'If democracy does not exist, if there are no political spaces, there is no media, there is no civil society, what do we rejoice?'
"It's very sad that in the national imagination, people should think that Jammu and Kashmir should be grateful that the Supreme Court has now said, very vaguely, that the Government of India should hold elections in Jammu and Kashmir by a date that is beyond even the national level elections," Kashmir Times Editor Anuradha Bhasin, who also hails from Kashmir, tells Prasanna D Zore/Rediff.com.
- Part 1 of the Interview: 'Article 370 wasn't just a sentiment'
What difficulties are the people of Jammu and Kashmir facing at the ground level after the abrogation of Article 370?
We heard of demolitions (of people's homes) happening (for whatever reasons including for development projects). This year, people are not even talking (about these demolitions) even while they (the demolitions) are continuing to happen: houses or business establishments being demolished here or there or people being evicted from their land.
Much of the businesses, industry and even tourism operated on lease basis. The government used to give land on lease, at subsidised rates, and these businesses were continuing. These were 40 years lease or 100 years lease (at the end of which) the government would renew it.
Now when the leases are getting over, they are not getting renewed. Some hoteliers had to do away with the hotels they had been running for decades.
They (the administration in J&K) are talking about tourism and tourism bringing in lot of money, although yes, of course, some people (of J&K) are benefiting (because of abrogation of Article 370), but there are the majority which is being left out of this progress because the lands were earlier on lease and their leases are over and so they are now being put up for auction where the locals feel they will not be able to compete with the outsiders.
The mining contracts are going to people from outside. Now that never used to happen earlier. While this has marginalised the local businessmen or contractors who were engaged in mining, it has also changed the way mining is happening.
For instance, in sand mining, it was all manually done, which had lesser ecological impact. Now, the big sand mining contractors are getting big machinery. They are extracting sand nine to ten times more.
In the bidding (of contracts that offer sand mines on leases), they (the big contractors who are coming from other parts of India) are more powerful and they get a bid because of which they are also going to extract more at the end of the day. That extraction is also causing ecological damage.
There are various ways in which people are being impacted.
Do the people of J&K fear that they will have similar ecological problems that Uttarakhand is facing?
It is happening. And it hasn't just happened with this government.
We've always had very reckless ways of planning and development in the Himalayan region, including Kashmir and the highways, for instance, that are being constructed now -- like the Zojila highway -- or those that were constructed during Dr Manmohan Singh's time, are all being constructed without much scientific and environment assessment because ever since the construction of these highways there have been more landslides across J&K.
The planning has always been bad and now they are aggressively going in for construction.
But wouldn't more roads and more highways help the Kashmiri people, bring in more prosperity?
It does help, but there has to be a balance between development and your ecological concerns. You cannot recklessly go in for building roads and tunneling the mountains where it is not feasible, where the local populations are impacted.
Ramban town (on the banks of river Chenab), for instance, is just sliding (sinking, just like Joshimath in Uttarakhand is witnessing).
Would you believe that the people of Jammu & Kashmir will maybe say, five years, ten years down the line -- if they see the prosperity along with, of course, its ecological imbalances and disasters that come along with it -- come around to the fact that the abrogation of Article 370 was good for their future, the future of their children?
I don't think Article 370 was ever a hindrance to any development. I don't believe that. There was development going on where it was more inclusive. There were problems with the government and that is because the state has been unstable politically for many decades.
The state has been reeling under a conflict and these were issues that impeded development in many ways. But the development indices of Jammu and Kashmir were far better than many other states even before that. I don't think the abrogation of Article 370 has done any great service in that respect.
Down the line it's difficult to say how people would respond. Will they reconcile? Of course, some of them will benefit. In every new system there are some people who benefit and there are others who are losers.
But the basic indicator would always be that how can you have development and have no democracy and say, okay, let's have development. Are you giving lollipops to people?
If democracy does not exist, if there are no political spaces, there is no media, there is no civil society, what do we rejoice? Development! Some roads, some new industries coming up, some new malls, some amusement parks and say that, oh, yeah, we very modern now.
Would the people of Jammu and Kashmir have some hope from the Supreme Court judgment that it has asked for holding elections before September 30, 2024 and have a democratically elected government in place?
It's very sad that in the national imagination, people should think that Jammu and Kashmir should be grateful that the Supreme Court has now said, very vaguely, that the Government of India should hold elections in Jammu and Kashmir by a date that is beyond even the national level elections (Lok Sabha elections are due in April-May 2024).
It's very sad because it's not the court's job to do that. That was supposed to be announced by the Election Commission (of India). The last time we had elections was in 2014.
We have had no democratic government since 2018 in Jammu and Kashmir. So it's very sad that the (Supreme) Court should even say that elections should be held immediately. It's a telling comment on what is happening in Jammu and Kashmir that a court has to say (mention it in its order); it's a normal process, it's a normal democratic process for any region to have elections.
It's a sad reflection of how Jammu and Kashmir is viewed.
How do you look at the Supreme Court statement noting that Article 370 offered 'asymmetrical federalism' giving unfair advantage to the people of Jammu and Kashmir?
Asymmetrical federalism is not some kind of an evil. All over the world, you've had these arrangements because certain areas are different and they require autonomy so that they can be integrated.
Article 370 integrated Jammu and Kashmir with India. And by integration, I mean not just the land; it integrated the people of Jammu and Kashmir to India. You have autonomy models all over the world.
You see, Belgium, you see Northern Ireland, which was a mess. The UK decided to go ahead with the Good Friday agreement (which ended 30 years of violent conflict and helped integration of Northern Ireland with the United Kingdom) and things started changing.
When you say that Article 370 helped the people of Jammu and Kashmir integrate with the people of India, and when that purpose has been served, wouldn't Article 370 then have outlived its purpose and so fit for abrogation?
Look at how the judgment is being criticised by legal experts. Many are saying that Article 370 could not have gone; it wasn't temporary, it could not have gone.
The people of Jammu and Kashmir would still believe that it was a permanent arrangement to which the Union of India should have abided...
Yes, and these, I'm saying, are people who are pro-India; they are not separatists.
