Like Father, Like Son

The NCs conception of autonomy is the restoration of the position as it existed prior to 1953 the year in which Sheikh Abdullah was dismissed by Dr Karan Singh from prime ministership. The basic features of this status enjoyed by J&K are laid out in the Delhi Accord of 1952 reached between Jawaharlal Nehru and Sheikh Abdullah.

Since so much is laid in store by the 1952 position, it might be well worth to recollect the democratic basis or legitimacy of this position or for that matter of the 1952 Delhi Agreement itself. Having acceded to the Indian Union in 1947, for four years, Sheikh Abdullah ruled the state without a legislature let aside a democratic mandate. In the first elections held in 1951 not a single vote was cast in the valley. The NC, which was ruling with the help of draconian laws, like the Enemy Ordinances Act, ensured that 73 out of 75 seats were won by it uncontested. It was with this kind of a democratic mandate that the Sheikh signed the accord.

 

The essence of the pre-1953 position (see the accompanying chart) is that the relations between the Centre and J&K are restricted to defence, foreign affairs and communications. This demand seen alongwith the vociferous affirmation that Kashmir is an integral part of India, suggests that the NCs demand is for autonomy from the government of India, and not the nation-state of India. This distinction is critical.

Yet one of the first announcements made by the chief-minister designate was his intention to join the UF government at the Centre. This offer flies in the face of his oft stated automist position and his basis of a solution to the Kashmir imbroglio. The NC cant be seeking autonomy from the same government of which it is a part!

Farooq Abdullahs demand for the 1952 status is a concrete manifestation of the inherent contradictions: Kashmir is a part of India but not quite a part of India. It is in the resolution of this contradiction that the future of Kashmir lies. By putting it as a condition the contradiction is only being heightened.

Even though NC has been periodically advocating this pre-1953 form of autonomy within India for the past 20 years or so, it has not thought this proposal through even now. The basis of this form of autonomy is flawed as it seeks to create an enclave of federalism within a unitary system and combine the advantages of a loose federation with those of a centralised system without impairing the its functioning. This brew tends to become less heady and more hazy.

There are structural constraints to this arrangement as Sheikh Abdullah was to learn the hard way on August 9, 1953. The whole position had reached such ridiculous proportions that the ministry of states, later ministry of home, used to address all communications to Shiekh Abdullah as the chief minister of J&K while the prime ministers office addressed to him as the prime minister of Kashmir!

The most serious problem with the pre-1953 position is that there will be no financial or fiscal link between the Union of India and the state of J&K. In the current dispensation it will be difficult for the state government even to pay its wage bill let alone finance its development. This is not a reflection of the unviability of the state economy but a commentary on how the government of India has made a vibrant economy completely dependent on central resource transfers. These are, literally and metaphorically, the chains of gold by which Nehru, speaking in Parliament, sought to bind the Kashmiris to India. Without changing the systemic givens, the pre-1953 autonomy is unworkable. In its present form , this demand shows a complete stagnation of ideas and lack of foresight.

In the absence of a practical and workable enunciation of autonomy, it is like a dew on a leaf beautiful to look at but nothing when you try to collect it; only your hands get wet. The NC leaders have in fact trivialised the entire basis of the demand. According to Saif-ud-din Soz, the 1952 position will give the people a sense of achievement! Never mind how illusory the sense may be and how unsustainable the position is in the long run. The original basis for autonomy was that the possession of distinctive laws, privileges, taxation systems would imply and underwrite some degree of self-consciousness. And since, these often, also imply some organisational framework, the 1952 position was evolved.

With elections legitimising pre-determined choices, Farooq Abdullah, instead of demanding a utopian status, would be better off evolving a new framework for effective articulation of political, social and economic exploitation of Kashmiris. The symbiotic relationship of the State and the civil bureaucracy which has imparted a strand of authoritarianism to the relationship between the Centre and the Kashmir needs to be broken. The intention should be to put up a genuine non-violent resistance to the political authoritarianism and economic imperialism of the Centre. Instead, if the NC joins the UF, as some political analysts are suggesting, it will be seen by the Kashmiris as surrendering their case for adjudication by a system they no longer have faith in. In thinking so, they would have a history of 45 years on their side.