Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government is about to detonate a political device in Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir whose “nuclear fallout” may spill over into Pakistan with far reaching adverse consequences. At this stage in regional dynamics, exactly the opposite is the need of the hour for Pakistan. It could also destabilize Pakistan internally, derail its Afghan-reconciliation and peace policies and thereby strain relations with America once again. Consider.
Mr Modi has announced his intention to repeal Article 35A of the Indian Constitution that allows the Parliament of Jammu and Kashmir to define “permanent residents” of the state regardless of any rights granted in this context to citizens of the rest of India by the Indian Constitution. The J&K state law restricts “outsiders” from acquiring immovable property, getting jobs or scholarships in the J&K government or “settling” in the state. This right was granted in 1954 by a decree of the Indian President incorporated into the Indian constitution in the context of Article 370 according “Special Status” to J&K in 1952.
Various arguments for and against its repeal have been advocated in India. But the Modi government’s decision will be challenged in the Supreme Court of India. If the SC holds in the government’s favour, J&K will “explode”, to use Kashmiri leader Mehbooba Mufti’s word of warning. Indeed, Kashmiri leaders across the political divide have vowed to “resist” this encroachment on the rights of the state because they fear its true objective is not just to transform the demographic profile of their state to advance the cause of “communal-minded majoritarianism” espoused by the Sangh Parivar as “an ideal solution to the problem of Kashmir” but also bury all notions of J&K autonomy and its “disputed” status vis a vis Pakistan. Put bluntly, Mr Modi wants to “settle” J&K in the same manner that Israel has “settled” Palestine – by rooting in it strong Hindu vested interests aligned to New Delhi.
This move comes at a time when J&K is already in violent revolt against its “occupation” by New Delhi, when India-Pakistan relations are at their lowest ebb following the armed conflict because of the Pulwama incident earlier this year, when soldiers and civilians of both countries are daily dying across the LoC by the retaliatory shelling of the two armies. As a measure of its urgent purpose in anticipation of renewed resistance, New Delhi has hurriedly dispatched over 10,000 soldiers to J&K to buttress an existing force of over 500,000 troops, para-militaries and police. The irony is that this “warlike” development comes in the wake of Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan’s recent request to US President Donald trump to “mediate” the Kashmir dispute (which met with favour) so that Pakistan can give its undivided attention to stitching up peace in Afghanistan as part of an “honourable” exit strategy for the US in the long war with the Taliban.
As the wannabe regional hegemon, Modi’s India is cut up by exclusion from the round table comprising Pakistan, China, US and Russia that is now deciding Afghanistan’s future. It has invested over US$2 billion in Afghanistan’s infrastructure. It has invested geopolitically in the development of Chahbahar Port in Iran and a road and rail line from there to Afghanistan as a foil to Pakistan’s stranglehold over routes to the land locked country. It has persuaded the international community to wield the sword of FATF and isolate Pakistan diplomatically as a “terrorism exporting” country. A reset in US-Pak relations favourable to Islamabad’s strategic objectives in the region that leaves New Delhi out in the cold is unacceptable to India. Now, when the Pakistani polity is deeply divided, when its economy is nose-diving, when the Pakistani army and ISI are stretched politically and militarily, internally and externally, Modi’s India has launched its Kashmir “colonization” policy with one main objective after severing links between pro-resistance jihadi forces in Pakistan and Kashmir via FATF – to consolidate its hold by effecting demographic change in J&K through a repeal of Article 35A.
If this plan unfolds in this manner, the ruling civil-military junta in Pakistan will be hard pressed by the opposition parties and the jihadi groups to switch back into aggressive anti-India and pro-Kashmir resistance mode. Both are bristling with hostility towards the current political rulers of Pakistan. They will clutch at any opportunity to embarrass and divide their nemeses. The Pakistani media, which is also suffering at the hands of the same junta, will fan the flames of ingrained anti-India nationalism and back the political opposition-jihadi narratives. So too will the people of Pakistan who are laboring under the burden of harsh US-IMF sponsored economic conditions. Such a development will weaken the ruling junta and divert its focus from external to internal stabilization. This will displease the US whose exit strategy may be adversely impacted by a sudden deterioration in Pakistan’s relations with India.
