Articles 370 and 35 A scrapped. What next?

On Monday 5 August 2019, India’s government decided to revoke two articles of the constitution that offered special privileges and status to its northernmost state, Jammu and Kashmir. When the constitution was drafted, the ‘Constituent Assembly of Jammu and Kashmir’ was the only authorized body that could abrogate these articles. However, on 26 January 1957, that assembly died by dissolving itself, without recommending changes or revoking the articles. Jammu and Kashmir became the modern Trishanku.

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The Trishanku story is part of Ramayana, the Indian epic. King Trishanku had this unusual ambition of travelling to heaven with his body intact. He asked Rishi (sage) Vasistha to help him. This is against the laws of nature, said Vasistha, a mortal’s soul can reach heaven but not his body. Trishanku stubbornly pursued his fantasy. He approached rishi Vishvamitra, a rival of Vasistha. Their rivalry was as bitter as that between India and Pakistan.

Vishvamitra accepted the challenge, chanted the powerful mantras, performed the necessary rituals, and dispatched Trishanku to heaven. The gods in heaven were alarmed to see Trishanku entering heaven in his own person. They kicked him back to earth. Vishvamitra, to save his own face, created an artificial heaven in which Trishanku could reside. He agreed with the Gods that Trishanku will always hang in mid-air with his head towards the earth, and legs towards heaven. The unnatural ambition of king Trishanku resulted in his eternally hanging upside down.

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The Trishanku of Jammu and Kashmir, caused by articles 370 and 35A needed to be released from its hanging position. The Indian government deserves congratulations for its change intervention. Status quo is usually the sanctuary of the lazy, conservatives and cowards. Let us first see what is good about this initiative, followed by what is wrong with it. Why it will not work in its current form, unless accompanied by other measures.

First, articles 370 as well as 35A were ‘temporary’ and ‘transitional’. Can anything be temporary and transitional for more than seventy years? Or ever? A dispute is not resolved by making the temporary permanent. The desire and courage to change things is a welcome step, because it breaks the status quo, provokes a debate, and offers an opportunity to improve or rectify the change intervention itself.

Second, in a democratic republic such as India, all citizens and states must be offered a level playing field. As the nation becomes more civilized, special privileges should gradually disappear. While, in practice, unfairness and injustice are likely to remain part of every human society; at least constitutionally and legally, equal rights, freedoms and responsibilities should be granted to all. A single state in India enjoying a special constitution, its own flag, autonomy is an anomaly in a democratic republic.

Third, article 35 was blatantly sexist. A Kashmiri woman marrying a non-Kashmiri, even a non-Kashmiri Indian, was outcast. She and her children lost inheritance and residence rights in Kashmir. Farooq Abdullah, Kashmir’s chief minister for a long time, married a British woman. Their son, Omar Abdullah, not only preserved his residence and property rights, but also managed to become the chief minister himself. If Farooq Abdulla was a woman, and married a British man, the same Omar Abdulla and his mother would have become non-Kashmiris with no rights. In 2019, what are the grounds for supporting such a bigoted article?

Fourth, those who fear militarization of Kashmir as a result of this initiative must remember the permanent presence of the Indian army there for the last thirty years or so. Perennial presence of an army in a civilian society is a disgrace, a blot on democracy. Situation in Kashmir was already bad. It may become worse, it may become better. What is the point in keeping a bad status quo?

Fifth, the bogey of a demographic change. Until these articles were revoked, no non-Kashmiri individual or organisation was allowed to buy property in Kashmir. Now, “outsiders” threaten to “invade” Kashmir, and change its demographic composition.

So what?

I have always been a staunch advocate of free movement. Kashmiris can reside anywhere in India and buy property, why can’t the reverse happen? A few hundred meters from my residence in Bombay, I know a dozen of Kashmiris who have made Bombay their permanent home.

In Bombay, now called Mumbai, where I was born, the percentage of native (Marathi-speaking) people is now reportedly between 16% and 22%. So what? The building in which I live is surrounded by Muslims, Gujaratis, Catholics, Sikhs, Parsees, Jains, Biharis, Uttar Pradeshis, Bengalis – none of them are the “original” sons of this soil. So what? They have all contributed to the development of Bombay; they provide services of some sort to one another. (This change in Bombay’s composition has happened without any ethnic cleansing of Maharashtrians).

When you begin to look at a human being as a human being, demography never changes.

Sixth, some people are angry that Kashmiri assembly was not consulted and its consent not sought before bringing the change. True, Kashmir is currently without a local government. A governor appointed by the Centre was used as a proxy for the local government in seeking the consent. This was a cunning maneuver that may not stand in the court of law. However, what is meant by the local Kashmiri government? Over the last fifty years, it is essentially ruled by two families, Abdullahs and Muftis. Those two families were the modern princely rulers of this erstwhile princely state.  Would they ever give consent to lose their own privileges? Of course not. Asking their consent is a bit like asking Queen Elizabeth whether she would like to abrogate throne and abolish the British monarchy.

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As we saw above, the step to revoke articles 370 and 35A, to bring Jammu and Kashmir on the same footing as the rest of India, is extremely logical.

However, logic doesn’t always work in political governance.

Two key issues are not addressed by the revocation of articles 370/35A.

First, this initiative fails to reunite Kashmir. Kashmir like Korea, Germany, and Ireland was divided in two parts. All the divisions happened more than seventy years ago. West and East Germanys finally united in 1990, and the Germans are now a single nation. The two Irelands signed a Good Friday agreement, and merged under the umbrella of the European Union. Koreas are still split, and we know the devastating difference between them. South Korea is one of the richest nations, and North Korea a brutal dictatorship that offers to its citizens malnutrition in exchange of mandatory sycophancy. Many Koreans simply and accidentally found themselves at the wrong side of the border.

Kashmir was bisected completely arbitrarily, by a random line where Pathani tribal forces confronted the Indian army way back in 1948. That line cut not only the geography, but an ethnic community. Families were split, some members acquiring Indian, others Pakistani passports, merely as a historical accident. All negotiations and peace talks in the past seventy years were focused on how to re-draw the line of control, how to divide Kashmir. What is needed is the uniting of Kashmir. The 2019 radical step of the Indian government fails to resolve that.

Second, the perception of the Kashmiri people. If they perceive India as a foreign ruling power, no technical changes will help. One side’s terrorists are another side’s freedom fighters. Kashmiris look at the Indian State as Indians looked at the British Empire, an alien oppressor.

An average Indian feels that Indian Kashmiris should consider themselves fortunate.  After all, they belong to a democratic state of India rather than Pakistan, a poorer state ruled by military for most of its existence. This is a fallacy. The kind of freedom and liberty I enjoy in Bombay are not available to the Kashmiris in Srinagar. If, over the years, you see Indian army men every time you come out of your house, you won’t know about Indian democracy. (Indian Kashmir is consistently ranked higher than Pakistani Kashmir in terms of freedom and liberty. However, this is like saying Afghanistan should feel happier it is occupied by the USA rather than the USSR.)

If a place can be governed only with guns, then that place is entitled to think of the gunmen as a foreign power, which occupies and annexes.

The 5 August 2019 attempt by the Indian government, therefore, becomes a “war initiative” rather than a “peace initiative”. Until Kashmir is united, and until this perception of India as an occupying power is removed, that initiative is unlikely to succeed.

A book I am currently writing offers a blueprint as to how a “peace initiative” can resolve the Kashmir dispute, and bring peace to the India-Pakistan relations.

Ravi