The U.S, government is reported to have advised India to drop oath of allegiance to the Constitution and integrity of India for eligibility of candidates to enter the Jammu and Kashmir election, the suggestion, made through diplomatic channels, was aimed at making the election in the troubled state credible. This provision was absent at the time Indian, ‘constitution was framed in 1950 but was added to it in 1965. The context of the US suggestion is quite understandable, India is still toying with the idea of holding an election in Kashmir before April when the country is likely to elect its now Lok Sabha, In the meantime, India’s election commission has expressed the view that the situation for holding, a free and fair election in the valley is not conducive and has, therefore, not agreed to.an immediate election. The commission’s power to sit in judgment ‘over the quality of the political situation itself is in doubt and the matter is soon to be adjudicated upon by the Indian supreme court.
There is thus every likelihood of the Kashmir election being held sometime in early 1996. Irrespective of the law and order situation, no major political party in Kashmir is willing to participate in the India organized election. For the armed groups fighting for independence from India, an election offers no solution to the Kashmir problem as long as the people are denied a plebiscite to specifically determine their political fate. The Hurriyat Conference, similarly, is disinclined to join the electoral fray so long as candidates are given a limited choice of owing allegiance to India’s unity. The National Conference headed by Farooq Abdullah has decided to keep away unless India brings about certain political reforms within the framework of Kashmir’s accession to India, Abdullah’s demand is that the pre1953 status of Kashmir should be restored when his father was designated as Prime Minister and the state enjoyed certain autonomy.
The Indian state is neither willing nor in a position to introduce any reforms even within the present scheme of things. The ruling Congress(1)’s Kashmir policy is influenced by the BJP, which is dead set against any individuality being allowed to the people of Kashmir, The BJP’s Kashmir ideologue is one Jag Mohan who is credited with the thinking that Kashmir should be compelled to stay with India even if India’s armed forces have to kill a million Kashmiris. In fact, Jag Mohan as governor of Kashmir in 198891 had practiced that theory and had killed a few thousand people of Kashmir. The Rao government virtually maintained that policy without Jag Mohan as governor. That man is known to be a butcher of Muslims when in the emergency years (197577) he was top officer in the Delhi administration. Thus Jag Mohan is an unalloyed fascist who believes in Hitler’s policy of “the final solution” to the Kashmir problem and the Indian state virtually subscribes to his theory.
The logic of Rao’s poll gambit in Kashmir is formation of a government, howsoever unrepresentative it may turn out to be. If Rao believes in the fictional poll in Kashmir, he has the successful Punjab experience behind him where the state government has the backing of not more than 10% of the electorate, Andin that, many western countries including the USA, had given virtual recognition to Punjab’s minority government. So, now the Indian government thinks that the countries like the USA will Willynilly accept a similar arrangement for Kashmir, But happily for democracy, the US administration is following a different course in Kashmir, and wants elections there to be genuine. Any genuine democratic country would have welcomed the suggestion the US administration made. But, is India a democracy, at all? There a human rights activist like Jaswant Singh Khalra is picked up by the police and is eliminated. Not a single national Indian newspaper takes editorial notice of the event. On the other hand, Indian events unabashedly write extolling K.P.S. Gill and his services to the Indian state and leading newspapers give prominence to such writing: More than 3000 Sikhs are massacred in the bazars of Delhi and no killer is punished even after 11 years of the incident. A French girl is raped by the grandson of a ruling politician and the Indian police are helping the Criminal to get out of the clutches of law. These are a few glimpses of the working of India’s democracy. So is the case with its elections.
No one is permitted to mobilize public opinion in a peaceful, democratic way in favor of freedom from Indian colonialism. Simranjit Singh Mann had to spend a few months in jail merely because he called upon Sikhs to raise hands in favor of an independent Sikh state, No wonder, in many Paris. “Of the country, people are compelled to take up arms and get killed at the hands of the powerful Indian armed machine; India is a powerful country in Southeast Asia. It remains in constant trouble. It will remain so unless the Indian ruling class is compelled to practice genuine, and not fake, democracy. Most of India’s troubles arise out of lack of democracy in the country and the US suggestion is a welcome realization on the part of its administration that introduction of a bit of democratic norm could help matters in Kashmir.
Article extracted from this publication >> December 1, 1995
