More Militancy, Less Autonomy: Kashmir is Worse Off 6 Yrs After Losing Statehood

Operation Sindoor brought losses, and the government has told us that it isn't over, writes David Devadas.

The government had asserted that the constitutional changes would settle the dispute regarding J&K for good. Instead, it was strongly internationalised.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

One might say that we’re ‘back to square one,’ but Jammu and Kashmir is actually worse off than it was six years after the much-trumped constitutional changes.

A more lethal militancy than we had seen for at least two decades has gained ground. We’ve lost bits of territory, suffered battlefield reverses, and could be on the brink of a worse disaster.

Operation Sindoor brought losses when the government initiated it on 7 May. Yet, hostilities could be renewed at any time; the government has told us that the operation is "not over". I find that ominous.

For, while intelligence was sorely lacking during the first round, it confirmed something I had previously warned about: the whole world is now ranged against India. Indeed, there are no takers for India’s positions regarding terror, or about Jammu and Kashmir.

Unravelling of the 2019 Promise

The government had asserted that the constitutional changes, which were introduced on 5 August 2019, would settle the dispute regarding Jammu and Kashmir for good, forever. Instead, it was immediately, and strongly, internationalised.

It was heatedly discussed at the United Nations Security Council. China and Turkey stood firmly with Pakistan. And the West looked on mockingly.

In case another trigger brings a second round of Sindoor, and that sparks further interference, India could find itself on a weaker wicket than it has for 67 years—a contrast to a half-century ago when Indira Gandhi had successfully pushed back any and all interference.

The Junked J&K Constitution

With obviously inadequate application of mind, the government divided the state in 2019, thus junking the Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir.

That Constitution explicitly stated that "Jammu and Kashmir is, and shall remain, an integral part of India."

Those in power may not have read it, but that Constitution further held that the borders of the state, as ruled by Maharaja Hari Singh, could not be changed, and that these two articles of that Constitution could not be amended by any means.

Frank Graham, the then UN Representative for Jammu and Kashmir, gave up his exertions when that Constitution came into force in 1958—when a certain Nehru was the prime minister. But the gains of secular rulers are, of course, anathema to our current rulers.

A powerful minister even held forth in the run up to the constitutional changes that large principalities had not needed to merge into the Indian Union. (When rajas and nawabs across the land merged their states into the Indian Union, neither Jammu and Kashmir’s maharaja, nor his regent, merged their state. Nor is there any legal category of large and small principalities. Indeed, larger ones—mainly Hyderabad and Jammu and Kashmir—were best able to argue separate sovereignty.)

But logic means nothing to some.

If dividing the state was a shot in the foot—and an invitation to China—turning it into Union Territories and locking up the political class of Jammu and Kashmir turned out to be self-inflicted wounds.

Centralised Control and Its Fallout

I had warned immediately after those changes that the Centre would now be squarely responsible for anything that went wrong there.

Past governments had always treated the autonomous state government as a buffer in the face of crises.

Predictably, since the Pahalgam bloodbath, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been casting desperately about for how to restore statehood. All kinds of formulae have been discussed, but they haven’t been able to get their act together since April.

The Photo-Op and the Gerrymander

That J&K’s politicians were locked up was the only aspect of the constitutional changes that was popular, especially among the youth across Jammu and Kashmir. But after keeping Kashmir’s politicians cooped up for a year, they were brought to Delhi for a photo-op with the Prime Minister on 24 June 2021.

Then, the ruling party went through extraordinary contortions to gerrymander constituencies for the Union Territory Assembly of J&K—hoping they would be able to install a Hindu chief minister.

But the convoluted moves of the agencies during last year’s elections only ended up ensuring that J&K’s grand old party, the National Conference, returned to power with a majority.

Dynasties and Political Realities

When all was said and done, all those diatribes against 'dynastic rule' came to naught before the people’s will. Indeed, it had already become laughable in the face of the Home Ministry’s push to help the party led by Sajad Lone—whose only claim to leadership is that he is the son of the party’s founder.

I have said since August 2019 that five things were done, and that neutralising Article 370 was the least of them. It had already been watered down since 1958 to the extent that it actually gave the Centre more powers over Jammu and Kashmir than over other states.

Article 370, 35A, and the Idea of India

Nobody had read Article 370 but everyone had a strong position on it. Kashmiris strongly wanted it to stay, while those brainwashed by RSS propaganda—which has remained blissfully unaffected by changes since 1950—decidedly wanted it gone.

Article 35A was far more important, but it being read down made no material difference since it was immediately replaced by a domicile law—only this was not in the Constitution.

I had focused on that very first day on how grievously federalism had been assaulted by the reduction of a state—indeed, the one with the maximum autonomy—to Union Territories.

As for dividing the state, it egregiously invited China in, and even more egregiously invalidated the one legal document which vouchsafed the state’s merger with India.

It is a tragic irony that this irresponsible and largely hinge-free government is now casting desperately about for a way to restore the state—after it has already restored the old political order.

(The writer is the author of ‘The Story of Kashmir’ and ‘The Generation of Rage in Kashmir’. He can be reached at @david_devadas. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)