Historic Bill
The Narendra Modi government has done exceedingly well to take cognizance of the exclusion of the persecuted and hounded out seven lakh Kashmiri Hindus from the J&K Legislature and adopt a bill that seeks the nomination of two Kashmiri Hindus, including one woman, to the J&K Legislative Assembly. His government has also done well to include in the Bill a provision that provides for the nomination of one person from the persecuted and hounded-out community of Hindus and Sikhs from “Pakistan-occupied-Jammu and Kashmir” (read Pakistan-occupied-Jammu and Ladakh [PoJL] as all the areas under the illegal occupation of Pakistan since 1947-48 belong to Jammu province and Trans-Himalayan Ladakh).
It is, however, a different matter that the Hindu-Sikh refugees from PoJL had been demanding 8 to 12 seats out of 24 seats earmarked for PoJL in the J&K Assembly. All three persons will be nominated to the Assembly by the J&K Lieutenant Governor. They will have voting rights in the Assembly.
The whole case in point is what happened in the Lok Sabha on December 5-6, 2023. On December 5 and 6, the Lok Sabha discussed in detail the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganization (Amendment) Bill, 2023, which sought to nominate two members from the Kashmiri migrant community including a woman and one representing the displaced persons from Pakistan-occupied Jammu Kashmir (PoJL) to the UT Legislative Assembly and Jammu and Kashmir Reorganization (Amendment) Bill, 2023 seeking to change nomenclature of reservation from Other Social Castes (OSC) to Other Backward Classes (OBCs).
The debate continued for six hours and a total of 29 lawmakers spoke on the Bills. Significantly, hardly any member from the Opposition benches – not even the NC president and LS member from Kashmir Farooq Abdullah — opposed the objectives of the Bills.
Why these reforms?
Concluding the debate, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who had moved the Bills on December 5, explained in a very effective manner the circumstances under which the Bills were introduced in the Parliament and reflected on their significance. He said: The Bills will “undo injustice” with the sections deprived for 70 years by giving them OBC status; giving rights and representation to displaced persons (read Hindus and Sikhs) from PoJL; giving reservation to (the hounded out) Kashmiri Hindus and expanding and restructuring J&K Legislative Assembly with the addition of seats and political reservation to SCs and STs.
“Those who consider it as a means to garner votes in politics by just using them as a vote bank and giving good speeches cannot understand its name. Narendra Modi is a leader who has become the Prime Minister of the country after being born into a poor family and he knows the pain of the backward and the poor. When it comes to promoting such people, respect matters more than help,” Shah also said.
In response to the question raised by some Opposition members about the “legitimacy of giving reservation to the displaced people”, Shah said: “By giving reservation to Kashmiri Pandits, they will have a voice in the (Jammu and) Kashmir Assembly and if a situation of displacement arises again, they will stop it.”
Number of Hindu-Sikh refugees
Jammu houses almost 1.5 million Hindu-Sikh refugees. Around 1.2 lakh are from PoJL and 3 lakh from Kashmir. According to Amit Shah, in 1947, 31,779 families were displaced from PoJL to J&K (read Jammu as Nehru-backed J&K Wazir-e-Azam Sheikh Abdullah didn’t allow settlement of any Hindu-Sikh refugees from PoJL in Kashmir). Out of these, 26,319 families started living in J&K (read Jammu) and 5,460 families started living in other parts of the country, the Home Minister also told the Lok Sabha during the debate. Besides, he informed the Lower House that after the Indo-Pak wars of 1965 and 1971, “10,065 families were displaced” and the total number of displaced families is “41,844”.
As for the number of Kashmiri Hindu refugees, the Home Minister said: “The displaced people have to live as refugees in other parts of their own country, and as per the current figures, 1,57,967 people from about 46,631 families were displaced in their own country”.
95-Member Assembly
The Home Minister didn’t stop just here. He further said: “If the process of delimitation itself is not sacred, then democracy can never remain sacred, that is why a provision has been made in this Bill that judicial delimitation will be done again. All groups of displaced people asked the Delimitation Commission to take cognizance of their representation and it is a matter of joy that the Commission has made a provision that 2 seats will be reserved for displaced Kashmiri people and 1 seat to be reserved for the people displaced from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoJL). The Modi government has given a legal framework to this system”.
It needs to be underlined that it’s for the first time in the history of the J&K Legislature, 9 seats were reserved for Scheduled Tribes (6 in Jammu and 3 in Kashmir) and seven seats were also reserved for Scheduled Castes (all in Jammu). Before 2019, there were 37 seats in Jammu province which have now become 43 and there were 46 seats in Kashmir earlier which have now become 47. (Jammu province is 2 times that of Kashmir and Jammu’s population is equal to Kashmir, if not more.) Besides, 24 seats have been kept reserved for PoJL. Earlier, there were 107 seats in the J&K Assembly. And, now the number is 114 seats. Not just this. Earlier, there were 2 nominated members in the J&K Assembly (both women). And, now the number of nominated members will be 5. In other words, the total strength of the J&K Assembly will be 95.
