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Kashmir: Redefining freedom
By
Navnita Chadha Behera
NEW DELHI - "I am voting
for azadi [freedom]; azadi from the
National Conference government first." This popular
expression voiced in many parts of Indian-administered
section of the Kashmir Valley has opened a new vista for
redefining azadi in Kashmir's context.
Since the independence of India and Pakistan in
1947, the Kashmiri movement has evolved against the
backdrop of their demand for the right of
self-determination - a goal that remains elusive, mainly
for two reasons.
First, the right of
self-determination has been viewed through a territorial
lens - its central tenet being demand for an independent
territory, a sovereign political space outside the
Indian (and Pakistani) state boundaries, which
inevitably clashes with these countries' sovereignty and
territorial integrity.
Second, this demand has
failed to acquire an inclusive character. In a
multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multi-lingual Jammu
& Kashmir (J&K) society, the demand for the
right of self-determination (read secession from the
Indian state) has represented the political interests of
only the majority community - the Kashmiri Muslims -
marginalizing its minorities. The collective and
consistent opposition of the state's lingual, regional
and religious minorities has thus checkmated this
demand.
The idea of a sovereign, territorially
independent Kashmir was stillborn. The Indian National
Congress was totally opposed to it even before the
British departure from the subcontinent. The Congress
had supported Kashmiris' political struggle against the
Dogra Maharaja Hari Singh. It also upheld the National
Conference's position that the people should decide the
political future of the state and advised the Maharaja
right up to August 14, 1947, to ascertain the wishes of
the people of Jammu & Kashmir and join India or
Pakistan.
But Congress was not prepared to
concede an independent Kashmir because that would have
amounted to accepting the British (and later, the Muslim
League's) interpretation of the lapse of paramountcy -
making the Indian states independent to decide their
political future. That, in turn, would have had alarming
and far-reaching ramifications for the unity of the
Indian state.
After independence, too,
Jawaharlal Nehru agreed to grant maximum political
autonomy to J&K, but refused to compromise on the
question of the Indian state's territorial jurisdiction
over the state. During negotiations on Article 370 in
1951-52, the National Conference, however, insisted that
the state would not be brought within the territorial
jurisdiction or constitutional organization of the
Indian Union. No instruments, including the Constituent
Assembly of J&K state, would be vested with any
powers to change and modify the existing constitutional
relationship. It persistently argued that the
Constituent Assembly of the state was a sovereign body,
independent of the constitution of India and exercised
inherent powers derived from the people of the state who
did not form a part of the people of India.
This
amounted to not only excluding J&K state from the
jurisdiction of the union, but also making all federal
instrumentalities inoperative as there would be no
remedies if the Constituent Assembly of the state
transgressed limits and violated the constitution of
India. The central government rejected this position and
insisted that the provisions in the state constitution
must not be inconsistent with the basic structure of the
constitution of India.
Thus, when J&K was
granted a special status under Article 370 of the Indian
constitution, no provisions of the Indian constitution
except Article 1 (bringing it under the territorial
jurisdiction of India) were made applicable to J&K
state. In accordance with the Instrument of Accession,
the Indian parliament could legislate only on the three
subjects of defense, foreign affairs and communications,
vesting the residuary powers in the state, a situation
unique to J&K in the Indian Union. Moreover, Kashmir
was allowed to retain important cultural symbols, such
as its own flag, political titles such as Wazir-i-Azam
(prime minister) instead of chief minister for the
elected head of the government, and Sadar-i-Riyasat
instead of governor for the head of the state.
Jammu & Kashmir state had then secured the
pinnacle of political azadi in having a separate
Constitutional Assembly to determine the future of the
Dogra decision and drawing up the state's constitution.
The political goals and territorial ambitions of
the National Conference, however, became dichotomous in
1952 when Sheikh Abdullah first started exploring the
option of an independent state of J&K. Sheikh's
efforts to seek support from the United States and the
United Kingdom for an independent Kashmir challenged
India's sovereignty and territorial integrity and also
clashed with Nehru's foreign policy of keeping South
Asia, especially India, outside the purview of Cold War
politics.
Nehru had burnt his fingers by
internationalizing the Kashmir issue in referring it to
the United Nations, which was itself plagued by the
bipolar politics of the two superpowers. He was highly
suspicious of Washington's moves to secure bases against
the Soviet Union, and later China, at strategic points
near the Soviet border. At the same time, he was worried
about penetration of Soviet ideology and funds in India.
