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The only predominantly Muslim province in India, Kashmir has experienced a political earthquake with the repeal of its autonomy enshrined in the Indian Constitution. With researcher Charlotte Thomas (1), specialist of India, back on the political context and the implications of the decision of the Hindu government of New Delhi, modifying by a feather pen the special status of the state of Jammu -and Kashmir. Interview.
RFI: On Monday, August 5, New Delhi announced the repeal of Articles 370 and 35A of its Constitution which defined the special status enjoyed since independence by the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. What was this special status?
Charlotte Thomas: We speak of special status, because unlike the other 28 states of the Indian Union, the state of Jammu and Kashmir, which is located in the Himalayan mountains, straddles the north of India and the north-east of Pakistan, enjoyed until now a relative autonomy vis-à-vis the central power. This autonomy was guaranteed by the Constitution, precisely by Article 370 of the Indian Basic Law. Under the provisions of this article, the decisions voted by the Federal Parliament were not applied in Kashmir, with the exception of defense, foreign affairs, finance and communications. The management of internal affairs was the responsibility of the local Legislative Assembly. Article 370 also granted Jammu and Kashmir a separate Constitution and a flag. The presidential decree of last Monday abolishes these provisions as those of Article 35A. According to the provisions of Article 35A, persons outside Jammu and Kashmir were not entitled to purchase land nor could they have access to public employment in the region.
What justified this Kashmir exception?
It can be explained by the complexity of Kashmir's connection with India when the subcontinent gained independence in 1947. Independence was accompanied by the partition of the Empire between India and India. Pakistan. At the time of colonization, the British crown ruled the entire sub-continent, which was divided into several provinces and 565 princely states under the direct suzerainty of the king or queen of England. At independence, these princely states had the choice between joining either India or Pakistan. The Kingdom of Jammu and Kashmir, which was one of the hundreds of princely states under British rule, had the particularity of being ruled by a Hindu prince, while its population was predominantly Muslim. The Hindu maharaja Hari Singh nurtured the ambition to bring his country to independence, probably not to have to choose between the two new entities born of the partition. But as he was late in officially making his decision known, his country was stormed by armed groups from Pakistan in order to get his hands on the Himalayan Valley on behalf of Islamabad. These deadly incursions forced the Maharaja to opt for India, leading to the armed intervention of New Delhi to secure the new province.
It was the first Indo-Pakistan war .
Indeed. It lasted more than 12 months. But as the conflict dragged on, the UN Security Council intervened in January 1949, forcing the belligerents to silence the weapons. The cease-fire line has since become the de facto border between Indian Kashmir and the part of the former Himalayan kingdom since occupied by Pakistan.
Observers question the legality of the repeal of the special status. It has been written that by revoking autonomy, New Delhi is canceling the act of accession of Jammu and Kashmir to the Indian Union. What do you think ?
It is the Supreme Court of India that has been seized of the question to answer it. What can be said, however, is that the status of Kashmir was fiercely negotiated by the most popular Kashmiri political leader of the day, Sheikh Abdullah of the National Conference , with Indian Prime Minister Nehru . The Kashmiri negotiator wished to preserve the margin of exceptional autonomy granted by the Indians when the accession document was signed in October 1947. Negotiations took place between May and October 1949 leading to the addition of Article 370 in the Constitution. solemnly promulgated on January 26, 1950.
What about section 35A?
This article allows the Assembly of the State of Jammu and Kashmir to define the status, rights and privileges of permanent residents and prohibits non-Kashmiri citizens from owning property in that state, it has been added in 1954 by presidential decree. From the point of view of the State of India, both Article 370 and Article 35A were intended to facilitate the integration of Kashmir and Kashmiris into the Indian community as a whole. For Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru who was originally from Kashmir, the accession of this province to the Indian Union was a political as well as sentimental issue. The question now before the Supreme Court is whether the President of India is empowered to repeal the specificities granted to Kashmir, whereas under the Constitution any amendment to the statute of that State must be ratified by its Assembly legislative. For the government, in the absence of the latter, which was dissolved in June 2018, it is the president of the Indian Union who inherits his prerogatives. It is by a presidential decree that the Indian authorities have abolished the special status of Jammu and Kashmir. This sleight of hand has emptied Article 370 of its substance.
While the special provisions were intended to facilitate the integration of Kashmir, they did not achieve their objective since the state has a violent separatist militancy that has since 1989 killed more than 70,000 people. How to explain this failed integration?
There are two reasons for this: the programmed erosion of autonomy and the corruption of the local political class. While in theory Kashmir has enjoyed independence from New Delhi since independence, over the years there has been a slow erosion of its special status, undermined by successive constitutional amendments. In 1965, for example, the provision allowing Kashmir to have a head of state appointed by the local legislature was removed and replaced by a governor appointed by the central government, as in the other states of the Union. In the same way, the head of the government lost the same year his right to keep the title of "Prime Minister". He has since become "chief minister" on a par with his colleagues in other states. Other status changes that occurred during the first decades of independence nibbled away at Kashmir's initial special status. Repeal putting an end to this special status is the last act of a long process that began in the years 1950-1960.
While it was still the Congress party that was in power in New Delhi ...
