When word came that October 31 was celebrated by state authorities in Jammu and Kashmir as ‘Union Territory Foundation Day,’ I must confess to having felt subjugated rather in a colonial sort of way.
It seems a gleeful occupational metaphor that in that stricken part of the nation the political disempowerment and administrative dispossession of Kashmiris should become an occasion for official celebration.
The fanfare cancelling of Kashmiris’ “basic” constitutional right as citizens of the republic to elect their own government finally gives the ruling dispensation’s game away: where Article 370 was to be understood to be a ‘temporary’ arrangement, Union Territory status and benign central rule must be construed as permanent.
Thus a curiously comedic situation – more comedic than Pickwick Papers – confronts Kashmiris: while a plethora of political organisations are everyday ready and waiting to plunge into an enthusiastic electoral contest and win a famous victory, the holy grail is missing from the shelf.
There are zestful wedding guests, as it were, dressed in joyful finery. But no wedding is in the offing.
Nor does it seem that any shining knight on a white steed is about to materialise to restore either dignity or representative rule to Kashmiris.
Certainly, the honourable Supreme Court seems in no hurry to end the demeaning and potentially damaging insult and denial.
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Known for their philosophical stoicism, Kashmiris, it would seem, must continue to plough that subjective resource of meditative sufferance, and ascribe, as they often do, their circumstance to god’s will.
Smart and forward-looking Kashmiris may, of course, continue to see great beauties in what their curtailment to UT status (the only Indian state to have suffered that ignominy) has yielded, and message the same from constructive television shows anchored by Kashmiri professionals whose suspicious Urdu habits have now been suitably replaced by fluent nationalist Hindi.
Other ‘separatist’ Kashmiris had thought that the announcement of elections to five state assemblies would be when there would also be a sixth, namely Jammu and Kashmir, so that they could make their deleteriously democratic propaganda
They forgot that Jammu and Kashmir continues to enjoy a special status, albeit not of their imagination.
Still others speculate whether such special status may not, after all, be conducive to the furtherance of right-wing ambitions of one-party rule countrywide.
You see, the bad example of Kashmiris reinforces the need to impose the good example of the ruling BJP’s political base whose adoration of the great leader and the no-nonsense might of the forces alone ensures vishwaguru (world leader) ascendance for Bharat that is not India.
Sensible Kashmiris had therefore best realise the sterling service they perform for making Bharat great again simply by agreeing to be made a naughty example of.
It seems a safe bet to assume that not until the results of the general elections of April or May, 2024 are with us may gentle Kashmiris know what is in store for them constitutionally or democratically.
Till then, there are sports and other apolitically healthful diversions that Kashmiris had best learn to embrace with intelligent acceptance.
Badri Raina taught at Delhi University.
