Jagmohan new governor
President’s rule imposed
Abdullah quits as chief minister
NEW DELHI: The Indian army Opened fire on Sunday on demonstrators defying a curfew in the Kashmiri capital of Srinagar and at least 36 people were killed and 60 wounded. Government controlled television reported.
The state in quick developments saw the stepping down of the state chief minister Farooq Abdullah and the imposition of President’s rule under the new governor Jagmohan.
The toll over the past four days may have exceeded 100 dead.
Unconfirmed reports say that the armies of both India and Pakistan are on a red alert along the borders.
Clashes have also been reported among the police and the paramilitary CRPF even as curfew was extended to 8 more towns in the valley.
If the death toll is confirmed, the violence would be the worst reported in Jammu and Kashmir the only state with a Muslim majority in predominantly Hindu India, in the nearly two years since a resurgence of secessionist sentiment began. Since 1947 Muslim militants have been demanding independence or union with Islamic Pakistan.
The foreign minister of Pakistan, Sahabzada Yaqub Khan, arrived in New Delhi for talks. But the continuing trouble in Kashmir, the first serious challenge to the new Government of Prime Minister V.P. Singh, has dampened hopes for a fresh start in Indian Pakistani relations.
New Delhi says that the Pakistani Government supports the Muslim separatists, a charge that Islamabad denies. India and Pakistan have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir since the two countries gained independence from Britain in 1947.
The army’s introduction into the conflict, with orders to shoot on sight, marked the first widespread use of troops to be reported in Srinagar. It suggested that the troops of the Central Police Reserve Force, a national organization used in troubled areas, has been unable to contain rapidly growing separatist sentiment in the Kashmir valley.
Srinagar, the state’s summer capital and one of India’s prime tourist areas, has been under a curfew since last month. But crowds have been surging into the streets to defy federal and state police forces charged with enforcing it, residents of the city say.
Indian television reported that troops were responding to “pillaging” by mobs in parts of the city. The demonstrations are leading up to a public display of anti-Indian feeling planned for the country’s most important national holiday, Republic Day, on Friday.
The unrest in India’s Kashmir Valley was fed by dissatisfaction with the state government under Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah who resigned on Thursday night.
Dr. Abdullah stepped down after the Government of Prime Minister Singh announced the reappointment of a former governor, Jagmohan for Jammu And Kashmir State. Mr. Jagmohan, who served as the state’s governor from 1984 until last year, arrived in Srinagar on Monday to take up his post.
The national government led by Mr. Singh, which took office last month, has taken control of Kashmir under a constitutional arrangement known as governor’s rule.
The new governments in New Delhi and Jammu and Kashmir face a critical situation that by most accounts was allowed to deteriorate and drift in the last years of Rajiv Gandhi’s Administration. Mr. Gandhi’s Congress Party had clung to power in the state through an alliance with Dr. Abdullah’s National Conference, a Kashmiri party.
The extent of the valley’s alienation was demonstrated in December when after five detained militants were freed in return for the release of the kidnaped daughter of India’s Home Minister, crowds came out to celebrate the freeing of the separatists. The demonstrations persisted, prompting the authorities to re-impose the curfew.
Kashmiris now being described by officials here as “worse than Punjab” another state tom by a militant separatist movement.
Adding to the problems facing Prime Minister Singh, leaders of Buddhist militants in Ladakh, a mountainous region that is also part of Jammu and Kashmir State, have indicated that they might renew their campaign for a new political order which had been dormant since last fall.
Parts of Kashmir are claimed by both India and Pakistan. Both countries keep large forces on either side of a United Nations line of control that serves as a border, and they have occasionally exchanged fire.
Some of the Kashmiri guerrilla groups are openly pro-Pakistani and militantly Islamic. Pakistan denies any official role in the state’s problems, but leaders of Pakistani Kashmir acknowledge their willingness to assist rebels on the Indian side of the United Nations boundary.
The United Nations says that India has refused for 40 years to allow a plebiscite on the future of the disputed territory.
Western diplomats here say that while Pakistanis in Government or the opposition may use the Kashmiri issue for domestic political gains, playing on a deep distrust of India, there is no evidence that Islamabad is to blame for fomenting the trouble, which has indigenous roots.
The Kashmir Valley, predominantly Muslim, is now experiencing daily explosions and attacks on officials by militants dominated by Islamic fundamentalists. The Singh Government is apparently trying to exhaust all political avenues in dealing with the problem before resorting to an increased use of force, which in the past has heightened the alienation of Kashmiris.
The new Governor, Jagmohan, an experienced civil servant who has also run the city of New Delhi, served an earlier term as the federal Government’s representative in Jammu and Kashmir from 1984 until last year, when he was suddenly removed by Rajiv Gandhi.
Mr. Jagmohan, who uses. only ‘one name, had been a very popular governor, Kashmiris say. His presence helped to offset public antipathy for the elected state government headed by Farooq Abdullah, an ally in state politics of Mr. Gandhi’s Congress Party.
The naming of Mr. Jagmohan to the governorship of Kashmir is part of a Government plan to replace all state governors regarded as political appointees rewarded for party service by Mr. Gandhi.
This week President Venkataraman, acting on the government’s behalf, asked for the resignation of all state governors, so that V P Singh would be free to make the changes he desired without singling out certain politicians.
About two-thirds of the 25 governors have so far complied with the request, according to PTI. Among the first was the Governor of Jammu and Kashmir, K.V. Krishna Rao, a retired general.
Mr. Singh is being criticized for the wholesale resignation request by those who say that this further politicizes the office of Governor, who is constitutionally the federal Government’s representative in a state but who was intended by the framers of the Indian Constitution to be selected in consultation with an elected state government.
Indian political scientists say the role of the state governor has never been free of politics, however, beginning with the administration of India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. In the last few years, Mr. Gandhi replace governors frequently and often without consulting state party leaders.
The degradation of the office of governor became an election campaign issue for Mr. Singh and other Opposition parties last fall.
Article extracted from this publication >> January 26, 1990