In reality, the forced integration imposed on Kashmir has nothing to do with the political color of the central government. For example, the militarization of this state took place under the center-left government of Congress, while it was under the regime of the Hindu government led by Atal Behari Vajpayee between 1999 and 2004 that the first bus line was opened between Srinagar, the capital of Indian Kashmir and Muzaffarabad, the chief town of Pakistani Kashmir. Interference by the central government, coupled with embezzlement of federal investments and electoral fraud in the provincial elections, fueled Kashmiri resentment over their own political class and New Delhi authorities. It is rather the disregard of the autonomy commitments by the central government rather than the special status in itself that is at the origin of the insurgency that has shaken Kashmir for more than 30 years. The central government's response has been to transform the state into " the most militarized region in the world, " Bill Clinton said in 2000.
The abrogation of the special status of Kashmir by the Hindu government of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was experienced as a surprise, as this proposal was in the BJP manifesto already in the 2014 elections that led Narendra Modi to the prime minister. Why then did this decision catch the observers off guard?
Indeed, one could expect it. In general, Kashmir is a sensitive subject in India for secularist parties as well as for Hindu religious fundamentalists. The integration of Kashmir in the Indian Union is in congressional DNA which is a center-left and deeply secularist party. At the time of independence in 1947, wresting from Maharaja Hari Singh the accession of his predominantly Muslim kingdom to an India whose citizens are 80% Hindu, was a great victory for Nehru and for his multicultural and secularist vision of nascent India. Hinduists, too, want to keep Kashmir, but in their terms.
What are these terms?
In the eyes of the leaders of the nationalist party, in power in New Delhi for 5 years and promoting a nationalism based on the collusion between ethnicity and political citizenship, only Hindus are the legitimate Indian citizens of India. In this context, for the Hindu nationalist psyche, a "Muslim" territory within their Hindu-majority country could benefit from special legal provisions allowing them to enjoy privileges, which are denied to other citizens, was an aberration. But Hinduists can not verbalize these objections without being pursued for "xenophobia" or "racism" because India remains a state of law, with secularism as a founding dogma. They therefore mobilize their fellow citizens by recalling that the implementation of Article 35A means that positive discrimination measures against low castes and tribal peoples, which apply everywhere else in India, can not be applied. in Jammu and Kashmir. One of the rhetorical arguments widely used by Hindu nationalists is: " You see that Kashmir is a misogynist and paternalistic state, as Kashmiri women marrying non-Kashmiris find themselves stripped of their prerogatives. on the ground ! But the real basic argument is that, consubstantially for a Hindu nationalist, it is impossible for an Indian territory populated by Muslim citizens to have specific rights and enjoy rights superior to the rest of the Indian citizens. But in public, the attack is on very political measures embodied in Article 35A. This explains why the repeal of all the provisions, including Article 370, has taken analysts by surprise, who thought that the government of Narendra Modi would first delete Article 35A.
The surprise was all the greater in that the repeal was accompanied by the introduction of a bill to divide the state of Jammu and Kashmir into two entities. What are the long-term implications of this transformation for Kashmiris?
The bill has since been endorsed by Parliament where the government has an overwhelming majority. In its initial version, the state of Jammu and Kashmir included the predominantly Hindu Plains of Jammu, the predominantly Muslim Srinagar Valley and the predominantly Buddhist Ladakh in the eastern part. According to the provisions of the new law, Jammu and Kashmir loses its status as a federated state to be demoted to the status of "territory of the Union". In fact, the government created two territories of the Union, one comprising Ladakh without a Legislative Assembly and the other composed of Jammu and Kashmir, but with a legislature. From the level of the autonomous state, Jammu and Kashmir moves to a lower level with less autonomy than the states of the Indian Union such as West Bengal or Tamil Nadu.
The main international response to the abrogation of Kashmir's autonomy came from Prime Minister Imran Khan who spoke about the possible flashover of the sub-region. Are we heading for a new war between India and Pakistan that have already fought four wars over Kashmir?
Since the announcement of the repeal, Pakistan has severed diplomatic relations with India. It is clear that the Indian decision respects a perfect timing . It occurs at the international level, in the heart of the summer break where chancelleries are relatively absent on the one hand. On the other hand, at the national level, the announcement of the change in the status of Kashmir precedes by a few days the speech of the Prime Minister on the state of the Union on the occasion of the anniversary of independence, the August 15th. International reactions have been, as the Indian government had predicted, more than timid to say nothing. China has reacted, except that today it is itself entangled in Hong Kong in a major protest movement. It will be difficult for him to give lessons of human rights to the Indians. In this context, what can Pakistan do as the sole defender of the Kashmiris?
This is a question that all Kashmiris must ask themselves these days ?
Unfortunately, Pakistan does not have the means to help them. Prime Minister Imran Khan denounced the " morally incorrect " decision made by New Delhi, while ruling out the military option against India. His country, which faces enormous economic problems, is also facing separatist movements within its own borders, particularly in Baluchistan. Admittedly, during the recent Pulwama crisis at the beginning of the year between the two enemy brothers in South Asia, Pakistan came out with a valued posture. By the admission of all serious analysts, it is Islamabad that for once appeared the most soothing and responsible of the two belligerents in de-escalation. But the "Land of the Pure", which has no political, economic or diplomatic means to launch a major action against India, must be content to make declarations. These are unlikely to be listened to.
(1) Doctor of Political Science, Charlotte Thomas directs the South Asia Program (SAProg) of the Noria Researchers Collective. She is the author of Pogroms and Ghetto: Muslims in Contemporary India (Karthala, 2018)