Kashmir's independence was, therefore, the worst
option for India. During his visit to Srinagar in May
1953, Nehru ruled out the possibility of a
(territorially) independent Kashmir, condemning it as an
extremely dangerous proposition. He told the Sheikh that
he "would rather give Kashmir to Pakistan on a platter
than allow international intrigue to dangle Kashmir over
the heads of India and Pakistan like a sword of
Damocles".
On the other hand, Sheikh had failed
to understand that Kashmir was merely a pawn in the
superpowers' global game of Cold War and that he was
being used as bait to enlist India's and Pakistan's
support for the respective power blocs. He did not
realize that the support of one superpower for an
independent Kashmir would be checkmated by the other.
Nonetheless, for the next two decades, Sheikh
Abdullah waged a political struggle for Kashmir's
independence. It was abandoned only after Pakistan's
crushing defeat in the 1971 war that led to the creation
of Bangladesh, which persuaded Sheikh to cast the
Kashmiris' lot with India. He reached a political
settlement (1975) with Indira Gandhi's government in New
Delhi.
It is important to remember that it was
consistent erosion of the state's political autonomy,
imposition of New Delhi's political choices in terms of
successive rulers in Srinagar and the blatant
manipulation of the electoral process that revived the
idea of azadi in the late 1980s. A qualitatively
different feature of this phase of the secessionist
movement, however, lay in the Kashmiri youth's recourse
to the gun. While the decade-long violent militant
movement clearly fizzled out, the idea of azadi
has survived.
The challenge for the political
leadership in Kashmir today is to segregate the
political and territorial dimensions of the demand for
azadi and work towards safeguarding the political
rights of the people of J&K. The demand for a
sovereign, independent state - the territorial version
of the right of self-determination - is doomed to
failure not merely because any central government will
not allow Kashmir to secede and violate India's
sovereignty and territorial integrity. Nor is it only
due to the changed international context of the
post-September 11 world in which few are willing to
believe the myth of the "freedom-struggle" used to cover
jihadi terrorism in Kashmir. Most importantly, a
territorially independent J&K state will not
"resolve" the Kashmir problem because it is not
supported by all of the people of the state. Many
minority communities resolutely oppose even the
restoration of J&K's special status granted under
Article 370 of the Indian constitution.
The
Kashmiri leadership has consistently failed to realize
that different communities living in J&K interpret
the right to self-determination differently. The plural
character of the society in the state has exposed
internal contradictions in the Kashmiris' thesis. For
example, in the 1950s, if Sheikh Abdullah argued that
self-determination was the inherent right of all peoples
and demanded it for Kashmiris, he could not justify
denying the same to the people in Jammu and Ladakh,
another region of J&K.
However, that was
self-defeating because the demand of Jammu and Ladakh
for full and unconditional accession to India acted as a
countervailing force to the Valley's demand for
independence. In the current situation too, the
separatist leadership led by the Hurriyat Conference
faces the same dilemma.
While it speaks on
behalf of the "people of Jammu & Kashmir", it
represents the political interests of only the majority
community - Kashmiri Muslims. The political demands of
the people in the Jammu region range from seeking more
autonomy from the Valley to a regional development
council to separate statehood. Ladakhis are demanding a
union territory's status.
Kashmiri Pandits have
also sought a separate territorial enclave - Panun
Kashmir - within the Valley. The Pahari community of
Jammu is engaged in a struggle for Scheduled Tribe
status, or perhaps for a Hill Council for the Chenab
areas in Rajouri and Poonch a-la the Ladakh Autonomous
Hill Council. In other words, each is engaged in a
little battle for nurturing its socio-cultural identity,
seeking avenues of social and economic development to
create their own political space within the Indian
state.
With the Kashmiri Muslims now joining the
battleground to use the platform of assembly elections
to seek azadi from the National Conference
government reinforces the diverse nature of the
political demands of the people of Jammu & Kashmir.
Going beyond the immediate issue of government formation
in Srinagar, the single most important achievement of
these elections will lie in shifting the debate on
azadi from the territorial to political
parameters and in re-establishing the legitimacy of
democratic means of elections for securing the political
goals of the people of the state.
(©2002 Asia
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