Mr Malik's revelations

Govt must offer credible responses

In his wide-ranging interview with The Wire, former Jammu & Kashmir Governor Satya Pal Malik raised two points that urgently deserve a full explanation from the government. Most of Mr Malik’s personal comments on Prime Minister Narendra Modi can be ignored, reflecting as they do the disgruntlement of a sidelined maven. But in at least two cases, he offers revelations of specific incidents that took place during his tenure as governor of the state (August 2018 to October 2019) when it was under President’s Rule. Both raise serious concerns about the government’s handling of the situation. One points to an egregious cover-up and the other raises points to a wilful suppression of constitutional norms. In the first, Mr Malik said the home ministry had refused the Central Reserve Police Force’s request for five aircraft to ferry personnel in the state in response to intelligence it had received. As a result, jawans were forced to make the journey by road, during which 40 were killed in a terrorist ambush in Pulwama. When he raised the issue after the tragedy, Mr Malik claimed that the Prime Minister asked him to keep quiet, a stricture that was later repeated by National Security Advisor Ajit Doval.

In his second revelation, Mr Malik says that he was not consulted on the decision to read down Article 370, which scrapped the special status of Jammu & Kashmir. Instead, he was sent the relevant papers on the night of August 4 and told to have them signed by 11 am the following morning, suggesting that the constitutionally laid-down process of consultation was bypassed. Under the terms of Article 370, abrogation required the concurrence of the government of Jammu & Kashmir. Since the state had been without an elected government for many months, the governor was considered the government. Being a constitutional authority, he was required to apply his mind to the issue, which doesn’t seem to have happened, given the timeframe.

Predictably, both issues have caused an uproar on social media, galvanised the Opposition and provoked suggestive statements from the Pakistani foreign ministry. It is notable that much of the mainstream press, with honourable exceptions, chose to ignore the interview, an indication perhaps of the depth of self-censorship that the media has chosen to impose on itself. But it is the government’s response that has been underwhelming. It needs to explain why the home ministry chose to ignore credible intelligence that led to the Pulwama tragedy, not just to fix accountability but also to avoid future such tragedies. As has been claimed, the route was not properly sanitised and secured. After such a big incident, it is important that a proper assessment is made to fix lapses. Although on a different scale, it is worth recalling in this context that the weaknesses were fully accounted for after the Kargil War during Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s government. A similar approach can be followed to fix major lapses. Equally, the government must clarify the veracity or otherwise of Mr Malik’s claims of the manner in which Article 370 was read down, since this has a critical bearing on the case that is still to be heard in the Supreme Court.