Ahmed Ali Fayyaz/Srinagar

The Supreme Court's recent judgment on the abrogation of Article 370, after a 5-judge constitutional Bench heard a bunch of about two dozen petitions, has closed a long chapter of political uncertainty in Jammu and Kashmir.

This judgment, notwithstanding some hostile statements in the valley, is final as it can not be reversed or suspended; the writing on the wall is bold and clear that Jammu and Kashmir’s special constitutional position in the Union of India has gone forever.

As per the judgment, J&K’s Statehood, which was revoked along with Article 370 and 35-A in August 2019, has to be restored and the elections for the Legislative Assembly conducted before September 2024. 

In other words, the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, without Ladakh, will exist as a common State with a 90-member Assembly—without a Legislative Council and without the areas currently under the UT of Ladakh.

Significantly there have been no negative reactions from the masses across the valley even as almost all political parties, (except BJP) have rejected the judgment. They include Farooq Abdullah’s National Conference (NC) and Mehbooba Mufti’s Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Even the smaller parties like that of Sajad Lone and Altaf Bukhari, seen as the BJP’s allies in the future, have also taken the same stand. 

Some of them, including the three former Chief Ministers—Dr Farooq Abdullah, Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti—have declared to continue their ‘struggle’ for restoration of Article 370. Such adverse reactions are not completely unexpected in a territory that has reeled under Pakistan-sponsored insurgency for nearly 34 years and existed in a setting of competitive separatism permitted and promoted by the ruling parties and alliances at the Centre.

It is now unambiguously clear that all permissions to separatism and terrorism have been irrevocably withdrawn by the Government of the BJP which acquired a foothold in J&K only with the collaboration of the NC and the PDP.

Farooq Abdullah’s NC did not offer a shelter space to the BJP in the State but the fact remains that Omar Abdullah served as a Minister in Atal Behari Vajpayee’s BJP-led NDA Government at the Centre in 1989-99. In 2014, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and his daughter rejected all offers of unconditional support from the NC and the Congress and, for the first time in the State’s political history, the PDP gave Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP a strong pedestal and platform.

Sajad Lone’s Peoples Conference (PC) was the BJP’s only pre-poll ally in J&K in 2014. In 2019, Bukhari exposed his association and proximity to the BJP when he took a BJP-soft line on the abrogation of Article 370 when he was not jailed like other valley leaders, and when he limited his struggle merely to the ‘restoration of Statehood’.

Political analysts appear to be unanimous over the assumption that the BJP would have never taken such extreme decisions if the Kashmir-based parties had not compromised their known stand and made it a partner in government. 

A party of 25 MLAs in a House of 87 members—46 from Kashmir and 37 from Jammu—would have failed to form the government. It would have led to fresh elections in which the NC and the PDP would have swept the polls and formed a BJP-free government.

Of late, both NC and PDP are accusing each other of having been clandestinely in competition to grab power and form the government with the BJP. Interestingly, even after the BJP dismissed Mehbooba Mufti’s government, the NC, the PDP, and the Congress did not unite to form a ‘BJP-mukt Sarkar’. One of these parties’ ex-CM is still remembered for the hate he nourished towards the State’s red-and-white flag.

In the context of this recent background, who in Kashmir is going to take the local mainstream opposition leaders’ rhetorical statements and tantrums seriously?

The farther we go the cooler it is: In 1964-65, who helped New Delhi not only to establish a unit of the Congress party to trample the valley aspirations but also to reduce the nomenclature of Prime Minister and Sadr-e-Riyasat to Chief Minister and Governor? Who helped Delhi to bring J&K’s Governor (Sadr-e-Riyasat), who by law was to be elected by the people, down to the level of a nominee and agent of the Central government?

Was it Modi and his BJP or the same leaders who engineered history's most shameful manipulations in J&K in all elections from 1957 to 1972 and later again in 1987 for their benefits and vested interests? Legal and constitutional arguments apart, what moral ground did they have to obliterate Article 370 and other provisions that granted a special status to J&K? And the same politicians and their successors are today telling the Kashmiris to remain strong and continue their ‘struggle’ for restoration of 370!

Significantly, not a single political party across India has made a commitment and a promise in the election manifesto to bring back Article 370. The Supreme Court judgment has ended a long era of the artificial creation of sentiments and subsequently its exploitation by different parties who all have subscribed to the murder of the erstwhile State’s special status.

Even after getting over 50,000 Kashmiris killed, the separatists and the militants have failed to sever an inch of the Kashmir land from the Union of India, get it azadi, or make it a part of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. One particular party has failed to get even a shred of the much-touted ‘greater autonomy’. Another party’s slogan of ‘self-rule’ has faded into oblivion years back. Collectively, they all issued provocative statements and threats, challenging everybody to even touch Article 370 and thus making the BJP Government’s job easier.

A section of the valley’s population is indeed still nourishing the aspiration of special status and greater autonomy. But it is now mature enough to understand the consequences of fighting a lost battle by the exploitative leaders who may one day shortly be again power partners and bedfellows with the BJP.

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It is mainly because of this realization that the judgment on 370 did not evoke any turbulent reaction, businesses ran as usual without any curfew or hartal and there was no internet shutdown in any part of the valley.