Beware! The repeal of Article 35A threatens to unleash a dangerously destabilizing dialectic in the region.
Mr Modi has announced his intention to repeal Article 35A of the Indian Constitution that allows the Parliament of Jammu and Kashmir to define “permanent residents” of the state regardless of any rights granted in this context to citizens of the rest of India by the Indian Constitution. The J&K state law restricts “outsiders” from acquiring immovable property, getting jobs or scholarships in the J&K government or “settling” in the state. This right was granted in 1954 by a decree of the Indian President incorporated into the Indian constitution in the context of Article 370 according “Special Status” to J&K in 1952.
Various arguments for and against its repeal have been advocated in India. But the Modi government’s decision will be challenged in the Supreme Court of India. If the SC holds in the government’s favour, J&K will “explode”, to use Kashmiri leader Mehbooba Mufti’s word of warning. Indeed, Kashmiri leaders across the political divide have vowed to “resist” this encroachment on the rights of the state because they fear its true objective is not just to transform the demographic profile of their state to advance the cause of “communal-minded majoritarianism” espoused by the Sangh Parivar as “an ideal solution to the problem of Kashmir” but also bury all notions of J&K autonomy and its “disputed” status vis a vis Pakistan. Put bluntly, Mr Modi wants to “settle” J&K in the same manner that Israel has “settled” Palestine – by rooting in it strong Hindu vested interests aligned to New Delhi.
This move comes at a time when J&K is already in violent revolt against its “occupation” by New Delhi, when India-Pakistan relations are at their lowest ebb following the armed conflict because of the Pulwama incident earlier this year, when soldiers and civilians of both countries are daily dying across the LoC by the retaliatory shelling of the two armies. As a measure of its urgent purpose in anticipation of renewed resistance, New Delhi has hurriedly dispatched over 10,000 soldiers to J&K to buttress an existing force of over 500,000 troops, para-militaries and police. The irony is that this “warlike” development comes in the wake of Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan’s recent request to US President Donald trump to “mediate” the Kashmir dispute (which met with favour) so that Pakistan can give its undivided attention to stitching up peace in Afghanistan as part of an “honourable” exit strategy for the US in the long war with the Taliban.
As the wannabe regional hegemon, Modi’s India is cut up by exclusion from the round table comprising Pakistan, China, US and Russia that is now deciding Afghanistan’s future. It has invested over US$2 billion in Afghanistan’s infrastructure. It has invested geopolitically in the development of Chahbahar Port in Iran and a road and rail line from there to Afghanistan as a foil to Pakistan’s stranglehold over routes to the land locked country. It has persuaded the international community to wield the sword of FATF and isolate Pakistan diplomatically as a “terrorism exporting” country. A reset in US-Pak relations favourable to Islamabad’s strategic objectives in the region that leaves New Delhi out in the cold is unacceptable to India. Now, when the Pakistani polity is deeply divided, when its economy is nose-diving, when the Pakistani army and ISI are stretched politically and militarily, internally and externally, Modi’s India has launched its Kashmir “colonization” policy with one main objective after severing links between pro-resistance jihadi forces in Pakistan and Kashmir via FATF – to consolidate its hold by effecting demographic change in J&K through a repeal of Article 35A.
If this plan unfolds in this manner, the ruling civil-military junta in Pakistan will be hard pressed by the opposition parties and the jihadi groups to switch back into aggressive anti-India and pro-Kashmir resistance mode. Both are bristling with hostility towards the current political rulers of Pakistan. They will clutch at any opportunity to embarrass and divide their nemeses. The Pakistani media, which is also suffering at the hands of the same junta, will fan the flames of ingrained anti-India nationalism and back the political opposition-jihadi narratives. So too will the people of Pakistan who are laboring under the burden of harsh US-IMF sponsored economic conditions. Such a development will weaken the ruling junta and divert its focus from external to internal stabilization. This will displease the US whose exit strategy may be adversely impacted by a sudden deterioration in Pakistan’s relations with India.
Beware! The repeal of Article 35A threatens to unleash a dangerously destabilizing dialectic in the region.