Jammu and Kashmir Assembly Proceedings Disrupted Amid Oproar Over Resolution On special Status

The Jammu and Kashmir legislative Assembly on Wednesday passed a resolution seeking the restoration of special status and other constitutional guarantees enlisted in Article 370 that was abrogated on August 5, 2019, by the government of India. The passage of this resolution by voice vote in the House amidst chaotic scenes as the 28-member strong BP members staged protests offers a peep into the confrontation between the Centre and the Omar Abdullah government in the days to come. It may prove to be a flashpoint in Srinagar-Delhi relations.

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The ruling National Conference was bound by its commitments to the voters who voted for it in response to its election-time promise to work for the restoration of Article 370 that granted special status and several inviolable constitutional guarantees to the erstwhile state, now broken into two union territories and degradation of J&K to UT. Omar Abdullah had also promised that his party would bring a resolution to this effect if it is voted to power. This is the political significance of the resolution as it conveyed that the ruling party reflecting the will and aspirations of its voters has done what it had promised. More than that, it has also conveyed a message to the world, that J&K has not accepted the “ unilateral;” removal of the special status and the constitutional guarantees that it had before August 5, 2019.

The real issue for the Centre now would be to counter this narrative that the people of J&K rejected the abrogation of Article 370. It will have to reinvent its narrative beyond the arguments that it had in its kitty that the Parliament had passed the abrogation of Article 370, the constitutionality and legality of which was later upheld by the Supreme Court. It also claimed that the people of J&K had given a thumbs up to the revocation of the special status and the special privileges to the natives of the erstwhile state.

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BJP had repeatedly cited the peaceful elections in J&K as an endorsement of its moves, which was extended to the claim that terror violence had come down and the people were going about their daily chores without any fear. This claim, however, was dented with the recent terror attacks on civilians and soldiers More than a dozen civilians have been killed and many more wounded in the terror attacks, and most alarming were the attacks on the civilians in the capital city of Srinagar. Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha has vowed to crush terrorism with a heavy hand and also given a free hand to the security forces to take on terrorists and their harbourers and even ordered that the houses of those sheltering terrorists be razed to the ground. He made it clear that terrorism would not find any space nor will there be any compromise on it.

It is a fact that this resolution passed in the J&K Assembly would have no bearing on the current status of J&K, as the issue falls in the jurisdiction of the Parliament, no other legislative body, including the duly elected Assembly in J&K, can affect any changes. But what is significant is the message that the resolution seeks to convey that all were not happy with the abrogation of Article 370, and it also undermines the national narrative that everything is hunky dory in J&K.

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But the saving grace in the whole episode is that while the resolution called for the restoration of statehood, it laid stress on dialogue with the elected representative and conciliation of the national security and aspirations of the people of Jammu and Kashmir.

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