Opinion - Editorials

A meaningful initiative

AT LONG LAST and with the crucial Assembly elections less than three months away, the Atal Behari Vajpayee Government has persuaded itself to taking the first meaningful initiative in the matter of addressing Jammu and Kashmir's core concern of `autonomy'. Two full years after summarily rejecting a related resolution by the State Legislature demanding a return to the pre-1953 position, it has nominated the former Law Minister, Arun Jaitley, to discuss autonomy-related specifics primarily with the State Government, which has named a senior Minister, Ghulam Mohiuddin Shah, as its interlocutor. Although the Centre has always been talking only of `greater devolution of powers'— the word `autonomy' is anathema to the ruling coalition's lead partner (BJP) and for obvious reasons — it now seems inclined to have the question looked at on the basis of the Sheikh Abdullah-Indira Gandhi Agreement of 1975, and this indeed is a positive development. By the same token, the Jaitley mission is more focussed and better conceived than that of K.C. Pant, floated in April 2001 as a `dialogue window' of the whomsoever-it-may-concern variety, with no clear target or purpose. Small wonder then that the `Pant initiative' proved unfruitful.

As a proposition, the 1975 accord as the basis for an autonomy package makes eminent sense. No one ever really believed — this includes the National Conference which swears by the State Autonomy Committee report — that the `pre-1953' line is practicable or, for that matter, is in the best interests of Jammu and Kashmir or the nation. In fact, given the organic nature of Centre-State relations in a federal system, it would be foolhardy to stick dogmatically to any particular cut-off year for the restoration of status quo ante. Yet, as a viable framework to work upon, the 1975 agreement is regarded as the best bet by a substantial segment of expert opinion. Notably, inter alia, it reaffirmed Article 370 and vested residuary powers in the State, with Parliament remaining empowered to make laws to protect the sovereignty and integrity of India. What is of the essence is that the aim should be to evolve an arrangement that respects the State's unique political heritage rooted in the historical circumstances surrounding its accession to India, even while it recognises the ground realities and is in accordance with the evolving federal system. It will, however, be a mockery to restrict the scope of the new initiative to `autonomy' issues in such soft areas of governance as welfare, culture, personal laws and legal procedures.

For all its positive aspects, the Jaitley mission has shades of a poll gimmick, played out as much by the BJP as by its partner in the ruling coalition at the Centre, Farooq Abdullah's National Conference. Consider the facts. After obdurately refusing to countenance Jammu and Kashmir's `autonomy' concerns for two years, the Vajpayee regime chooses to initiate a dialogue on the eve of the Assembly poll. On the other hand, the NC that came to power in 1996 on the autonomy plank — and had little compunction in sharing power with a patently anti-secular party that swore by the ideological objective of abrogation of Article 370 — has nothing to show by way of `achievement' and is therefore forced to fall back on the same plank again for the elections, but with little credibility. And, now, an obliging BJP leadership has come up with the new initiative presumably to enable the NC to claim some `credit'. Or, could it be that the autonomy dialogue is in the nature of a trade-off for what the Centre proposes to demand of the National Conference leadership in the context of its commitment to free and fair elections? If such misgivings are to be dispelled and the Jaitley mission's stated objective of addressing the genuine autonomy concerns is to carry conviction, the BJP leadership must come out openly and in unequivocal terms that Jammu and Kashmir's special Constitutional status as symbolised by the spirit of Article 370 would not be undermined.

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