Dr.Media’s Rx for patient Kashmir

As Jammu and Kashmir burns, we now have prescriptions handed in by the media on what the Indian Government should do to cure the “Kashmir” problem. Normally, Hindustan Times (HT) and Times of India (TOI) are bitter rivals, but uncannily both Vir Sangvi in HT (Think the Unthinkable) and Swaminathan S Ankleswaria Iyer in TOI on Sunday (17th August) have come to the same prescription vis a vis ailing Kashmir, i.e hold a plebiscite and decide if Kashmir should continue to be with India, go to Pakistan, or be independent. Vir Sanghvi pads up his prescription by narrating the economic costs of holding on to Kashmir, in terms of whooping and disproportionate central assistance, with per capita funds allocated being Rs 9754 against just Rs 876 allocated for Bihar, that too, 90% as grant. He narrates the defence expenses both in terms of actual cost and loss of lives in Kashmir. He states that despite all overtures made by India, and fair elections held (in 2002), Kashmiris still do not consider themselves as Indian, so there should be a plebiscite to decide once and for all about who “Kashmir” wants to throw its lot with. He says that Kashmir will not be able to survive at all without the money that India throws in the State. So if they perish by exercising the choice to break away from India, it will be their funeral, and good riddance to India, who can then get on with its growth saga without the Kashmir irritant holding it back.

Swaminathan Iyer has donned his ‘liberal’ hat, and says that true democracy means that the people of Kashmir should also have a choice to secede from India, if that is indeed the popular demand, and therefore he also would root for a plebiscite. The liberalest-of- them- all Madame Arundhati Roy has also expectedly said that Kashmir should separate from India and India from Kashmir. Valley politicians like Omar Abdulla in an interview on a channel in TV has lost no time in referring to Vir Singhvi’s views in claiming support of the Indian ‘intelligentsia’ to the Kashmir cause of separation.

If you ask me as an ordinary law abiding tax-paying citizen of India, who abides by the spirit of the Constitution of India, I think both these scribes and of course Madame Roy should be sued by the Union of India for explicit abetment for treason and sedition, immediately.

As politically aware scribes, if not Madame Roy, who according to me, talks just good English for the English speaking global gallery of pseudo-intellectuals, and very little sense, at least Vir Sanghvi and Swaminathan Iyer are expected to know that the Constitution of India does not provide for any State to secede, and that includes the State of Jammu and Kashmir. [ In USA, there are conflicting legal views if post Civil War, after the Fourteenth amendment, whether any State has a right to secede any more, but the Constitutional provision has not been put to acid test so far, as no State has wanted to secede from the USA, the super-power]. The point to note in case of India is that no enabling provision to secede exists in case of the Indian Constitution, at all. Are these scribes now prescribing that the Constitution of India should be amended to let their quack prescription of ailing Kashmir be tested? Swaminathan Aiyer states piously after 61 years of Independence that since the instrument of accession of Kashmir came with an assurance for plebiscite which never happened, it should happen now. He glosses over the fact that the instrument of accession pre-dates insertion of Article 370 in the Constitution, and hence the conditionalities, if any, got superceded by events.

What do these scribes mean in comparing British ‘domination’ of India and the Indian resentment with ‘Indian’ domination of Kashmir and Kashmiri resentment? Do they mean to say that there is nothing common between ethnicity and cultural traditions of Kashmir valley and the rest of India? Has the Union of India ever used Kashmir as a colony, exploiting its resources, treating its people as second class citizens in their own homeland, as the British had done to Indians? Do the Kashmiris not enjoy autonomy as Indian citizens in other Indian States do, in fact the hard fact is that they have more autonomy than any other State of India. The problem actually has been that Indian Government has unduly dealt Kashmir with kid-gloves, ever sensitive to all (real and imaginary) grievances, like having a highly discriminatory provision like Article 370 in the Constitution, pumping disproportionate resources in the State, much of which get used by the unscrupulous valley politicians to feather their own respective nests and plot against the Union of India.

It is particularly appalling how not a single write up in the English media mentions that the land transfer to the Shrine Board, which triggered off the present unrest, was in fact perfectly valid under Article 370. The Shrine Board is a juridical entity of the State. Any transfer of land done by the State of J&K under due process of law from one juridical entity (Department of Forest) to another (the Shrine Board) of the State itself is valid under Article 370. When valley politicians say that Indian Government has a nefarious agenda in the land transfer, it is they who are speaking extra-constitutionally, and have successfully whipped up a communal fervour, giving it a veneer of ‘self determination’, which is now gleefully lapped up by the ‘liberal’ English media rooting for plebiscite.

So Vir Sangvi et al feels that the movement for a separate Kashmir has popular support, and reflect the will of the people. Can he explain what sudden changes have happened in the ‘psyche’ of the people just with one incident of land transfer to the Shrine Board? Was it not solely because of the religious colour it was given immediately by the valley politicians? As a senior scribe, does Vir Sanghvi not realise that it takes little to instigate masses to identify with the dream merchants for any ‘cause’ well packaged and timed to appeal to basic survival instincts of sections of people? Otherwise why does even a pygmy like Raj Thackeray have a following? India is perceived as a soft State. Scribes like Vir Sanghvi wants India to change that ‘perception’ into an ‘act of commitment’. In pleading for a plebiscite in Kashmir, the lackadaisical manner in which Vir Sangvi has dismissed the militancy of different groups in the North Eastern States, stating that they ‘more or less’ identify with the Indian union, and hence the problem is not so focussed elsewhere, is a deliberate irresponsible soft-pedalling of the whole issue.

India is surrounded by unfriendly countries. Well, a country cannot choose its existing neighbours. Vir Sangvi has felt that if Kashmir, post secession, perishes, that will be its choice, while India will be better off to pursue its economic growth trajectory without Kashmir. He cannot afford to be as naive as that. A Kashmir seceded from India will be a poor free for all banana ‘republic’ open to all kinds of drug and arms trafficking, and a heaven for Islamist terrorists. Can India afford to have such a neighbour, if it can help that? As long as Jammu and Kashmir is a part of India, the ball is still in India’s court to bring back normalcy and act in the interest of Union of India.

Sometimes, the cross of democracy can be very heavy to bear.

 

http://aditi-ray.sulekha.com/blog/post/2008/08/dr-media-s-rx-for-patient-kashmir.htm