India has always taken pride in being the world’s largest democracy with one of the most efficient federal structures in the World. The Constitution of India has been framed in such a way through numerous checks and balances unilaterally between the Judiciary, Executive and Legislature, it seldom allows complete control to any single segment of the state. Over the years, several burning issues regarding law and constitution have been discussed in the Parliament but were never passed, thanks to an extremely stratified setup of the state which in a way made sure of keeping the values of dissent, criticism and counter-objectification intact and kept the spirit of the Constitution of India alive. However, the Government of India in an historic move, by-passed all such modalities and provisions and disseminated the Federal Structure of this nation when they abrogated Article 370 in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, a couple of months ago.
What may seem a simple change in Law and Legalities has huge implications, both in the shorter and longer run. The abrogation of the Article 370 is a dangerous sign how systematically the ruling party dismantled the State Assembly, brought the Parliament in confidence and removed such a law without considering the views of the local people at all in an extremely rushed manner. The BJP-PDP coalition which was suddenly broken by the BJP, more than a year ago, citing ‘lack of cooperation to tackle terrorism’ was the actual start of the ongoing Political Mayhem in the state. The fall of the Government in Kashmir allowed the ruling party BJP who is in power at the Centre as well to indirectly dictate terms in the state through the Presidential Rule as we all know the President has affiliations to which party or institution, whatever it might be.
The presidential rule allowed the Governor of the state to take decisions on the behalf of the dismantled assembly, who again is a BJP yes-man. Notice, how cleverly with a shrew political mind-set, they got the entire thing done. The ruling party BJP did not want to risk a mixed reaction before the 2019 elections and hence waited to come back to power to implement the atrocious monopolised decision. They systematically with an evil mind-set got the State Government to act on its way and they already had the majority in the Upper and Lower Houses making it way too simple to pass any bill they wanted and so they did. They arrested the Leaders of Kashmir who were largely pro-Indian and pro-democracy all these years, hence destroying the cordial belief they had regarding India. They cut off telecom and internet services and stationed 900,000 troops from the rest of the nation and restricted movement in and out of the state. 900,000 troops in the Valley makes it the ‘most militarised’ region in the Entire World. We have even suppressed the likes of Israel, Russia and China in acting against its own citizens. If this is what you call a democracy, than I am ashamed of democracy.
The Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Bill, 2019 divides the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir into two union territories, namely Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh. As we all know, in Delhi, the police run under the provision of the Union Government and the same will happen in Jammu and Kashmir. The newly elected Assembly will have no power to run its own police force and will be forced to face the brunt of the Centre, time and again. So much for Democracy!
I am not going to even mention the desperation the local Kashmiris are in. With no connectivity with the rest of the world, imagine the plight of the Kashmiris residing in other parts of India who are not able to get in touch with their relatives for 2 months now. Shame on the Government. This was not the way. A harmless referendum by the Kashmiri people after a long awareness campaign on the possible benefits of the abrogation of the Article 370 would not have done any harm. This is how a democracy works.
What happened in Kashmir can happen with any state. It can happen with Rajasthan. It can happen with West Bengal. How will you feel when you are not consulted when the status of the future of your state is questioned? This is outrageous. Wrong on so many levels. Hope better sense prevails and India votes wisely in 2024.
Long Live Kashmir.
Jai Hind.
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