India’s surprise pronouncement this week to revoke the autonomy of its uneasy state of Jammu and Kashmir is an important test for Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Without a change of course, he will probably fail.
Kashmir is questionably the worst legacy of the hasty partition of British India in 1947. One of more than 500 princely states in the subcontinent at the time, its Hindu ruler allied with India after tribal fighters from Pakistan attempted his overthrow. The two nations have since fought three wars over the Muslim majority territory. India controls the majority of the state; Pakistan administers about a third and China claims a portion of its Himalayan plateau called Aksai Chin.
How India treats its portion of Kashmir matters for two reasons. One is that the state is the primary crossroads for the world’s most dangerous nuclear rivalry; terrorist attacks there have repeatedly brought India and Pakistan to the edge of conflicts. It is also the only Muslim-majority state within Hindu-majority India, and thus an essential test of the country’s diversity and tolerance.
Given these understandings, Modi’s government might have approached the matter with carefulness. But sadly, that was not the case. With no warning, it revoked Article 370 of the Constitution of India, which granted Kashmir a “degree of autonomy”, while breaking up the state into two “union territories” largely controlled from New Delhi. Authorities placed hundreds of local leaders under house arrest, dispatched thousands of troops to the already heavily militarized state, evacuated tourists, imposed a curfew, and cut off communications links. The parliamentary debates Indian government used to ram through its decision were so dubious that they have already landed before the Indian Supreme Court.
Image result for indian supreme court article 370 clippingsArticle 370: An overview
All of this was hardly needed to be done by New Delhi. Most of the special privileges afforded to the state on paper had long been removed in practice. Nor is anyone challenging the unique rights enjoyed by some other states in India. The clear implication is that Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party was intent on eliminating rather than celebrating a Muslim-majority state.
Changing Kashmir’s status won’t do anything to ease tensions with Pakistan. To the contrary, it will further empower the Pakistani military. India desperately needs a real policy to engage with Pakistan, commercially as well as diplomatically. Instead Modi’s government seems convinced it can continue to ignore, isolate and deter its rival. One result is that trade between the two countries has now wrecked entirely.
Perhaps most frustrating, though, is that Modi neglected to bring on board those people with the greatest effect from his decision: Kashmiris. BJP officials insist that closer amalgamation will improve the lives of Kashmiris by opening the floodgates to jobs and investment, but this is disputed. Private investment in India hit a 14-year low earlier this year, while unemployment stands at a 45-year high. In any case, a sudden influx of outside businesses would fuel distrust and bitterness among locals, as it has wherever else such policies have been tried.
The issue India ultimately needs to address in Kashmir is not a lack of jobs. It is the lack of agency felt by too many Kashmiris, intensified by a suffocating security presence that they view as an occupation. Forcibly imposing the central government does will over the state will only intensify those criticisms.
Democracies as large and heterogeneous as India cannot escape internal tensions. But the way to relieve such pressure is to decentralize power and give citizens a greater share in their governance, as well as more control over local resources.
Modi’s government is heading in the opposite direction in Kashmir. Until India finds some way to make Kashmiris feel like full citizens, in control of their lives and their destinies, their land will remain what it has been for far too long: a troubled place, and a threat to peace and prosperity.
The writer is Masters in International Relations from National Defense University, Islamabad. Kindly like my Facebook page “The Basement Journal” and follow me on Twitter @Journalbasement for any queries or suggestions.