Muslim brethren descending upon Kashmir, the State Subject Law was not to the liking of Kashmiri Muslims. However, the resentment among the Muslims of Punjab was great. Shabnam Qayuum, in the very first of his five-volume Urdu history of Kashmir, details how the angry Muslims of Punjab led by Ahmadis, launched the Ahraar movement which ultimately led to Reading Room and Muslim Conference. It was left to the Kashmir Pandits like Bazaz, Kilam, Jalali and others, to motivate Sheikh Abdullah to include all in political struggle. Though Sheikh was persuaded, the rest of Muslim Conference was not ready to become secular. He had to stake his whole reputation to change the sectarian Muslim Conference into secular National Conference. Somehow the narratives, drinking of their own dreamy virtues, rarely acknowledge these dreary details. In 1947 the situation reversed, not of its own but the impingement of Pakistan. Kashmir acceded to India when it did, because the marauders from Pakistan terrified both the Maharaja and the Muslims of Kashmir, no end. Once acceded to India, Kashmiri Muslims insisted upon the continuance of the ssl. There was the attending circumstance of Pakistan occupying nearly half of the state and the case against which was with the UN. Constituent Assembly, taking cognizance of the pitch the Kashmiri Muslims made for ethnic and cultural preservation, agreed to put in article 370, albeit as a temporary provision.
Post independence, Kashmiri Muslims, who had wanted to give their job-quota to Muslims from Punjab, did not want any non-Kashmiri (or ‘non-JK’, for the sake of form) to enter JK. Within the state, Jammu and Ladakh, forming five sixths of JK, did not want it. In the Constituent Assembly Hasrat Mohani opposed 370, for violating the principle of equality of all citizens of the nation. The most callous manifestation of this inequality has been the determined denial by the JK to grant any rights to the Pakistan refugees, even after seventy years of their residence in the state. They were a miniscule 50,000 and there was no fear of another refugee coming in, if they were accommodated. But then even the state subject refugees from pok could not settle in Kashmir. Nor could the Kashmiri Pandits be retained there, in the final reckoning. The new dispensation would probably make Pandits pariahs. In fact, they have been virtual pariahs first four decades in Kashmir and full pariahs for the last three decades in JK. The irony of being ‘refugees in their own state’ would hardly be lost on them. The state did not recognize that status of theirs. They did not even remove the tangles of M-form and consent to facilitate their participation in the elections. It would have been more comforting had the voices, bleeding for them today, shown some care when they held the reins of power. Be that as it may, there are vital issues, concerning all.
For the last thirty years, JK has been made to bleed. While Kashmiris – both Hindus and Muslims – have bled the most, the rest of the people have suffered no less. In fact, the hill areas of Jammu have been affected as much as the valley. People have been forced to flee in fear and consternation. And, they went unnoticed by the state. Whether it is the cannons from across the border or the bullets raining inside, the ultimate targets are the people. Economy has suffered. Society has been ruptured. People have been repined. Srinagar, which once was the pride of the Indian north, lost it long ago. Kashmiris, who still make their day, do so by moving to the Indian plains, away from 370, away from the marauders. Probably, there are no better examples than the erstwhile ministers Muzaffar Hussain Beg and Haseeb Drabu, both of whom made it in Delhi before moving to the state … alas to dabble in exclusivism and 370-teeing! It is simply unfair. It is unjust to shackle people in false narratives. Those who dangle 370 and State Subject before the less aware masses should ken why Sheikh Abdullah, at the height of his sway, wanted to abrogate the article 370. More profitably, they may confront the then opinions who forced him to withdraw the bill. For the record, Shaikh was forced but not convinced and said that he was for abrogation of the article, anytime.
(Excerpted from the forthcoming book ‘The Mythology Of 370’ by R L Bhat)
feedbackexcelsior@gmail.com
Trending Now
E-Paper
Follow our WhatsApp channel