J&K after Article 370

The govt has not achieved all its objectives

A year ago, when Union Home Minister Amit Shah announced in Parliament, to loud cheers from Bharatiya Janata Party MPs, the reading down of Articles 370 and 35A, revoking the special status of Jammu & Kashmir, he offered three reasons for this decision. Shorn of its 70-year special status, J&K would become more integrated with India; the move would facilitate more “development” in the region; and this would, in turn, reduce chronic terrorism and disaffection. A year on, it would be difficult for the Narendra Modi government to claim it has achieved these objectives. To be sure, a formalised structural integration has taken place, with the state under direct central rule as two Union Territories (UTs) — Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh. It is also possible for the government to claim that law and order has improved: Crime dipped 74 per cent in the first seven months of 2020 and terror violence by 36 per cent.

These facts must be set against the realities of the draconian crackdown in the region since August 2019, including prolonged curfews, blocked internet, and mobile phone access, placing key state leaders under house arrest and incarcerating dissenters, which morphed into the Covid-19-induced lockdown. Indeed, the post-abrogation period saw a record number of habeas corpus petitions before the high court, challenging detentions under the state’s Public Safety Act. Many of these cases dragged on for months, defeating the spirit of the law. By the government’s reckoning, preventive detentions ranged between 800 and 1,000, a remarkably high number for a move that purported to benefit the people of J&K, even if it was made without their consent.

No less importantly, the government is yet to meaningfully fulfil the two key promises, that jobs and land in J&K would be open to all Indians. In March, the state announced “domicile rules” to replace the “permanent resident” status for recruitment to government jobs. The former stipulates that anyone who has lived 15 years in the state or studied there for seven years and appeared for the Class 10/12 exams in an institute located in the state will qualify. The new policy also includes former residents of West Pakistan. All these categories of people will now require “domicile certificates”. This slightly expanded definition — which various parties have opposed for differing reasons — can hardly be described as an equal opportunities policy for all Indians even as the requirement of a domicile certificate adds another layer of bureaucracy for locals seeking government jobs. This new rule is significant only because the government is the main source of formal employment in the state.

The deteriorating security situation since August 2019 has forced the government to postpone a high-profile investor summit planned for October and the initiative was eventually limited to road shows by bureaucrats in major cities in February this year. But crucially, a 2016 industrial policy has been extended to 2026, which allows outside investors only to lease land (usually for 99 years) in the UT (only the clause in land laws restricting private property ownership to state subjects was struck down). As for terrorism, which had nothing to do with J&K’s special status in the first place, relations with Pakistan, and its sponsor China are at an all-time low, so the real test of the region’s post-Article 370/35A future is likely to be decided in the post-pandemic era.