Joint Movement for Special Status of Kashmir: Opportunists closing Ranks

 

The Gupkar II Declaration

(Joint Movement for Autonomy/special status of Kashmir: Disjoint Opportunists closing Ranks)

                                                                                                                     Lalit K Kaul

Dishonesty personified politicians in Kashmir have decided to come together to once again mislead the people of the UT of J&K to create unrest and turmoil. The political paradigm has shrunk from the autonomy/special status of J&K to that of only Kashmir. This is political chicanery at its best for, the shops exporting unrest must continue despite extant global political realities. The motivating factor may be the China-Pakistan-Turkey axis that by their utterances continues to display gross ignorance about the political dynamics as it evolved post accession of the princely state of J&K to the Union of India. The political credentials and sense of responsibility of the votaries of autonomy/ special status are well known, but restatement may help in putting their game plan in right perspective.

1.        The tallest among them ran away to play golf in London at the time when the state, he and his father had misruled for decades, had plunged into total chaos, disorder and communal frenzy only to rise up in arms against the mighty Indian State; the programmed robots (freedom fighters/ jihadis) from across the border (natives and foreigners) including the mentally sick Nation State of Pakistan had no idea about the resoluteness of their joint adversary labeled as illegal occupant of the J&K much to the chagrin (embarrassment) of recorded history.

2.       The lady who (along with her father) was promoted as the symbol of Kashmiriat by the late Prime Minister, Sri A B Vajpayee, even though her father was directly involved in communal riots in 1988/89 and then in getting his daughter kidnapped, went on to become the Member of Parliament only to create ruckus in the Lok Sabha, screaming and running from one end to another while declaring herself to be “Bhagat Singh’ of Kashmir! The same lady as the Chief Minister of J&K on a daily basis kept praising the “maut ka Saudagar” Prime Minister for the way he had been conducting his official business. The lady joined hands with “communal” BJP to form the government as had others by being a constituent of NDA government at the Center.

3.       The so called national party who bled our Nation white by engineering scams of astronomical magnitudes, too claimed to have a base in J&K. They joined hands with the other patriarch party in 1986 to do what? In Kashmir there were only two parties! Can there be a bigger farce than the fact of their joining hands? The so called party of Kashmiriat (courtesy BJP) fought elections for the first time in 2002 and that afforded a chance for the national party to be a part of coalition government in J&K. Now, recently their ex CM of J&K has been shown the exit door in a most undignified way. Anyway he was known to carry slippers of a member of Nehru-Gandhi family.

4.       To cap it all comes a Messiah, that’s what the Kashmiri Muslims thought, to rescue them from their pain and anguish. IAS officer felt chocked in his job and gave it up to serve his Kashmiri Muslims; ended up choosing such politician as the Ideal who had nothing to show on record except for incongruous and irresponsible public statements. He declared to start a movement not realizing that politics is not synonymous with IAS chair.

Where are the separatists? What about Apni party? Again BJP is secluded because once out of power, BJP becomes communal for them.

Are Kashmiri Muslims aware? Those who are on a killing spree of BJP functionaries in Kashmir should know that those whom they trusted had no ideological differences with BJP, when it came to sharing power. The Kashmiri Muslims need to internalize this fact of history that they were cheated and misled not by GOI but by their own leaders in Kashmir and their ideologues from across the border.

What’s their Agenda?   

To develop and fortify communal fault lines to keep the communities at the throat of each other, while playing the victim card by putting all the onus of political mismanagement and chicanery on the GOI and its leadership. It is a long history of brazenly communal politics, but one example should settle the matter; of them being brazenly communal.

The 1996 Elections:

The golf player also known for having motorbike rides with the Bollywood damsels and that too as the CM of J&K somehow found his way back into J&K. He summoned courage to do so because insurgency was on the decline; people had given up hope on attaining Azadi by engaging Indian State in an armed conflict; Pakistan had disbanded JKLF because their political aims did not match and started promoting Hizb and other terrorist organizations for their nefarious designs in Kashmir. However the Indian political leadership thought that the time was ripe for state elections and they were proved right by very enthusiastic participation of the people in the polls despite boycott calls by puppets of Pakistan. Ironically people gave thumping 2/3 rd majority to the party of golf player. He had earned his name as reluctant CM and he remained so despite the mandate, but he played a neat politically communal game; though he did not succeed in the end.

Excerpts from a Book on History of Kashmir:

[“In November 1996, Farooq Abdullah and his party (National Conference) government set up the Regional Autonomy Committee (RAC) to re-examine the issue of interregional relations. In his campaign for the state assembly elections, he had promised regional autonomy for Jammu and Ladakh and sub autonomy for ethnic and religious groups in these regions.

This appealed to the electorate in Jammu and Ladakh, which, for the first time in the state’s post independence history, overwhelmingly voted for his party, earning it a two-thirds majority in the assembly. He, however, failed to reverse the historical trend of broken promises with regard to federalizing the state structures.

 

The entire RAC forum was flawed. It was not a truly representative body because all its members belonged to the National Conference. Opposition leaders had no voice in redrawing the “rules of the game” for internal power sharing. Except for Pinto Norbu, a Ladakhi Buddhist, and Mushtaq Bukhari, a Pahari, the most prominent minorities were not represented, including the Kashmiri Pandits, Gujjars, Dogras, and the Shia Muslims (of Kargil).

