Autonomy to insurgency

In the summer of 2004, Ramachandra Guha published an essay titled 'Opening a Window in Kashmir'. It focused on a long-forgotten episode in the troubled history of the state: Sheikh Abdullah's visit to Rawalpindi and Muzaffarabad in 1964—an attempt to find a lasting solution to the dispute that was scotched by the death of Jawaharlal Nehru. The essay offered a tantalizing preview of Guha's ongoing work on the history of independent India. This episode would figure prominently in the book he would publish three years later, India after Gandhi. There, Guha would argue that this interlude threw interesting light on the life and work of Nehru, who had valiantly sought to uphold democracy and secularism after Gandhi's death, but failed to live up to his own commitments in Kashmir.

The essay of 2004 is also interesting because here the historian sought to draw 'lessons' for the policymaker. Any solution of the Kashmir dispute, he wrote, would have to satisfy the conditions outlined by Sheikh Abdullah forty years earlier: 'that it must not lead to a sense of victory for either India or Pakistan; that it must make the minorities more secure in both countries; and that it must satisfy the aspirations of the people of Kashmir themselves'. This essay was written against the backdrop of a recently declared ceasefire on the Line of Control in Kashmir and the kindling of hopes of a renewed peace process under a new Congress-led coalition government.

Sixteen years on, these hopes have curdled. On 5 August 2019, the Government of India issued a presidential order under Article 370, nullifying the constitutionally guaranteed autonomy of Jammu and Kashmir. The same day, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government led by Narendra Modi tabled and passed a bill dividing and reducing the state into two union territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh. In ramming this legislation through the houses of Parliament, the government advanced several specious historical claims: that Article 370 was a 'temporary' provision; that by preventing the complete 'integration' of the state, the article had fostered separatism and terrorism as well as creating a corrupt political class that had thwarted the development of the state.

The history of the Kashmir problem, however, suggests that these hopes are likely to prove unfounded. For it was not the grant of autonomy that set the stage for organized violence, but the abandonment of constitutional pledges and the hollowing out of the state's autonomy. The crucial period in this turn from quest for autonomy to the onset of insurgency were the long years stretching from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s on which the hinge of India's contemporary history turned. Kashmir, of course, had its own peculiarities. In the years after his visit to Pakistan, Abdullah remained important to Indian governments, especially under Indira Gandhi, in their quest at once to congeal the status quo and cement New Delhi's legitimacy in the state. The eventual outcome was not predetermined, but rather shaped by conjunctures and choices. Examining these is important not just to understand the history of Kashmir, but to sharpen our judgements about its potential futures.

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We pick up the story of Kashmir from 1967: three years after Sheikh Abdullah's trip to Pakistan and during his subsequent spell of incarceration. By this time, Kashmir's autonomy had been substantially whittled away. A capsule history of these developments is essential context for the subsequent period.

The maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir acceded to the Indian Union in October 1947. The Instrument of Accession specified only three subjects for accession: foreign affairs, defence and communications. In March 1948, the maharaja appointed an interim government in the state, with Sheikh Abdullah as prime minister. The interim government was also tasked with convening an Assembly for framing a Constitution for the state. Meantime, the Constituent Assembly of India was conducting its deliberations. Sheikh Abdullah and three of his colleagues joined the Indian Constituent Assembly as members in May 1949. Over the next five months, they negotiated Kashmir's future relationship with India. This led to the adoption of Article 370 in the Indian Constitution.

Article 370 restricted the Union's legislative power over Kashmir to the three subjects in the Instrument of Accession. To extend other provisions of the Indian Constitution, the state government's prior concurrence would have to be obtained. Further, this concurrence would have to be upheld by the Constituent Assembly of Kashmir, so that the provisions would be reflected in the state's Constitution. This implied that after Kashmir's Constituent Assembly was convened, the state government's concurrence would not suffice. Further, once the Kashmir Constituent Assembly met, framed the state's Constitution and dissolved, there could be no further extension of the Union's legislative power. It was thus that the state's autonomy was guaranteed by the Indian Constitution.

The Constituent Assembly of Kashmir met for the first time in November 1951. Even as it got down to its work, Abdullah wanted to depose the maharaja and end dynastic rule in Kashmir. Nehru had no love lost for the maharaja. But the move to depose the ruler raised serious constitutional issues; for the maharaja was recognized by the president of India. More importantly, it underscored the need to settle the broad principles governing the relationship between Kashmir and India. This was necessary to ensure that Kashmir's Constitution consorted smoothly with that of India. Following intense negotiations, Nehru and Abdullah concluded an accord in July 1952.

Under the 'Delhi Agreement' the Union's authority would be confined to the three subjects of accession; the residuary powers would be vested in the Kashmir government. The residents of the state would be citizens of India but the state legislature would define and regulate their rights and privileges. The head of the state would be recognized by the president of India on the recommendation of the state legislature. Delhi could only exercise emergency powers on the request of the state government. These were the contours of the 'pre-1953' autonomous status for Kashmir.

Unfortunately, the accord failed to hold. The Delhi Agreement came under intense attack by the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (precursor to the BJP) and the Praja Parishad in Jammu (a Dogra Hindu organization), both of which demanded complete integration of the state into India. Painted into a corner by these forces, Abdullah began toying with a variety of alternatives, including independence or a condominium of India and Pakistan for the whole state or the Valley. This set the stage for his dismissal, with Nehru's own approval, and imprisonment.

Thereafter, successive Indian governments sought to shore up their slipping hold on Kashmir by planting pliant governments in Srinagar and by creatively undermining the state's autonomy.

(Excerpted with permission from Srinath Raghavan and Nandini Sundar's A Functioning Anarchy; published by Penguin Random House)