I HATE THE ARTICLE 370
READ IT CAREFULLY
In March 1948 Sheikh Abdullah was appointed the prime minister of an interim government of the State. A Constituent Assembly was convened in October 1951. The members of this Assembly were elected and Sheikh Abdullah's National Conference won all its seats. In 1952 Jawaharlal Nehru and Sheikh Abdullah signed an agreement in Delhi which specified that the State of Jammu and Kashmir, while part of the Indian Union, yet enjoyed certain unique rights and privileges within the Union. Thus citizens of the State had rights related to land ownership within the State which were denied to Indians from outside the State. This fact was recognized in Article 370 of the Indian Constitution which was entitled " Temporary provisions with respect to the State of Jammu and Kashmir" (Lamb 1966, Puri 1981).
Curiously the restriction of land ownership to the hereditary State subjects goes back to Hari Singh in 1927. This order also reserved government posts to such residents. Hari Singh had become the Maharaja two years earlier and he was trying to assert the autonomy of the State from the British paramountcy. But he was also bowing to the interests of the Hindus from Kashmir and Jammu who did not wish to have any competition for the various administrative positions from people out of the State. At that time the Kashmiri Hindus, with less than 2 per cent population of the State, constituted 80 percent of all those who had received higher education. This policy of reservation of jobs and restriction of land ownership was opposed by the Muslims of the State and outside. (Puri 1981)
Sheikh Abdullah was now trying to implement a programme that had been outlined by the National Conference in 1944 in a manifesto entitled New Kashmir . This amounted to a one-party government dedicated to social reform in the style of the Soviet Union. Sweeping land reforms were implemented in 1953. But there was also a suppression of dissent and increasing bureaucratization with its attendent corruption. Sheikh Abdullah's goal still appeared to be autonomy for the Kashmiris, but he was unwilling to allow real democracy to the other regions of Jammu and Ladakh. Growing tensions in the State led to his dismissal and detention in August 1953. He was succeeded as prime minister of the State by Bakshi Ghulam Mohammed who remained in power for 10 years.
The Constituent Assembly decided upon a constitution which came into operation in January 1957. But this constitution formalized inequities in the political structure that had seeds in it for trouble down the road. The constituencies were delimited in a fashion that perpetuated control by the Kashmiris of the Vale (Jagmohan 1991). The typical constituency in the Vale had a population of 50,000 whereas it was 85,000 in the Jammu region. For elections to the Lok Sabha, Kashmir sent one representative for each one million people, while Jammu was allocated one representative for each 1.4 million people. Furthermore, the constituencies were so delimited that the Kashmiri Hindus, in spite of their population of about 7% in the Vale, could not get a single member elected on their own.
The fundamental rights of the Indian Constitution were made applicable to the State in 1954; these forbade recruitment to government jobs on communal and regional considerations. The government of the State circumvented the law by declaring all the residents of the State but the less than 3 percent Kashmiri Hindus to be backward. Quotas were now fixed for recruitment based on ethnic origin and religion both for recruitment and promotion (Puri 1983).
These policies split up the people of the State in three main worlds: one Kashmiri Muslim, the other Hindu from Jammu, and the third was that of the Kashmiri Pandit who was now discriminated against. A system of quotas in schools, colleges, and jobs was instituted. These quotas did not apply only at the entrance levels of the government departments but also for promotion to higher ranks. This system was so perverted that the candidates from the Muslim community were not chosen according to their merit either. The bureaucratic system that emerged in Kashmir must have been one of the most corrupt in India and the whole world.
It must be realized that the Muslims in Kashmir are not a monolithic community. Caste in India is a phenomenon that transcends religion (Leach 1960). Muslims in Kashmir, as Muslims elsewhere in India and Pakistan, are socially divided into castes that have traditionally worked in different occupations. Furthermore, the converts from the Brahmins, Kshatriyas, as well as the descendents of the Turks, Afghans, and the Iranians have generally maintained their identities and their status. Since performance and skills were not determinants for hiring, the urban Muslim elites, who were from a few select groups, were able to carve out a lions share of government openings. The nature of the quota system makes it out as an entitlement, so there was a great deal of resentment in the weaker Muslim classes about this matter.