The Home Minister said, and rightly, that all this could happen because, on August 5-6, 2019, a “historic Bill was approved by the Cabinet under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and after its passage by the parliament, Article 370 was abolished”.
Nehruvian blunders
The Home Minister also used the opportunity to expose the first Prime Minister, J L Nehru, and the blunders that he committed to help Pakistan and hurt Bharat. He said: that J&K had to “suffer for years due to two big mistakes” committed by Nehru. “Pandit Nehru’s first mistake was that when our army was winning, a ceasefire was done as soon as it reached Punjab, and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoJL) was born. If the ceasefire had been delayed by 3 days, Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoJL) would have been a part of India today…The second big mistake was when they took our issue to the United Nations. Even when the matter was sent to the UN, the decision was taken very hastily. This matter should not have been taken to the UN at all and even if it was taken, the matter should have been taken under Article 51 of the UN Charter instead of Article 35. Despite the advice given by several people on record, the matter was taken to the UN under Article 35.”
And when the Congress objected to what the Home Minister said, Amit Shah cornered them by saying “Nehru himself had written that it was his mistake”. “But it was not just a mistake but a blunder. The country lost a big chunk of land; it was a blunder,” the Home Minister said.
Kashmiri Opposition
It was expected that the protagonists of “Kashmiri Muslim sub-nationalism”, including former J&K CMs Omar Abdullah of National Conference and Mehbooba Mufti of the People’s Democratic Party, would denounce the Modi government and it did happen. Speaking to the media on December 6 and 7 at Srinagar and Pulwama, respectively, Omar criticized the BJP’s actions, particularly the Reservation Bill.
“They are doing everything; they have now bought a Bill for the reservation on three seats which will be nominated by the LG. Giving the nomination power to the LG means that they know that they will not get the numbers (in the Assembly); they have something for face-saving in J&K…Our objections to the Bill are on two issues. The first is that the Supreme Court has not announced its decision on the reorganization and they (government) are bringing changes after changes…The second objection the party has is on the filling of Assembly seats through nomination. That should be left to the elected government. The bill gives the right of nomination to the LG. It clearly raises a doubt that this is being done to help the BJP because the BJP cannot win the elections and so, they are trying to increase the number of seats for themselves.” The frustrated and outraged Omar Abdullah said.
Not just this, Omar Abdullah declared that when the Assembly elections took place in J&K, the elected government “may undo the changes.” “If there is no change in it, then after elections, when there is an elected government, we will see to it,” he said.
As far as the separatist of separatists Mehbooba Mufti was concerned, she dismissed the Reservation Bill and all such exercises as “illegal”. “All of this is illegal because the revocation of Article 370 (of the Constitution) was done illegally and the matter is sub-judice in the Supreme Court. When something is sub-judice, how can they make a law on it? This is illegal. They are trampling the Constitution, the Parliament, and the Supreme Court. They are trampling every institution of the country,” she said.
Indeed, the Opposition of Omar Abdullah, Mehbooba Mufti, and ilk in Kashmir, including M Y Tarigami of CPIM, to the nomination of three non-Muslims to the J&K Assembly is genocidal.
Reservation will not help the BJP
The view of Omar Abdullah and ilk that the Modi government’s Reservation-Through-Nomination-Bill was an exercise undertaken to help the J&K BJP through the backdoor is as untenable as it’s spurious and communal. The nomination of 2 Kashmiri Hindus and one refugee from PoJL will not help the BJP capture the Assembly or form government in J&K on its own strength. The only difference could be that the BJP, instead of having 30 to 31 MLAs in the Assembly (all from Jammu province and all Hindus), will have 30 to 34 MLAs in the 95-member House provided if it at all wins all the 30 to 31 Hindu-majority seats in Jammu province.
Will the BJP win all the Hindu-majority seats? It’s a very difficult question to answer given the fact that the local BJP leadership has been consistently disappointing its core constituency in the province ever since March 1, 2015, when it entered into an unholy alliance with the separatist PDP. Of course, PM Narendra Modi, HM Amit Shah, and BJP national President J P Nadda are the only hope of the local apolitical and unpopular BJP leadership.
De-link Jammu from Kashmir
The fact of the matter is that the Kashmiri parties would win all 47 seats in Kashmir and around 10 in Jammu – around 57 in the House. They will capture the Assembly. They will form the government and further jeopardize the paramount interests of Bharat and further cause grievous injuries to the already suffering people of Jammu province. They will again have the veto power. If the BJP really wishes to conciliate and win over the discriminated and roundly humiliated Jammu province, it has no other option but to persuade the Modi government to de-link Jammu from Kashmir and grant state status to the de-linked Jammu province.
Note:
1. Text in Blue points to additional data on the topic.
2. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of PGurus.
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