Bharat Bhushan - Governance to peace: Challenges before the new Lt Governor of J&K // Pooja Shali - Unkept Promises: Pandits in Kashmir battling endless wait for jobs, help
At his swearing in
ceremony, Manoj Sinha, the new Lieutenant Governor of the Union Territory (UT)
of J&K listed his priorities as accelerating development, rebuilding
people’s faith in democracy and the return of peace. He will have to rethink
whether he might not have listed them in the reverse order. However, the political
situation has been made difficult for him even before his swearing in. Chief
Secretary B V R Subrahmanyam ruffled the state’s mainstream political parties
by claiming that they lacked public support.
He told visiting journalists, “Jammu
and Kashmir was a broken state and there was no system in place due to
years of mis-governance, corruption and unbelievable levels of fraud committed
by leaders of mainstream political parties and separatist organisations. There,
not a single soul cried over the detention of political and separatist leaders
in August last year.” In turn the National Conference has accused him of
breaching the neutrality expected of a civil servant and speaking “above his
pay grade”
Sinha could have done
without the Chief Secretary’s gaffe given that these are the only political
elements in J&K that he will have to work with. The political mood in
J&K should be evident from the fact that less than half a dozen
politicians, three of them from the government sponsored J&K Apani Party,
attended Sinha’s inauguration. They cannot form the core of the process of
restarting any political process – their public legitimacy is even less than
that apparently enjoyed by the mainstream politicians.
J&K is a political
mine-field. Two of Manoj Sinha’s predecessors, Satya Pal Malik as Governor of
the undivided state, and G C Murmu as Lt. Governor of the truncated UT, could
not navigate it successfully. Malik left with his reputation in tatters after
he prevented government formation in the state in November 2018. He said that
he had not received the letter from Peoples Democratic Party leader Mehbooba
Mufti claiming a majority as the fax machine in his office was out of order. He
then proceeded to dissolve the legislative assembly. Again, he deliberately
lied to the political leaders in the state about the impending developments of
August 5, 2019. This prompted former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah’s tweet that
Satya Pal had not lived up to his name meaning one who abides by truth: “Only
naam ka Satya, not kaam ka”.
Unkept Promises: Pandits in Kashmir battling endless wait for jobs
Unkept Promises: Pandits in Kashmir battling endless wait for jobs
After years of endless wait,
the Pandit community sees hope in getting political support with the
appointment of Manoj Sinha as the new Lieutenant Governor of Jammu and Kashmir.
Kashmiri Pandit Sangharash Samiti (KPSS), representing (non-migrant) Hindus
residing in the Kashmir valley, has demanded immediate intervention
regarding rising unemployment. The group has threatened to go on “fast unto
death if demands are not fulfilled”. "We face mental torture. Years of
bureaucratic negligence, the ongoing conflict and now the lockdown has caused
immense pain to the Pandit youth. Almost 500 people still await government
appointments although the high court granted approval for the same in 2019,”
said Sanjay Tickoo, activist and president of KPSS. Tickoo has been
receiving a deluge of calls from the Pandit community due to rising job losses.
“Pandits, who continue to live in Kashmir (non-migrants), are at crossroads.
Our numbers are dwindling, no special package has been announced and even jobs
are not provided now. Our survival is at risk,” he said.
His successor Murmu
was not removed for “exceeding his brief” by announcing that elections will be
held in the UT following delimitation. Murmu and Chief Secretary Subrahmanyam
did not see eye to eye on many issues. The Lieutenant Governor’s complaints of
bureaucratic non-cooperation apparently did not go down well with his patrons
in Delhi, especially as he had failed to build a positive narrative in J&K.
However, Lady Luck clearly prefers imparting a tight kick upstairs to her
favourites in distress. Murmu was removed from J&K but immediately rewarded
with appointment as the Comptroller and Auditor General of India.
Will Sinha find his
task of restarting the political process any easier than his predecessors? He
can begin by helping to restore the statehood of J&K. The Centre is
amenable to it and it is a demand supported by the National Conference and the
Congress. Earlier, the Centre had apparently wanted to hold elections to the UT
legislative assembly first and then, based on an assembly resolution, restore
statehood. However, immediate assembly elections would have required
delimitation of constituencies for the new UT – an ongoing exercise that is being
boycotted by the National Conference and the Peoples’ Democratic Party.
The mainstream parties
in the Valley fear that delimitation may be manipulated to reduce the number of
Muslim-dominated constituencies and inflate the number of constituencies in the
Jammu region. These reservations suggest that assembly elections may not be
possible without first restoring statehood. The delimitation exercise may then
have to be postponed, perhaps to 2026 along with the rest of India. A
recommendation to this effect to the Centre could be Sinha’s first peace
gesture towards the people of J&K.
Yet another crucial
decision would have to be about issuing domicile certificates. Sinha will have
to determine whether it should be a one-time exercise to accommodate those
already living in J&K but not domiciled under previous laws, a continuous
process or should it be slowed down to allay fears of demographic change?
The uncertainties
about restarting the political process would remain even with the statehood
restored. After equivocal statements, the National Conference has been forced
to reiterate the demand for the restoration of J&K’s special status. Former
Chief Minister and PDP leader Mehbooba Mufti remains under arrest. However,
even when she is released she is unlikely to adopt a soft approach on the
issue.
J&K needs not only
change at the top but a well-considered political blueprint for establishing
peace. This means reconciliation not only with the people, but also with
Pakistan and now, given the Ladakh incursions, even with China. The process
will have to value India’s asymmetric federalism and see variations in degrees
of state autonomy as the strength of the Indian Union rather than its weakness.
This is a very big ask from the present dispensation in Delhi with its
homogenising, unitary and majoritarian politics. Changing governors and
bureaucrats is not going to achieve this basic goal. Yet a politician
like Manoj Sinha may help ease the immediate pain of the
people by facilitating the release of political prisoners, prevent arbitrary
arrests, provide channels of communication with his administration, and make
governance accountable. His most important task, however, will be to negotiate
some room for independent and imaginative political thinking rather than let
himself be the blunt instrument of Delhi. Otherwise, there will be little
advantage in replacing an obedient bureaucrat with a politician as Lieutenant
Governor.
