The politics of resolutions on the restoration of special status and other privileges that were scrapped in August 2019 doesn’t bode well for the future of Jammu and Kashmir, as those who moved the resolutions know that these have no political and legal value in the given situation. The resolution moved by Deputy Chief Minister Surinder Kumar Choudhary of National Conference served no purpose even after it was passed by a voice vote in the Assembly other than it became part of the record of the proceedings of the first session of the House that came into being as a milestone defining polls.
A stark reality is that abrogation of Article 370 and 35A that granted special status and unique symbols of parallel sovereignty and privileges to Jammu and Kashmir until August 4, 2019, is a settled thing. The Parliament that represents will of the people of the whole of the country approved it on August 5 and 6, 2019. On December 11, 2023, the constitution bench of the Supreme Court upheld the legal and constitutional validity of the revocation of Article 370 and 35A. Thereafter, there is no scope left for the issue to be reopened.
Despite the fact that the contents of the resolution , as its wording suggests , is very, very soft and is not all about rejection of the August 5, 2019 decisions, the nation is not reading it that way. It simply asks for the restoration of the special status in consonance with the national unity and legitimate aspirations of the people of Jammu and Kashmir through initiation of dialogue with the elected representatives. It is a self-deception.
The nation celebrated the abrogation of Article 370 and 35A because that established that entire nation is one; there is no incongruity or ambiguity on the issue. Kashmir had its own perception based on misperception that the Article 370 that was envisaged after Pakistani invasion of Jammu and Kashmir in 1947 is protectorate of its identity, and privileges. It was a twin peril – the people in the Valley were forced to think that they were different and superior in terms of their rights and privileges than the countrymen. It was a dichotomy- the state used to get all its funding and development from the country but that only encouraged fissiparous tendencies. Delhi realized it too late in decades. By that time a lot of damage had been done.
Second, the nation also discovered that the Modi government had done something that country had been waiting for since day one. The two symbols of sovereignty could not have been tolerated in a nation. When Narendra Modi came to power in 2014, he was expected to undo the constitutional incongruities, and that’s what he did on August 5-6, 2019.
National Conference may take a plea that it acted in accordance with the mandate that it received from its constituents as Omar Abdullah had led the campaign for the restoration of special status under Article 370 and the statehood in its original form .That being that. The NC Vice President closer to the last phase of voting had admitted that it was foolhardy to accept that the government that abrogated the special status would restore it ever. When this reality was known to him and the party, it was pointless to bring a resolution that had no way forward. If NC understands the politics of the day, it has harmed the interests of its people by tabling a resolution that the nation sees as an assault on the idea of one nation, one constitution. Indeed, the draft of the resolution, insists up dialogue with the elected representatives to draw mechanisms for the restoration of the special status. But it has foreclosed the doors for dialogue with the passage of the resolution that has not gone well with the people of Jammu as there is a big risk involved; it may encourage the elements crying for a separate statehood for Jammu, and leave Kashmir to its fate as UT.
A better path could have been to take all the elected representatives on board – from PDP to BJP – to work out unanimity on early restoration of the statehood with some guarantees on the protection of land and job rights. The opportunity has been lost.