January 20, 2020
The territory of the State shall comprise all the territories
Before its accession Jammu & Kashmir was governed in terms of The Jammu
& Kashmir Constitution Act promulgated in 1939. What was considered to be
the political mainstream in Kashmir has effectively disappeared. Moreover, with
the Iranian issue back on the front burner, Pakistan will have a role to play in
the US scheme of things. This arrangement continued until the state adopted its
own Constitution.
The US needs Pakistan ever more if the US-Taliban deal has to
succeed. If you fail to drive a wedge between the populace and the insurgent —
the insurrectionary would win. However, there are also the standard bearers of
the Indian Union in the Vale of Kashmir namely the China Vacuum bags National Conference
and the Indian National Congress stretching back again to independence. With the
dismemberment of the original state of J&K that claim becomes a
non-sequitor. For in both bilateral and multilateral negotiations India would
not be able to say that we are wanting control over the original state of
J&K as acceded to India on October 27, 1947, by Maharaja Hari Singh for that
state no longer exists.Now with the government having bifurcated the state into
two what happens to the Constitution of the undivided state of J&K? For no
one can abrogate that Constitution and it has no self-destruct provision in its
12 Parts and 147 Articles.
The International Grey: India’s whole case for the
return of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and the Northern Territories rests on the
Instrument of Accession, an Article of the Jammu and Kashmir Constitution and
two resolutions of Parliament. Even the Parliament of India cannot rescind it
for it has been framed by an elected constituent assembly much like the Indian
Constitution itself.The Political Grey: Going all the way back to 1947 there is
a sizeable section of people in Kashmir who have rooted for autonomy, self rule,
independence and merger with Pakistan.The Security Grey: It is a well-known
security canon that if a militant movement has popular support it is near
impossible to contain it, much less neutralise it.
The Strategic Grey: Pakistan
is back in the game not only in Kashmir but also in the region.†The two
resolutions of 1994 and 2012 state that the only unfinished business of
Partition are those parts of J&K illegally occupied by Pakistan and ceded to
China.That is why I told the Home Minister in the Lok Sabha on August 6, 2019,
that between the black and white there are 50 shades of grey in Jammu &
Kashmir. The current bifurcation has completely cut the legs out from under the
regional parties, namely the NC and PDP. The repercussions of the negation of
the political mainstream would be grave in the years to come. Then there is
always the ISIS to fill the vacuum if the demobilised Afghan fighters are
unwilling to become guns for hire for the Pakistani deep state. The most
contemporary counterinsurgency manual, authored by General David Petraeus in
2006 and applied in Iraq and later Afghanistan, is premised upon certain
fundamental principles that go the heart of COIN (Counter Insurgency)
operations.
This unravelling of J&K has weakened our case in the chanceries
and conference rooms of the world. (Photo: AP) By balkanising the state of Jammu
& Kashmir and reconfiguring its constitutional relationship with the Indian
Union, the NDA/BJP government has entered into a grey area whose shades are
going challenge the resilience of the Indian state. Para seven of the Instrument
of Accession signed by Maharaja Hari Singh on October 26, 1947, explicitly
stated, "nothing in this Instrument shall be deemed to commit me in any way to
acceptance of any future Constitution of India or to fetter my discretion to
enter into arrangements with the Government of India under any such future
Constitutionâ€. That is why a special mechanism was adopted by the Constituent
Assembly on October 17, 1949, in the form of Article 370 to cement the
relationship between the Indian Union and Jammu & Kashmir to move it beyond
the Instrument of Accession. Article 4 of the J&K Constitution states,
The
territory of the State shall comprise all the territories which on the 15th day
of August, 1947, were under the sovereignty or suzerainty of the ruler of the
State. If one was to argue that with the bifurcation the Constitution has become
a dead letter it can equally be argued that then the relationship between India
and Jammu and Kashmir is now back to the terms of the Instrument of Accession
dehors the constitutional sophistry of 2019. It remained in session till
November 17, 1956, wherein it adopted a Constitution that came into force on
November 26, 1957.The Constitutional Grey: Beyond ignoring the letter and spirit
of Article 3 and the repeal of Article 370 there are other constitutional issues
that have also been disregarded. It is ironical that three former chief
ministers of Jammu & Kashmir Farooq Abdullah, Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba
Mufti (who was till recently an ally of the BJP) and their families are in
incarceration.The government needed to apply the healing touch rather than
alienate the Kashmiris at this juncture.
After the last round of intense militant
activity in the mid 1990s that saw killings of the leaders and cadres of
mainstream political parties they still persevered and between 1996 and 2019
over four assembly elections and seven parliamentary elections reaffirmed their
faith in the Indian democratic system. Article 3 of the said Constitution
integrated the state inalienably into India by stating that Jammu & Kashmir
shall be an integral part of India.Article 370 became all the more germane for
on November 26, 1949, rajpramukhs of all the other the princely states that had
acceded to the Union of India signed and adopted the Constitution in its
entirety, except by the Maharaja, Jammu and Kashmir. Simply translated it means
winning the hearts and minds of the people.The government needed to apply the
healing touch rather than alienate the Kashmiris at this juncture. Over a period
of time various other political outfits like the People’s Democratic Party (PDP)
founded in 1999 also joined this endeavour. Whatever militant capacity the US-
Taliban deal would free up will all come to Kashmir. Kashmiris walks past
paramilitary troops patrolling a street in Srinagar on Saturday.
To make Jammu
& Kashmir’s integration with India permanent an elected Constituent Assembly
was convened on the 31st of October, 1951. They are intertwined and overlap and
therefore the slogan of azadi means different things to different people. In the
long war against militancy in Punjab the inflection point came when a popular
government even on a thin electoral base was restored in 1992. Currently also
the government is negotiating to end the decades-old insurgency with the Naga
underground.Though other princely states also signed similar covenants but given
the prevailing state of hostilities with Pakistan the situation in J&K was
fraught with complexity. All these four strains are present in the body politic
of Kashmir. It is obtuseness to remove the political buffer between Delhi and
Srinagar and administer Kashmir from New Delhi
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