Since 1947, Kashmir has been bound to India by the legal framework of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution, which purported to preserve much of Kashmir’s autonomy and was intended to be a temporary provision until ‘the will of the people’ could be ascertained. But no one has ever tried to ascertain the will of the Kashmiri people and their autonomy has been progressively eroded. Anuradha Bhasin Jamwal tells the story of how Article 370, the law that was forged as an instrument of cooperation and protection, has been consistently wielded by the Indian government as one of oppression and alienation.
February 9, Kashmir will observe the first anniversary of Afzal Guru’s hanging, an episode that has not only haunted the Congress, but it has been a double ended jinx for it, electorally. The Congress probably sought to use the execution as a positive element in its pre election strategy but ended up with a complete rout in five assembly polls recently. In Kashmir, it ended the last vestiges of trust and confidence in the Indian government, whatever little remained of it. Even the fence sitters and the pro-Indian among ordinary civilians were finally weaned away, shocked by the brutality and arrogance of sending a Kashmiri man, not sufficiently proven guilty, to the gallows just to satiate the ‘collective conscience of the society’ and the vote-bank greed of the Congress. The trust deficit had already been enlarged due to massive militarisation and gross human rights violations that came in the aftermath of the militancy. The gun became a weapon in the hands of Kashmiri youth in 1989 owing to excessive political control and decades of erosion of the autonomy the state enjoyed after its accession in October 1947 to India.
This autonomy is guaranteed by a provision of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution, which was debated in the media and political circles across India in the aftermath of some remarks that the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi, made in Jammu. By raking up the issue of Article 370 – and covertly or overtly seeking its abrogation – Modi stirred up a hornet’s nest in the most sensitive state in the country, building his case on historic untruths and half truths. He conveniently chose to quote Nehru selectively in favour of reinforcing the need to erode Article 370 to a diminishing point. Jawaharlal Nehru was responsible for the first setback to Article 370 (in that he manipulated its first draft without the consent of Sheikh Abdullah) and later, for its erosion since 1953; he was also the one to define this Article, which acts as a bridge between India and Jammu and Kashmir, as a provisionary one that would be in place till the will of the people was properly ascertained. In Srinagar’s Lal Chowk, Nehru made the historic promise of a plebiscite to the people with the guarantee that the political future of the state would be decided according to the wishes and aspirations of the people. Constitutionally, as long as the will of the people is not ascertained, Article 370 would continue to remain a provisionary agreement binding Jammu and Kashmir to the rest of the country. Shyama Prasad Mookherjee, the man Modi and his party worship and continue to quote profusely on Jammu and Kashmir was part of the Indian Constituent Assembly when Article 370 was incorporated.
By raking up the issue of Article 370 – and covertly or overtly seeking its abrogation – Modi stirred up a hornet’s nest in the most sensitive state in the country, building his case on historic untruths and half truths. He conveniently chose to quote Nehru selectively in favour of reinforcing the need to erode Article 370 to a diminishing point.
While on the face of it, this Article of the Indian constitution is suffixed with the word ‘temporary’ in its annals and offers a kind of political autonomy to the state; it became imperative, constitutionally and legally, for the Indian government to retain the state as part of the greater Indian mainland only through this article. Challenging it would run the risk of allowing it to secede from the grand Indian Union. The only other alternative to Article 370 would be complete conquest, ugly as it may sound for a democratic country. As for the quantum of political autonomy that Article 370 guarantees to Jammu and Kashmir, it has been eroded excessively through deals like the Delhi Agreement and through clandestine control of the political sphere of Jammu and Kashmir by New Delhi through induced corruption, rigged elections and propped-up puppet regimes over a period of six decades, rendering Article 370 quite diluted. But this has not integrated the people of this state closer to the Indian mainstream; rather, it has led to a serious trust deficit. In fact, the actions of the Indian government, like backtracking on its promise of ‘ascertaining the will of the people’ and, instead, causing serious impediments to the autonomous character of the state, is perceived among the general population as a deceit. There is a greater yearning, across the religious and regional divide, for greater autonomy, even independence. Perhaps, more than a discussion on whether Jammu and Kashmir would be better off without Article 370, there is need to probe how beneficial has the laboured dilution of Article 370, perceived as a virtual deceit by Kashmiris, been for either India as a whole or Jammu and Kashmir in particular.
The only other alternative to Article 370 would be complete conquest, ugly as it may sound for a democratic country. As for the quantum of political autonomy that Article 370 guarantees to Jammu and Kashmir, it has been eroded excessively through deals like the Delhi Agreement and through clandestine control of the political sphere of Jammu and Kashmir by New Delhi through induced corruption, rigged elections and propped-up puppet regimes over a period of six decades, rendering Article 370 quite diluted. But this has not integrated the people of this state closer to the Indian mainstream; rather, it has led to a serious trust deficit.
The Indian establishment has used several legal and extra legal methods in its bid to bind Kashmir to India more strongly. Article 370 was only the first. If, in earlier decades, the method was controlled politics through the threat of jailing Kashmir’s elected politicians and rigged elections, in more recent times it is the stationing of over half a million security forces for a population of just ten million and engendering a culture of impunity through political patronage and extra-constitutional laws like the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, all of which are treated as so sacred that they have become irrevocable. The systemic policy of repression through legal and extra-legal methods is perhaps perceived, in the higher echelons of power, as a way to integrate Kashmir closer to India.
Ironically, the more such methods are used for bringing Kashmir closer, the greater is the emotional discord between Kashmiris and New Delhi, the more the distance is getting wider, not narrowing down. The more the erosion of Kashmir’s autonomy became entrenched, the more it inspired a zeal for complete independence. The more the ongoing repression continued, the more the spiraling animosity rose against India in the hearts and minds of the Kashmiris. The killings, in 2010, of over 120 youth followed by the continuing saga of crackdowns and arrests and the Afzal Guru hanging have put an irrevocable stamp on that sense of complete alienation and animosity. Article 370, the legal shell hollowed out of its spirit of autonomy, may continue to legally bind Kashmir, the territory, to India. But will there ever be a bridge to bring closer the hearts of those who live here?
