People's Democracy

Harkishan Singh Surjeet

AT a time when our very national integrity is at stake in the northern part of the country, the BJP-led government at the centre seems ignorant about what it is doing and what its consequences may be.

The main ruling party’s ineptitude regarding the Kashmir problem stems from its refusal to recognise that the issue of autonomy for the state of Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) is totally different from that for other states. The fact is that the state was not a part of British India but a princely state before independence and that, taking advantage of the imperialist Mountbatten Plan, its Maharaja tried his best to avoid a merger with the Indian Union after the British left the subcontinent. The Maharaja’s design was then being suitably aided by the Praja Parishad, the name under which the RSS was working in the state. However, disregarding all the claims of the newly-created Pakistan in the name of religion, the people of J&K opted for merger with the secular Indian Union as they knew that this was the best way to fulfil their genuine aspirations.

This was no easy decision, however. It meant that the J&K people had had to fight two wars at the same time. On the one hand, they had to fight against the Maharaja and his collaborators and, on the other hand, against the tribal raiders who were trained and armed by Pakistan in order to fight a proxy war on its behalf and capture the state for it. This popular struggle has acquired the character of a legend today, and the name of martyr Maqbul Sherwani is still remembered with a high degree of veneration. It was this very situation that forced the Maharaja, who was till then playing the imperialist game, to sign the treaty of accession to Indian Union. This was a mighty victory of the J&K people whose joy knew no bounds.

This role of the people of the state in 1947-48 and their aspirations were suitably recognised by the framers of our constitution and this was how the much-talked about Article 370, giving a special status to the state, came to be incorporated in the Indian constitution. The article provided to the state a high degree of autonomy. It enabled the state to have its own constitution provided it did not clash with the Indian constitution; its own flag along with the national flag; and a separate system of nomenclature for the head of state and the head of government. All subjects except a few like defence, foreign affairs, currency, etc, were to remain in the state list.

The autonomy given to Jammu and Kashmir was, thus, the product of a historical evolution, and this is what all the secular and democratic forces in the country recognise. It is only the BJP which refuses to recognise this historical reality because of its communal motivations.

On several occasions later, the J&K people showed that they had no regrets about their decision to merge with secular India. Even at the time of the two wars which Pakistan fought against India, in 1965 and in 1971, the people refused to be swayed by the Pakistani propaganda and reaffirmed their intention to remain in the Indian Union.

However, the J&K people were not destined to enjoy this autonomy for long. The successive bourgeois-landlord regimes at the centre betrayed their promises to the state people and began to erode the state’s autonomy in a systematic way. Thus, soon the state people found that what they had in the name of autonomy now was only a pale shadow of what they enjoyed earlier.

The resultant discontent was what led to the Indira-Sheikh accord in 1975. The last clause of the accord very categorically said that there would be a review of all the erosions in the state’s autonomy and, wherever possible, the earlier provisions would be restored. The accord restored the faith of the people in secular India.

Sadly, however, the stipulations of the accord were never taken seriously and nothing worthwhile was done to implement it. The regime at New Delhi went on its centralisation drive as earlier. The boiling point came when those sitting in New Delhi engineered a split in the National Conference and put a puppet called Ghulam Mohd Shah at the throne in Srinagar.

This was the genesis of what we call the Kashmir problem today. These very unwise moves on part of the centre gave Pakistan the opportunity that it had been desperately seeking since long --- an opportunity to intervene in the state and launch a proxy war against India. Pakistan well knew that it could never win an open war against India, and that is why it changed its modus operandi. The subsequent events, the people’s growing alienation and the large-scale migration of Kashmiri Hindus because of the threats from Islamic fundamentalists who are out to strike at the very roots of the synthetic Kashmiri culture, further exacerbated the problem. The situation soon began to look like a dark alley, and our rulers were at a loss to know how to come out of it.

A ray of hope was seen during the United Front regime that promised to look into the state people’s grievances and to render them all possible assistance. That the announcement did have a positive effect was seen during the 1997 elections, held after a gap of a decade, when the state people participated in the polls in a big way, ignoring the extremist boycott call and the accompanying threats. The polls saw about 50 per cent voting which was no small thing in that situation. It looked like a solution to the Kashmir imbroglio would be found sooner or later.

But the change of regime in New Delhi and the BJP’s accession to power undid whatever good beginning was made during 1996-97. Under the pressure of its allies, the BJP did promise that it would not rake up its demand for an abrogation of Article 370, but its overall communal drive naturally failed to win the confidence of the Kashmiri people. Moreover, intolerant of the deeply secular culture and ethos of the Kashmiri people, an RSS-controlled organisation raised the demand of the state’s trifurcation along communal lines. On its part, the National Conference state government too miserably failed to address the problems and issues facing the J&K people. It did nothing worthwhile to restore the state’s economy, tourism industry, health and education systems, public distribution system, etc, which are lying in a shambles because of the terrorist depredations for over a decade.

The ruling BJP’s failure in grasping the gravity of the problem became evident from the large-scale Pakistani intrusion in Kargil that the central government failed to detect in time. It was only our jawans’ unparalleled heroism and sacrifices that saved the situation.

Moreover, even after the Vajpayee government first announced a unilateral ceasefire last November for a month and then went on extending it again and again, it has singularly failed to spell out its perspective to tackle the situation. Even in last November we had said that a ceasefire, though welcome, could not be an end in itself; it needed to be followed by concrete positive steps to win over the people and restore their confidence in the Indian Union. Sadly, it is precisely such steps that are missing to date.

The lack of seriousness on part of the Vajpayee regime is also evident from the fact that it sought to hold negotiations with the All Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC) and said it would allow an APHC team to go to Pakistan so that it could hold talks with the extremist leaders based there, but yet it refused to grant a passport to two members of the delegation. Thus it undid its own "initiative" on a flimsy ground. All these aspects have been dealt with in these columns earlier.

But, trying not to learn anything from all these developments, the BJP-led regime is still busy playing its own game. Of late, it is trying to give an impression of seriousness regarding the Kashmir problem and has deputed the Planning Commission vice chairman, K C Pant, to hold talks with the extremist leaders operating in Kashmir. Yet, what is the brief of this person, what authority he has been given, what length he can go to in holding talks with the extremists and what will be the parameters in which these talks will be held, nobody knows. Needless to say, concrete positive steps are still missing.

There is therefore no ground to hope that, with its present orientation, the BJP-led regime will be able to solve the Kashmir tangle at all. As is clear from the discussion earlier, maximum autonomy for the state is basic condition for solving the problem and winning over the people. This was recognised by the government of India when P V Narasimha Rao had said that sky would be the limit of the autonomy to be given to the state. But the present regime is behaving as if this question is meaningless. Quite in line with the anti-federal stance of the BJP that does not realise the value of states’ autonomy.

Also, whatever talks with extremist leaders are going on, are taking place behind the back of the people. Neither the people’s elected representatives nor the political parties of this country have been taken into confidence so that a unanimous solution to the problem could be evolved. Given the way the US establishment is trying to intervene in the subcontinent and in the Kashmir dispute in particular, and given the way the government of India is over-stretching itself to placate the US leaders, the veil of secrecy maintained by the Vajpayee regime is all the more ominous. It is therefore high time that the government take all the political parties in confidence and tell the Indian people as to what steps it proposes to take in order to solve the Kashmir tangle.

(May 23, 2001)