After weeks and days of intense speculation about the situation in Jammu and Kashmir, the Narendra Modi government finally revealed its cards. In one fell swoop, it has
fundamentally transformed India’s relationship with the state.
Home minister Amit Shah announced in Parliament the suspension of Article 370 — via Clause 3 of the Article that allows presidential proclamation to decide the Article’s
operationability or suspension — which exempted J&K from the Indian Constitution (except Article 1and Article 370 itself) and permitted the state to draft its own Constitution.
The state will now be bifurcated into two Union territories: Ladakh without a legislature, and Jammu and Kashmir with a legislature.
While GoI received support from parties like Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Biju Janata Dal (BJD) and YSR Congress Party (YSRCP), its ally, the Janata Dal (United), walked out of the House in opposition to the move. Predictably, J&K’s political leaders called the move ‘unconstitutional’ & warned of dangerous consequences. In
some ways, the move should not be that surprising. BJP had talked of the abrogation of Articles 370 and 35A in its 2019 manifesto and has never been shy of making its preferences clear on the matter. Syama Prasad Mukherjee, founder of Bharatiya Jana Sangh, the predecessor of BJP, was imprisoned by the Sheikh Abdullah government in Srinagar where he died in 1953, championing the cause of fuller integration of J&K with India. Since then, this issue has resonated with the rank and file of the party.
The Modi government’s strong mandate for a second term all but ensured that this issue would be front and centre of its new agenda. For any government, this is an issue that is a tinderbox. But Modi has time and again demonstrated his penchant for calibrated risktaking. So, the last few weeks saw the ground gradually being prepared for such a move, one that would have longterm consequences for the country, and could, potentially, be the high water mark of the Modi government, if managed carefully.
The credibility of J&K’s ‘mainstream’ political parties in the state has hit rock bottom. While the separatist leadership has long been exposed for what it is — venal, self-serving puppets of Pakistan — it is the ‘mainstream’ political actors in the erstwhile state, whose ineffective and corrupt malgovernance has hollowed J&K out of any positive aspirations. And, so, the time was ripe to challenge the status quo.
The drama unfolding in the ‘Af-Pak’ theatre also provides a backdrop to this development. US President Donald Trump’s reported ‘offer’ of mediation on Kashmir during Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan’s visit to Washington may have convinced Indian policymakers that the time to make a move on Kashmir is ‘now or never’.
If the US and Pakistani interests converge on Kashmir at the expense of India, there is no reason why New Delhi should play ball. India has its equities to preserve in Afghanistan, and at times playing the role of a spoiler is equally important to convey to your interlocutors that your voice matters.
Modi’s move on Kashmir, whether planned or unplanned, does precisely that. Not only will the US be struggling to figure out a response to this, but Pakistan, too, will be under immense pressure to do ‘something’ about it. So far, Islamabad has slammed India’s move of revoking Article 370.
Arguing that New Delhi’s unilateral move could not change the nature of the Kashmir dispute, it has suggested that Islamabad will exercise ‘all possible options’ to counter India’s moves. This is likely to involve Pakistan raising the Kashmir issue at all possible fora, including at the forthcoming session of the UN General Assembly in September. Whether the international community will have any appetite for it is another matter altogether.
The ‘abrogation’ of Article 370 is difficult to digest for many in India, too. We have grown so used to the status quo that a change of this magnitude challenges our intellectual faculties. But it is also a reality that much as many of us would like to ignore it, the status quo on Kashmir had became unsustainable long back.
It was only the political and policy inertia that was keeping Indian policymakers from challenging it. The ‘Kashmir problem’ has always been a bilateral matter between the people of J&K and New Delhi. The rest of India has been living with one set of policies vis-à-vis J&K for the last seven decades, and the results have been underwhelming. It is time now to change those policies. Just like the people of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh have a stake in the rest of India, the rest of India, too, has a stake in the new Union territories.
The Modi government’s latest move underlines that it is not only serious about consolidating India’s frayed peripheries, but it is also cognisant of aspirations of a ‘state’, which, despite its resources, has become a cesspool of violence and degenerative politics. For that, doing away with the shibboleths of the past was a necessary first step.
This commentary originally appeared in The Economic Times
The views expressed above belong to the author(s). ORF research and analyses now available on Telegram! Click here to access our curated content — blogs, longforms and interviews.
PREV
