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A year on in Jamu and Kashmir: more fears than cheers

When Narendra Modi removed Jammu and Kashmir's special staus and de facto statehood, the Hindu-fascist regime took a major step forward in its plans to destroy India’s secular and democratic character, writes HARSEV BAINS

AUGUST 5 marked the end of a year since the infamous steps were taken in parliament to nullify article 370 of the constitution that provided for special status to the state of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) and the damaging legislation which dismembered the state and created in its stead two union territories — J&K on the one hand and Ladakh on the other.

At one stroke, the Hindutva rulers reneged on the promise made to the people of Kashmir at the time of its accession to India in 1947 that J&K would be accorded autonomy.

There was widespread jubilation in the ruling Hindu chauvinist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)  and its leaders made explicit statements that the next in line for full integration with India would Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and the Chinese-ruled territory of Aksai Chin. The euphoric reverberations sounded by the BJP and its cohorts immediately after the shredding of article 370 did not last long, however.

Home Minister Amit Shah was triumphant as he pushed through the illegal constitutional amendment and legislation in parliament, humiliating the people of J&K and doing away with the only Muslim-majority state in India.

 

 

This dastardly deed was done by converting the state into a vast prison — around 40,000 troops were deployed and a 24-hour curfew was imposed across the state, with people confined to their homes, all communications (including internet, mobile phone and television) cut off and the media shut down. Leaders and activists of political parties, except the BJP, and other public personalities were either arrested under the draconian Public Safety Act or detained in their houses without written orders.

The strategy that the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi had adopted was to muzzle the voices of the people and put the leadership of major political parties in detention.

Primarily, these were the leaders who have stood with the J&K’s integration with the Republic of India, taking an oath of allegiance to uphold the constitution. Former chief ministers, ministers and sitting MPs and former members of the J&K legislative assembly were detained or put under house arrest.

Prominent among them were Mehbooba Mufti, Farooq Abdulla and his son Omar Abdulla, Mohammad Yousuf Tarigami, Saifuddin Soz and Mehbooba Mufti — all of whom remain in detention.

Along with them, thousands of people, including lawyers, civil rights activists and journalists, were detained and only released long afterwards.

The second part of the strategy was to win over a section of the people, especially those who were elected in local bodies, juxtapose them to the mainstream political leaders and project them as the true representatives of the people.

The mainstream political parties and their leadership were discredited through an incessant campaign by the BJP and its social media. One of the salvos was that a few ruling party families have usurped all the benefits of special status to Kashmir and amassed phenomenal wealth.

Shah was emphatic in stating that democratic governance had been absent in Kashmir, as the 73rd and 74th constitutional amendments that recognise and protect local government had not been implemented in the state; but with the nullification of J&K’s constitution, local government bodies would be strengthened and be able to govern themselves democratically. This was an absurd argument.

One year after the shredding of article 370, has democracy been introduced into local bodies in J&K — and Ladakh too?

In Jammu, “nothing has happened,” according to Talib Hussain, one of the delegates who met with India’s home minister after the nullification of J&K statehood to discuss democratic participation. No efforts have been made to rejuvenate local governance and the Jammu government resembles a “tamasha” (pageant) run by the bureaucrats.

He says people are being treated as “praja with their raja,” as subjects of the ruler, who sits in Delhi delivering sermons. “As the year has gone on, we have lost the sense of citizenry,” he says. The people in Jammu who initially welcomed the change of status are now repenting their mistake.

The most scathing indictment of the one-year rule comes from Khursheed Malik, a former local government chair, who unsuccessfully sought election to the legislative assembly in the Kashmir valley as a BJP candidate.

 

 

Khursheed says the past year has been a sham for local authority governance, even if that is what the BJP wanted to promote to counter the mainstream parties. The Hindu chauvinist party has been ruling J&K virtually alone over the last two years and there is no moral authority prevailing in the valley, he added. The BJP is treating the state of J&K as a colony and those who believed that the local government bodies would be empowered have been proven fools, he argues.

For former Jammu mayor Narender Singh Raju, “the situation has gone from bad to worse.” Even the British bureaucrats during the colonial era would have been dwarfed by the present bureaucracy in the region: they have usurped unlimited powers, Narender argues.

The Jammu region will also see demographic change. Nearly 0.4 million domicile certificates have been issued by the BJP-led government in the region and this has serious implications for the native and traditional communities residing in Jammu.

He says the people of Jammu were not against providing domicile to outsiders but the Himachal Pradesh state model (which prohibits the sale of agricultural land to non-residents) should have been adopted.

In the plateau region of Ladakh, the situation is not much better. After the initial jubilation at being granted the status of a “union territory,” now there are more fears than cheers. The fears are that the changes brought in land and domicile issues that will ignite a movement akin to that in the north-eastern part of India, with demands for secession and terrorism leading to alienation and loss of faith in BJP/RSS rule.

The Modi regime may be celebrating this past year and using it as a showcase of its pro-nationalist agenda. But on the ground, the reality is that the party and the government have miserably failed to gain even a single supporter. But more than that, the people of the region have lost in terms of resources and in their right to be citizens of this country.

In this throttling of democracy and democratic rights, the Modi regime has set new records. The internet was shut down for months. Even after a year, Kashmir has only limited access to an unreliable 2G network. The clampdown badly affected the economy and commerce in the state. With the second lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the livelihood of farmers and ordinary people has suffered crippling blows.

The lockdown is being utilised to push through measures to reshape J&K as a union territory. A reduction of seats for the truncated assembly has been initiated; a new domicile policy has been enforced by which persons from outside J&K can get domicile status which will enable them to get jobs and buy land. This is the beginning of a project to change the demography of the valley.

The attack on J&K initiated a year ago should not be seen in isolation. It was a precursor to a heightened onslaught on democracy, secularism and federalism during the second term of the Modi government.

 

 

The next legislative step, after the dismantling of J&K as a state, was the adoption of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in parliament and the repression let loose against those protesting against the CAA and the National Register of Citizens across the country.

The authoritarian regime has been reinforced by the extensive use of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) and sedition law. The use of the Public Safety Act in J&K foreshadowed this.

A media policy was announced which is nothing but a brazen attempt to intimidate and gag journalists. Lawsuits against media workers followed in J&K, where two journalists are in jail under the UAPA.

The warning is clear: the secular and democratic forces in the rest of India, the rights of states and secularism itself will all meet the fate of J&K.

August 5 was chosen as the date for “bhoomi pujan” ceremony at the Ram temple at Ayodhya in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. This was deliberate — the demolition of J&K and the building of the temple at the site of the Babri Masjid mosque are both part of the core agenda of the Hindutva forces.

Modi laying the first brick in the foundation ceremony of a religious place of worship alone is a violation of the secular principle of the state.

Thanks to a Supreme Court judgment of the Supreme Court — based on dubious grounds — the building of the Ram temple at Ayodhya has been legitimised. The court, which held the demolition of the mosque to be “a serious violation of law,” sanctioned the building of the temple, giving primacy to the faith of the majority.

The same Supreme Court has not found the time to give a verdict on the constitutional amendment and legislation which illegally tampered with article 370 and dismantled J&K. This is another instance of judicial evasion.

The onslaught of the BJP/RSS Hindutva forces must face united resistance in India and abroad. It is not enough to merely seek a compromise in the release of political prisoners and restoration of democratic rights. The fight for democracy, secularism and federalism requires a clear-cut stand — statehood, along with special status, must be restored to J&K.

Harsev Bains is national vice-president of the Indian Workers Association and a member of Liberation’s central council — liberationorg.co.uk.

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