State of the debate

THE ADOPTION OF the controversial State Autonomy Report by the Jammu and Kashmir Legislature, whatever the motivation of the Chief Minister, Dr. Farooq Abdullah, in embarking upon the ``gimmick'' as his detractors would call it, has undoubtedly served to set the stage for a national debate on an acknowledgedly critical aspect of the Kashmir problem. Given the ruling National Conference's two-thirds majority in the House, the denouement should come as no surprise, although the Chief Minister had earlier claimed that the Government had no intention of getting a formal resolution passed by the Assembly. Driven as he was by political compulsions to ``demonstrate'' his credentials as the champion of autonomy and to redeem his party's poll commitment, Dr. Abdullah cannot possibly be expected to deny himself the opportunity of capitalising on the SAC report to the maximum by stopping with a mere debate in the House. The tragic part of it all, however, was that the six-day debate ended as it started, with the ruling establishment and the Opposition bending all their energies to scoring political points rather than addressing the core autonomy-related issues and taking an informed position on the various proposals made by the SAC. What little substantive discussion was there threw up a sharp dichotomous divide, so to say, with one side swearing by the panel report and the other rejecting it outright.

In practical terms, the fact that the SAC report has been approved by the State Legislature does not amount to much; it is not as if the last word has been said on the autonomy package or the recommendations made by the panel have become sacrosanct. Far from it. If the idea of restricting the Union's domain to Defence, External Affairs and Communications sounds too romantic, the proposal to bar the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, the Comptroller and Auditor General and the Election Commission, as it obtained before 1953, seems out of sync with the ground realities. And, debatable are the panel's recommendation on `fundamental rights' and provisions relating to the declaration of a state of emergency. For his part, Dr. Farooq Abdullah has made it known that the National Conference was not dogmatic about its stand on the SAC report and was open to a discussion. Given the history of regional and subregional rivalries/identities, any autonomy package for the State that does not envisage a viable decentralised regime at the inter-regional and intra-regional levels is unlikely to get popular support, much less deliver. In this context, the fact that the people of Jammu and Ladakh regions have not been taken into confidence and their apprehensions of a possible accentuation of neglect have not allayed by the Government before pushing for the adoption of the SAC report is a striking lapse.

Now that the `autonomy' demand has got the State Legislature's sanction, the Centre can no longer skirt the issue. It is for the NDA regime to respond in a manner consistent with the national imperative of reversing the alienation of the people of Jammu and Kashmir. After all, two Prime Ministers in the recent past have committed themselves to ``maximum autonomy'' within the Constitutional framework, which in itself is a recognition that the special status for the State under the Instrument of Accession has suffered progressive erosion and needs to be restored. Any credible autonomy package has to draw substantially upon the special provisions under Article 370, the one which the BJP wants to be scrapped. The Union Home Minister, Mr. L. K. Advani's response - that Parliament would be brought into the picture - is unexceptionable. While the agenda of the ruling coalition makes no reference to abrogation of Article 370, it will be interesting to see how far the Government is prepared to go in honouring the spirit of that Article, which symbolises the nation's commitment to the State made at the time of its accession.

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