 

The RAC report, released in April 1999, endorsed the idea of following communal fault lines by recommending that the state be reorganized into eight provinces. It emphasized the ethno cultural, religious, and linguistic homogeneity of Kashmir Valley, yet recommended that it be divided into three new provinces: Kamraz, made up of Baramulla and Kupwara districts; Nundabad, comprising Budgam and Srinagar districts; and Maraz, made up of Anantnag and Pulwama districts. It offered no reasons for the new arrangement, and its recommendations did not take into account the deep political differences between the Kashmiri Muslims and the Kashmiri Pandits. The committee simply disregarded the Pandits’ demand for Panun Kashmir without offering an alternative strategy or framework for redressing their grievances and securing their social, cultural, economic, and political rights.

The committee suggested division of Ladakh based on communal fault lines between the Buddhists and Muslims.

The communal undercurrents of the committee’s recommendations were further exposed in its proposed restructuring of the Jammu region into three provinces, along Hindu-Muslim lines. The district of Doda and the single Muslim-dominated tehsil of Mahore from the adjoining Hindu-majority district of Udhampur would form a new Chenab Valley province. The largely Hindu districts of Jammu, Kathua, and Udhampur would make up Jammu Province. Poonch and Rajouri districts would form the Pir Panjal Province. There was an uncanny resemblance to Sheikh Abdullah’s original concept of a “Greater Kashmir,” as a comparison of the present and proposed regional setup makes clear. Currently, Kashmir Valley is the only Muslim-majority region with a prominent, albeit small, minority of Kashmiri Pandits; Jammu has a Hindu-majority populace with a substantial Muslim minority; and in Ladakh, the Buddhists outnumber the Muslims. Under the new dispensation, six out of eight provinces (Maraz, Kamraz, Nundabad, Chenab Valley, Pir Panjal, and Kargil) would have a Muslim majority. Apparently, the committee sought to protect only the “Muslim interests” to the total exclusion of other ethno cultural, ethno linguistic, and ethno religious minorities. While it was ready to lean backwards to accept the demand of Jammu region’s Muslim minority for separate provincial status, it did not even mention the demand of the Hindu minority in the Valley—Kashmiri Pandits—for a Panun Kashmir, as mentioned earlier. Nor did it take notice of the Zanskar Buddhists’ long-standing demand for these areas to be brought under Leh’s administration. Likewise, it glossed over the fact that Doda district had a significant Hindu minority alongside its Muslim (58 percent) majority and made no provision for safeguarding the minority’s political interests.”]

 

Incidentally, one of the solutions offered by the President Musharaf of Pakistan was same as suggested by the RAC as constituted by Farooq Abdullah. This may establish the connection between the ‘mainstream’ politicians and Pakistan.

 

Fortunately this reorganisation fortifying the communal fault lines and with an eye on future calls for independence did not appeal to the Indian leadership and the whole plan was rightly shelved.

 

The Autonomy/Special Status Syndrome: 

 

The votaries of special status, more particularly the Abdullahs, need to answer the Kashmiri Muslims as to when it was abrogated and with whose consent. Abdullahs must explain to their constituency the difference between PM and CM, and between Sadr-e-Riyasat and Governor. They must inform people about the year when J&K ceased to have a PM and Sadr-e-Riyasat. They should also tell them as to who put final stamp of approval on abrogation of special status in the year 1974. There was no compulsion on the part of any Kashmiri Muslim leadership to accept the changes as incorporated in the political relationship between the erstwhile state of J&K and the Union of India; the changes were not accomplished at the gun point as mutually agreed procedures were followed to institutionalize them.

 

Yet, the politics of blackmail continued and the modus operandi was to lay all the blame at the door step of the GOI for the corrupt and dishonest indulgences of the local Kashmiri Muslim leadership.

 

What was abrogated?

 

The horse was dead in the year 1964 to be buried in the year 1974 and its skeleton was excavated and disposed off on 5^th August, 2019 through the Indian Parliament’s proceedings and in this exercise the BJP smartly made use of the degenerate politics indulged in by the local and National level (mainly those who had been at the helm for most of the time since independence) politicians and claimed National acclaim for removal of nonexistent special status; the political purpose was to create a UT to checkmate nefarious designs of the touts of Pakistan (who lived under Indian protection; expenses paid by Indian tax payer) who for their lavish comforts sacrificed innocent lives in the name of Jihad. Shops selling Jihad and communalism closed down and dubious politicians with criminal intent found themselves unemployed.

 

Understanding the farce:

 

Within the Union of India, if there is a State that has PM and others have CMs then the one with PM enjoys special status with the Indian Union. All other associated issues are matters of administrative nature and define respective jurisdictions of the State and the Union insofar as governance of a civilized society is concerned. Once the PM chair is relegated to that of CM the special status no longer exits and that relegation happened in 1964 with the consent of those who had been close associates of Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah. They could have disagreed with/agitated against the Indian leadership and taken the matter to international forums, but they chose to give consent for, that got them to wield political power. If there ever was a case of political prostitution it was succumbing to greed of power over the promises made to the people. When the post of PM was relegated to that of CM, only ex PM (1953 to 1964) of J&K objected and protested and he was arrested under Defense of India Rules by his own party associates. If the local leadership was true to the people they too should have supported the ex PM, but that was not to be. Thereafter, it was free for all as local leaders chose to submit to the greed of political power.

 

The tallest leader of them all Sheikh Abdullah gave his consent in the year 1974 because 1) chair of power was awaiting him and 2) through that political power he could directly play important role in alienating Kashmiri Muslims from the Indian Union and he did that successfully being in league with Jamait – e – Islami. Rest is the history dominated by turmoil, pain, anguish and ethnic cleansing.

 

The ‘group of 6’ is itching to cause devastation as it costs nothing to them. The people of J&K, more particularly the Muslims, have to take a call to save the beautiful land of J&K from the predators. There is this need to promote and encourage politicians with honest intent to shape the destiny of the region in a way that would see only peace, happiness and prosperity of the people.