In the corrupt bureaucratic world of the two Kashmirs, many of the small minority of the Hindus, who were traditionally professionals, played the game according to the new rules. Others simply left the State. And when the Central government expanded its bureaucracy in the early seventies the Hindus joined in large numbers. Having been systematically excluded from the State government jobs, the Hindus used whatever access to power they had to obtain these jobs. No wonder, therefore, that the Central government offices were perceived as being Hindu as against the Muslim State government offices.
The division between the Hindus and the Muslims of Kashmir was made worse by the Article 370 of the Indian Constitution which gives a special status to the Jammu and Kashmir State. According to this Article, apart from defence, foreign affairs, and communications the laws enacted by the Indian parliament apply to the State only with the concurrence of the State government. It is important to remember that this Article was supposed to be of a transitional nature. But it came in handy to the karkun elite who justified it by the rhetoric of socialism and kashmiriyat (Kashmiriness). This law preserved the dominance of the Muslim elite classes in Kashmir and they fought hard to preserve it. Politicians of the ruling party made embrace of this Article to be axiomatic for a belief in secularism. Anyone who questioned the wisdom of retention of Article 370 was dubbed a communalist, an obscurantist, and worse.
The psychology related to Article 370 made the Muslims feel that their State was not quite a part of India. But this sense of fostered apartness was the basis of the political alliances made throughout India by the Congress Party to maintain political power. The government controlled media harped on the themes of social justice and the remedy of quotas and set-asides. Although this approach was useful for the short-term political ends of the Congress Party and the National Conference, it increased social discord and it kept out capital needed for economic development in the State.
The forces unleashed by these policies led to a progressively greater alienation of the Muslims in the State. Fundamentalists seized upon this disaffection and they targeted the Kashmiri Hindus as being representatives of the unjust order. They argued that Indian polity had sunk into great divisions based on caste or regional origin and that the Indian system is not blind to caste, ethnic background, or religion. The fundamentalist in Kashmir said that if India is really not a secular state, as evidenced by all the quotas and reservations based on different criteria, the why should they not seek an Islamic, independent nation, or accession to Pakistan.
READ IT CAREFULLY
In March 1948 Sheikh Abdullah was appointed the prime minister of an interim government of the State. A Constituent Assembly was convened in October 1951. The members of this Assembly were elected and Sheikh Abdullah's National Conference won all its seats. In 1952 Jawaharlal Nehru and Sheikh Abdullah signed an agreement in Delhi which specified that the State of Jammu and Kashmir, while part of the Indian Union, yet enjoyed certain unique rights and privileges within the Union. Thus citizens of the State had rights related to land ownership within the State which were denied to Indians from outside the State. This fact was recognized in Article 370 of the Indian Constitution which was entitled " Temporary provisions with respect to the State of Jammu and Kashmir" (Lamb 1966, Puri 1981).
Curiously the restriction of land ownership to the hereditary State subjects goes back to Hari Singh in 1927. This order also reserved government posts to such residents. Hari Singh had become the Maharaja two years earlier and he was trying to assert the autonomy of the State from the British paramountcy. But he was also bowing to the interests of the Hindus from Kashmir and Jammu who did not wish to have any competition for the various administrative positions from people out of the State. At that time the Kashmiri Hindus, with less than 2 per cent population of the State, constituted 80 percent of all those who had received higher education. This policy of reservation of jobs and restriction of land ownership was opposed by the Muslims of the State and outside. (Puri 1981)
Sheikh Abdullah was now trying to implement a programme that had been outlined by the National Conference in 1944 in a manifesto entitled New Kashmir . This amounted to a one-party government dedicated to social reform in the style of the Soviet Union. Sweeping land reforms were implemented in 1953. But there was also a suppression of dissent and increasing bureaucratization with its attendent corruption. Sheikh Abdullah's goal still appeared to be autonomy for the Kashmiris, but he was unwilling to allow real democracy to the other regions of Jammu and Ladakh. Growing tensions in the State led to his dismissal and detention in August 1953. He was succeeded as prime minister of the State by Bakshi Ghulam Mohammed who remained in power for 10 years.
