news details |
|
|
| NC-PDP two sides of one and the same coin, seeking to break India | | | RUSTAM
EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, Oct 9: The People's Democratic Party's February 11, 2007 Jammu resolution, among several other very controversial things, also says: "The use of force is no substitute for a policy of engagement and dialogue. Armed forces are meant for extraordinary situations and crisis. They are not meant to find solutions to political problems. People's Democratic Party has, in a previous resolution, called upon the Government of India to reduce the strength of armed forces, engage in anti-militancy operations…The local police battalions can be raised to meet the challenge of internal security and to fight militants. The armed forces Special Powers Act should be withdrawn as conditions have substantially improved in the state (read Kashmir) and resort to use of this legislation is proving counter-productive and detrimental to the peace process and dialogue…" (AFSPA was introduced in the state in 1990 when Mufti Mohammad Sayeed was the Union Home Minister.)
The message of the People's Democratic Party is loud and clear. The message is that it wants a dispensation outside the political and constitutional organization of India, with Pakistan and India sharing sovereignty in the Indian Jammu and Kashmir, plus the state demilitarization and porous Line of Control and irrelevant borders. Leave aside its demand for dual currency, economic independence and so on.
The National Conference says almost the same thing. It, unlike the pro-internal sovereignty People's Democratic Party, is pro-internal autonomy. The meaning is the same - nothing to do with the Indian Constitution.
The National Conference says that the root cause of 21-year-old separatist movement and estrangement of the Kashmiri Muslims is the deep-rooted conspiracy hatched by New Delhi and its henchmen in Jammu and Kashmir to bypass the October 26, 1947 Instrument of Accession, the January 26, 1950 Constitution Application Order and the July 24, 1952 "Delhi Agreement", under which the state was to enjoy maximum internal autonomy - and to bring Jammu and Kashmir surreptitiously under the purview of Central laws and institutions like the Supreme Court of India, the Comptroller and Auditor-General of India, the Election Commission of India, et al, and thereby on a par with other states of the Union, and erode the so-called Kashmiriyat. (There doesn't exist anything like Delhi Agreement, It was just a statement made by the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Jammu and Kashmir Wazir-e-Azam Sheikh Abdullah in the Parliament and the Jammu and Kashmir Constituent-cum-Legislative Assembly, respectively, on July 24, 1952. There is no signed agreement - a fact acknowledged by the National Conference itself during a seminar on autonomy, held in Srinagar some nine years ago.)
The National Conference also puts forth a solution that, according to it, alone could assuage the hurt feelings of the alienated Kashmiri Muslims and solve the nearly 63-year-old "Kashmir problem." Its solution is that the Centre must withdraw forthwith all the Central laws and institutions extended to the state after August 9, 1953, restore without any delay the pre-1953 constitutional status and meet all its financial needs.
Interestingly, while doing so, it makes no reference to the 1975 Indira-Sheikh accord under which the latter got the Chief Minister's office on a platter the same year much against the wishes of the local Congress that commanded an absolute majority in both the Legislative Assembly and the Legislative Council. Similarly, it also suppresses the fact the Sheikh had appointed, under clause III of the 1975 accord, a high-powered three-member Cabinet sub-committee in 1977 under DD Thakur to go into the whole gamut of Central laws extended to the state and recommend withdrawal of those Central laws which it deemed harmful to the state's special politico-economic and socio-religious rights and interests. Besides, it also suppresses the fact that it itself allowed more than 15 central laws to be extended to the state after the signing of the 1975 accord.
The adoption of a system as demanded by the National Conference will at once mean (a) withdrawal of fundamental rights; (b) virtual replacement of the Jammu and Kashmir Constitution of 1957 by the Jammu and Kashmir Constitutional Act of 1939; (c) revival of the permit system; (d) inability of Parliament to curb anti-India activities in the state, as also to intervene through President's Rule if there is a breakdown of the constitutional machinery in the state; (e) a committed judiciary -- judges of the High Court, which shall be the highest court of justice in the state - shall be appointed by the state government and they shall hold their office so long as they enjoy its confidence; (f) committed Sadar-e-Riyasat - Sadar-e-Riyasat (Governor) shall be elected by the state legislature, he shall be responsible to it and he shall hold office so long as he enjoys its confidence; (g) replacement of the parliamentary form of government by a local oligarchy, with the Centre having no power whatsoever to legislate on matters other than defence, foreign affairs and communication; and (h) establishment of a dispensation that would be one sect and one region-centric. But more than that, it would also mean a grave threat to the country's unity and integrity, sovereignty and secular and democratic ethos; and (i) revival of the office of Wazir-e-Azam. In other words, the adoption of the system as demanded by the National Conference would mean the creation of another republic within the Republic of India. (To be continued) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
STOCK UPDATE |
|
|
 |
| BSE
Sensex |
 |
| NSE
Nifty |
|
|
| |
CRICKET UPDATE |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
