The State of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) is examined here in terms of its unique history, geography and cross-cultural composition. Its three regions are not just historically and culturally distinct but each have sub-regions and religious minorities with their own claims to autonomy and devolved power. The author examines the diversity of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh and assesses, from a personal study tour, the successes and failures of Hill Councils that have been established in Leh and Kargil (Ladakh) and the prospect of creating others in the Jammu region. Sub-regionalism becomes a potent force in the absence of strong regional consciousness, he argues. Regionalism in general is a product of India’s diversity; sub-regionalism the result of geographic, historical and socio-economic factors – J&K is a case in point.
Article 370 of the Indian Constitution guaranteed the autonomy of the state of Jammu and Kashmir. As the papers by Nyla Ali Khan (‘The events of 1953 in Jammu and Kashmir’) and Noor Ahmad Baba (‘Resolving Kashmir: imperatives and solutions’) in this issue show, this autonomy has been honoured only in the breach and has been hollowed out over the years.
2.
This refers to Kashmiri-speaking Muslims inhabiting the Kashmir Valley and adjoining districts in Jammu – Doda, Kishtwar and Poonch.
3.
See the article by Shubh Mathur in this issue.
4.
With the outbreak of the insurgency in 1989, the elected government of Jammu and Kashmir was dismissed by the Central Government and the State was brought under direct central rule, known as President’s Rule, which is the declaration of a state of emergency. President’s Rule continued in J&K until 1996. President’s Rule is enforced by the Governor appointed by the central government, with absolute powers.
5.
Navnita Chadha Behra, Demystifying Kashmir (Pearson Longman, 2006), p. 109.
6.
Both demands aimed at the political separation of Ladakh and Jammu from Kashmir.
7.
The Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council Act, 1995.
8.
‘The total number of seats in the Council to be filled up by persons chosen by direct election on the basis of adult suffrage from territorial constituencies shall be twenty-six’, in ibid. The Governor may nominate not more than four persons from amongst the principal religious minorities and women in the district to be members of the council. The sitting members of the Legislative Assembly of the State of Jammu and Kashmir and the sitting members of the House of the People in the Indian Parliament representing the assembly or the parliamentary constituency, as the case may be in which the constituencies are located, shall be ex-officio members of the Council constituted for that district (see ibid.).
9.
Ibid.
10.
CDR is a Delhi-based Track II Initiative which works in different regions and sub-regions of Jammu and Kashmir to promote dialogue and reconciliation. The author has been an active member of CDR and visited Ladakh as part of a group of civil society actors drawn from Kashmir Valley and the Chenab Valley region.
11.
The administrative divisions below state level are: divisions, districts, sub-divisions, blocks and panchayats.
12.
I discussed this issue with the chief executive of Leh Hill Council and he was of the opinion that panchayat institutions at village and block level would function under the Hill Council.
13.
This is also covered in Mona Bhan, Counterinsurgency, Democracy and the Politics of Identity in India: from warfare to welfare (Routledge, Contemporary South Asia Series, 2013).
14.
The Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council Act, 1995 provides for a seal and an emblem for the Hill Council.
The Jammu and Kashmir State has an exceptionally separate constitution and a separate flag and any disrespect to the state flag is a breach of the constitution.
18.
The Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council Act, 1995.
19.
In 2000, a bill was moved by MLA Bhaderwah, Shakh Abdul Rehman in the Legislative Assembly for the creation of Chenab Valley Hill Development Council. In 2006 Abdul Majeed Wani, minister in Gulam Nabi Azad’s government, also moved a bill in the Legislative Assembly for the same purpose but withdrew it later.
20.
SRO 126, dated 28.06.1994, General Administration Department, Government of Jammu and Kashmir, Srinagar.
21.
Census, 2001.
22.
The first militant strike which brought Doda to national attention was on 13 August 1993 when militants killed seventeen Hindus at Sarthal area of Doda district. On 15 January 1996 sixteen Hindus were killed at Barshalla. The State responded by creating Village Defence Committees consisting mostly of Hindus which further communalised the area.
23.
The Line of Control, representing the Ceasefire line of 1948, runs through villages, fields, meadows, dividing, like all partitions, families and communities.
24.
See also Noor Ahmad Baba, ‘Resolving Kashmir: imperatives and solutions’, in this issue, for an analysis of the importance of the road’s opening.
