New Delhi: The Supreme Court judgement on reading down Article 370 of the constitution couldn’t have come at a more opportune moment for the government as the Rajya Sabha passed two major pieces of legislation regarding Jammu and Kashmir on Monday, December 11. They had been cleared in the Lok Sabha on December 6.
The Bills in question Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation (Amendment) Bill, 2023 seeks to amend the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019; and the Jammu & Kashmir Reservation (Amendment) Bill, 2023 aims to amend the Jammu and Kashmir Reservation Act, 2004. The stated intent of the Bills is to nominate two members from the “Kashmiri migrant community” and one representing the displaced persons from Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) to the J&K legislative assembly.
Responding to the Bills, Union home minister Amit Shah spent a majority of the time waxing eloquent on the apex court verdict and his government’s decision to abrogate Article 370 in 2019, impose Central rule, divide the state, and not hold assembly elections. Shah blamed India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru for all the ills plaguing the state and said there are several states in India where the population of Muslims is higher as compared to J and K. “Yet, why is it that terrorism plagued this state? It is only because of Article 370,” he said.
Twisting the knife into the opposition, he added, “All of what the opposition has been saying all along has been negated by the Supreme Court. The opposition should not have come to the House for the next one month out of depression.”
The opposition walked out before the Bills were passed at what they said was constant heckling by the Treasury Benches, which chairman Jagdeep Dhankar did not discourage.
On Shah reiterating that PoK is a part of India, Shiv Sena MP Priyanka Chaturvedi said, “I agree with Amit Shah that PoK is an integral part of India. Since this is a golden age where the Prime Minister is vishwaguru and we have a home minister like we’ve never had before, then I would urge them to bring back PoK and hold elections to the seats that have been reserved from PoK.”
Shah said PoK is Indian territory and India will never yield an inch of it. He was, however, silent on Aksai Chin.
However, the two legislations that will now be sent to the President for her assent are being viewed as an attempt by the Centre to tweak the political landscape to its advantage ahead of the Lok Sabha elections by wooing the Kashmiri Pandits and the Pahadia community of the state.
In his reply to the discussion on the Bills, Shah said, “Earlier there were 37 seats in Jammu which have now become 43. Earlier there were 46 seats in Kashmir earlier which have now become 47, and 24 seats have been reserved for Pakistan-occupied Kashmir because POK is ours.” Shah, in effect, reiterated the position India has held historically.
Representational image. Himachal Pradesh Assembly. Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Aj Ajay Mehta 007/ CC BY-SA 4.0 DEED.
The legislative assembly initially had 100 members, including 24 for PoJK, up to 1988 when the seats were increased to 111. The 24 seats were, however, not taken into consideration during the quorum which is why the total contestable seats were 87, including four for Ladakh. After delimitation in 2020, the total number of seats rose to 114 which included the seats for PoJK. But it is the number of nominated seats that has raised eyebrows.
It is believed that these members will mainly be Kashmiri Pandits from the Valley, tilting the balance away from a Muslim-majority Valley. “Earlier there were 107 seats in the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly, now there are 114 seats. Earlier there were two nominated members in the Assembly, now there will be five,” Shah said. The state governor has the power to nominate these members of which two will be women, one a Kashmiri migrant, and one from PoJK, Shah said.
Protests had broken out especially in the Valley when the draft of the Delimitation report was submitted because it was felt the criterion of population was ignored. Kashmir accounted for 56% of the population per the 2011 census which formed the basis for the delimitation exercise.
This time around, in his reply to the House, Shah was careful not to mention Aksai Chin in the same breath as PoJK. While this Chinese-occupied territory is part of the Union territory of Ladakh, no seats have been reserved in the Assembly from here traditionally, an anamoly that was not corrected either in the delimitation exercise or the state reorganisation Bills.
Kashmiri Pandits apart, the bill is being seen as targeting the Muslim majority Pahadia community that inhabits primarily the hilly and border areas of the state and whom the BJP sees as a promising vote bank.
That Pahadias be classified as OBCs was based on a recommendation of the G.D. Sharma Commission constituted in March 2020 to review reservations for different categories. The Commission had recommended the classification of new groups as Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes and the re-christening of the “social castes” category in J&K as “other backward classes”.
The pahadias have been given Scheduled Tribe status and nine seats in the new Act have been reserved for Scheduled Tribes. That is not all. The Act seeks to change the nomenclature of a section of people who were earlier described as “weak and underprivileged classes (social castes)” to “other backward classes”, so they can seek quotas in appointments and admissions. Significantly, the Pahadias will get a 4% quota in jobs under their new found status.
Congress MP Digvijay Singh said while reserving these quotas the government should not take away the rights of the other communities. “Contractors are being brought in from outside and taking away jobs meant for the locals. The state population has no voice and no stake and little participation with outsiders ruling the show,” he added.
This was echoed last week by Asauddin Owaisi, All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) MP said. “The government is subverting the mandate of the people by controlling the levers from Delhi,” he had said. “Why reserve seats for Pandits- name them,” he had said about the nominated members. He also said the definition of “displaced persons” does not include Muslims who “in 1989, when the Army went into their areas in Keran, Karna, Poonch, Rajouri, several villagers were forced to migrate to PoK. Of these 3% are Muslims, the rest are Pahadias and Gujjars and yet there is no mention of them in the Bill.”
Last week, outside the House, in response to Amit Shah accusing Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister of blundering on Kashmir, National Conference president, Farooq Abdullah had said, “They don’t share the complete facts. For instance, they say our forces could have marched to Muzaffarabad in Pakistan. The truth is in order to save Poonch and Rajouri, the Army had to be diverted there. That’s the reason these areas are a part of India today or these too would have gone to Pakistan.”
On why did India have to take the Kashmir issue to the United Nations, Abdullah had said, “There was no other way in those circumstances then. Lord Mountbatten and others advised accordingly and even Sardar (Vallabhai) Patel agreed that we need to go to the United Nations. Now, these people are misleading the people. What can one do. But at that point of time, there was no way out. The UNSC kept those who were attacked and those who attacked on the same pedestal instead of taking on those who attacked India. They did this because there was pressure from the United States. The US was on the side of Pakistan.”
