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| Autonomy for J&K: Apprehensions of Jagmohan are valid | | | RUSTAM
EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, Mar 21: Releasing a book 'Vyathit Jammu and Kashmir" in New Delhi on Saturday (March 20), former Jammu and Kashmir Governor Jagmohan warned that grant of more autonomy to the state "will create problems". "The demand for autonomy is the charter of Jammu and Kashmir disintegration from India, It will lead to more problems as such demands will increase from other quarters…After 1953, various sections of governance were integrated with Jammu and Kashmir. If the state is provided with autonomy of the pre-1953 status, who will fund the government, how will people get their salaries and who will audit the accounts?"
Jagmohan is right. Grant of more autonomy to the state would not only enable Kashmir to assume independence afterwards and enslave the people of Jammu and Ladakh and other religious and ethnic minorities in the state, but would also embolden anti-India forces in other parts of the country to put forth similar demands. There are forces in the North East, Punjab and elsewhere, including Andhra Pradesh, who are working day and night to dismember India. These forces also enjoy the backing of Pakistan, China and other anti-India countries. Nepal has, of late, also joined the category of states overtly and covertly helping the India-based secessionists, Maoists terrorists included.
In other words, Jagmohan has only hit the nail on the head by saying "the demand for autonomy is charter of Jammu and Kashmir's disintegration from India".
What would the restoration of pre-1953 politico-constitutional status mean? It would mean withdrawal of all the Central laws from the state, which were extended to it after August 9, 1953, when the then Jammu and Kashmir Wazir-e-Azam Sheikh Abdullah was dethroned and arrested on the charge that his activities had harmed the paramount national interest. The Congress took this action and said: "Kashmir is lost to us".
The pre-1953 politico-constitutional status would mean withdrawal from the state all the Central institutions, including the Supreme Court of India, office of the Comptroller and Auditor General, Election Commission of India. It would also mean withdrawal of Article 312 of the Indian Constitution under which Al India Services were extended to the state in 1958. Besides, it would mean revival of the offices of Sadar-e-Riyasat (who would be elected by and committed to the state government) and Wazir-e-Azam (it was on March 30, 1965 that these nomenclatures were replaced with Governor and Chief Minister); repeal of the Jammu and Kashmir Constitution of 1957 and restoration of the Jammu and Kashmir Constitutional Act of 1939 under which (Section 75) the Council of Ministers, and not the judiciary, would be the final interpreter of the constitution; and debar the Union President from issuing Constitution Application Orders extending jurisdiction of the Centre to the state in matters other than the original three subjects of Defence, Foreign Affairs and communication.
Not only this, such an arrangement would bar the Union Government from declaring emergency in the state in case of break down of constitutional machinery. In other words, restoration of pre-1953 position would mean a step short of complete independence and the re-establishment of a local oligarchy where the ruling elite would exercise absolute legislative, executive and judicial powers and the people would be deprived of even those normal civil and political rights they have been enjoying under the State Constitution. It would also mean the negation of the efforts put in by the Congress and the patriotic forces in the state to bring Jammu and Kashmir closer to New Delhi.
Neither the Union Government nor the state government can afford to think in terms of conferring the status on the state it enjoyed before 1953. The reason is that a vast majority of the people in the state is against the concept of autonomy. Any attempt on the part of anyone to force down the unwilling people of the state the perverted autonomy concept would mean revolt in Jammu and Ladakh and in the Pandit refugee camps, all struggling to join the secular national mainstream.
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