The Constituent Assembly decided upon a constitution which came into operation in January 1957. But this constitution formalized inequities in the political structure that had seeds in it for trouble down the road. The constituencies were delimited in a fashion that perpetuated control by the Kashmiris of the Vale (Jagmohan 1991). The typical constituency in the Vale had a population of 50,000 whereas it was 85,000 in the Jammu region. For elections to the Lok Sabha, Kashmir sent one representative for each one million people, while Jammu was allocated one representative for each 1.4 million people. Furthermore, the constituencies were so delimited that the Kashmiri Hindus, in spite of their population of about 7% in the Vale, could not get a single member elected on their own.
The fundamental rights of the Indian Constitution were made applicable to the State in 1954; these forbade recruitment to government jobs on communal and regional considerations. The government of the State circumvented the law by declaring all the residents of the State but the less than 3 percent Kashmiri Hindus to be backward. Quotas were now fixed for recruitment based on ethnic origin and religion both for recruitment and promotion (Puri 1983).
These policies split up the people of the State in three main worlds: one Kashmiri Muslim, the other Hindu from Jammu, and the third was that of the Kashmiri Pandit who was now discriminated against. A system of quotas in schools, colleges, and jobs was instituted. These quotas did not apply only at the entrance levels of the government departments but also for promotion to higher ranks. This system was so perverted that the candidates from the Muslim community were not chosen according to their merit either. The bureaucratic system that emerged in Kashmir must have been one of the most corrupt in India and the whole world.
It must be realized that the Muslims in Kashmir are not a monolithic community. Caste in India is a phenomenon that transcends religion (Leach 1960). Muslims in Kashmir, as Muslims elsewhere in India and Pakistan, are socially divided into castes that have traditionally worked in different occupations. Furthermore, the converts from the Brahmins, Kshatriyas, as well as the descendents of the Turks, Afghans, and the Iranians have generally maintained their identities and their status. Since performance and skills were not determinants for hiring, the urban Muslim elites, who were from a few select groups, were able to carve out a lions share of government openings. The nature of the quota system makes it out as an entitlement, so there was a great deal of resentment in the weaker Muslim classes about this matter.
In the corrupt bureaucratic world of the two Kashmirs, many of the small minority of the Hindus, who were traditionally professionals, played the game according to the new rules. Others simply left the State. And when the Central government expanded its bureaucracy in the early seventies the Hindus joined in large numbers. Having been systematically excluded from the State government jobs, the Hindus used whatever access to power they had to obtain these jobs. No wonder, therefore, that the Central government offices were perceived as being Hindu as against the Muslim State government offices.
The division between the Hindus and the Muslims of Kashmir was made worse by the Article 370 of the Indian Constitution which gives a special status to the Jammu and Kashmir State. According to this Article, apart from defence, foreign affairs, and communications the laws enacted by the Indian parliament apply to the State only with the concurrence of the State government. It is important to remember that this Article was supposed to be of a transitional nature. But it came in handy to the karkun elite who justified it by the rhetoric of socialism and kashmiriyat (Kashmiriness). This law preserved the dominance of the Muslim elite classes in Kashmir and they fought hard to preserve it. Politicians of the ruling party made embrace of this Article to be axiomatic for a belief in secularism. Anyone who questioned the wisdom of retention of Article 370 was dubbed a communalist, an obscurantist, and worse.
The psychology related to Article 370 made the Muslims feel that their State was not quite a part of India. But this sense of fostered apartness was the basis of the political alliances made throughout India by the Congress Party to maintain political power. The government controlled media harped on the themes of social justice and the remedy of quotas and set-asides. Although this approach was useful for the short-term political ends of the Congress Party and the National Conference, it increased social discord and it kept out capital needed for economic development in the State.
The forces unleashed by these policies led to a progressively greater alienation of the Muslims in the State. Fundamentalists seized upon this disaffection and they targeted the Kashmiri Hindus as being representatives of the unjust order. They argued that Indian polity had sunk into great divisions based on caste or regional origin and that the Indian system is not blind to caste, ethnic background, or religion. The fundamentalist in Kashmir said that if India is really not a secular state, as evidenced by all the quotas and reservations based on different criteria, the why should they not seek an Islamic, independent nation, or accession to Pakistan.
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