Revisiting J&K’s autonomy

NO less momentous than the dramatic change in Pakistan’s policy on Afghanistan is the progressive scaling down of the commitment to the Kashmiri right of self-determination to whatever is embodied in the code-phrase ‘demilitarization and self-government’. Insofar as this shift reflects recognition of an adverse transformation of the international situation as well as the growing political, economic and military disparities in South Asia, this process is historically inevitable. Inherent in it, however, is the great challenge that it does not deliver the people of Kashmir into eternal slavery.

On our side, there is very little articulation of either the new destination or the roadmap to it. If Pakistan was a working democracy, the foreign minister would have made a reasoned statement to the National Assembly, a task for which he is pre-eminently qualified. His spokesperson can do no better than retreat into the feeble alibi that important developments are taking place in the so-called secret diplomacy. All that we have is rather disconnected sound bytes from President Musharraf that run the risk of contradictory interpretations and that provide grist to the propaganda mills of his political opponents.

Friends on the Indian side of the divide define the problem as New Delhi finding an acceptable ‘face-saving’ for the Pakistani leader. This formulation is shared by some of Pakistan’s top diplomats with several years of the experience of dealing with India.

Basically, the current Kashmir diplomacy seems to have been reduced to discovering the modalities by which Kashmiri aspirations can be reconciled to some kind of autonomous existence within the Indian Union. I have myself argued in this space for an agreed period of autonomy on both sides of the Line of Control provided it is a prelude to a final settlement closer to the aims and objectives of the protracted struggle of the people of Jammu and Kashmir.

One of the best-informed American specialists on South Asia told me only a few days ago that the word “autonomy” would have to be replaced by some other word to make any tangible progress with India. Perhaps President Musharraf is mindful of the need to further dilute Kashmiri expectations by using “self-governance” instead of “autonomy” in his frequent pronouncements on the issue.

The irony of thinking “out of the box” is that it, essentially, means going back to the box in which Sheikh Abdullah conceptualized the relationship between Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) and the Indian Union in the fateful years 1947-1953. Nehru sprung him out of jail and persuaded the maharaja, who had become the paramount ruler upon the lapse of British suzerainty, to make an order on October 30, 1947, to appoint him as the “head of administration”. A subsequent proclamation of the maharaja on March 5, 1948, elevated Abdullah to the status of prime minister. On August 8, 1953, Sheikh Abdullah was dismissed and imprisoned.

During the intervening years, he struggled hard to hold Nehru to his commitment to honour the limited accession of the state to the Indian Union as contained in the so-called instrument of accession and as enshrined in what eventually became Article 370 of the Indian constitution. It is probably helpful to recall the salient features of this struggle as they provide important markers for a future dispensation based on “self-governance”. It must be recorded straightaway to President Musharraf’s credit that, unlike Sheikh Abdullah, he links this concept to demilitarization. India was able to incarcerate the lion of Kashmir for years because he had no control on the ultimate levers of power.

The State Autonomy Committee set up by the Srinagar government in November 1996 (referred to hereafter as ‘the committee’) recalled in its report that at the time of the visit of the Cabinet Mission, the National Conference had demanded a total abrogation of the Treaty of Amritsar, “which was in the nature of a sale deed” executed with Gulab Singh on March 16, 1846. The restoration of full sovereignty to Indian princely states by the Independence Act of 1947 coincided with the suppression of a popular movement in the valley against Dogra tyranny. In many parts of the J&K state of 1947, there was a spontaneous uprising for close linkage with Pakistan. Direct intervention by the Pakistan army took place rather late in the day and considerable territorial gains made during the upsurge of the people were lost to the Indian military offensive of April 1948.

Even so, the situation stabilized by the Pakistan army denied Azad Kashmir and the bulk of the Northern Areas to India. Azad Kashmir comprises 13,297 square kilometres and the Northern Areas another 72,496 sq. kms. India controls a total of 101,387 sq.kms of Kashmir, Jammu and Ladakh.

The maharaja’s instrument of accession, signed after the Indian troops had landed in Srinagar, conceded only foreign affairs, defence and communications to India. By 1949, Sheikh Abdullah was already engaged in difficult negotiations with New Delhi on Article 306-A (later Article 370) concerning powers of the Indian parliament to make laws for J&K territories. The committee referred to above noted that two important letters written by the Sheikh on October 12 and 15, 1949, on this subject were not available.

He had strongly complained that pledges given to him were not being honoured. His letter of October 17, 1949, to Ayyangar, quoted in full by the committee, is a record of his failure to prevent a formulation that he instinctively realized could one day be used against him, as, indeed, it was in 1953.

Article 370 still safeguarded the concept of a limited accession. It exempted J&K from the provisions of the Indian constitution for the governance of the states. It could have its own constitution within the Indian Union. The Indian parliament could legislate only on three subjects — foreign affairs, defence and communication. Any extension of other constitutional provisions would require not only the concurrence of the J&K state government but also ratification by the states’ own constituent assembly.

The Autonomy Committee was of the opinion that “Article 370 cannot be abrogated or amended by recourse to the amending provisions of the (Indian) constitution which apply to the other states”, unless applied by order of the president of India under Article 370 itself that required “first the concurrence of the State government and subsequent ratification by its constituent assembly.”

Nehru was too great a politician to consider the text of any agreement as eternally sacrosanct. This is what destroyed the British plan to create a zonal federation for transfer of power to a united India. The exchange of letters between Sheikh Abdullah and Nehru in July 1952 on Article 370 probably made the Sheikh aware of this reality as on August 11, 1952, he asserted in the state constituent assembly, which he described as a sovereign body, that Article 370 could not be “abrogated, modified or replaced unilaterally”.

“I would like to make it clear,” he thundered, “that any suggestion of altering arbitrarily this basis of our relationship with India would not only constitute a breach of the spirit and letter of the constitution but it may invite serious consequences for a harmonious association (my italics) of our state with India.” Sheikh Abdullah obviously considered his view to be the only valid interpretation of the Delhi agreement reached between him and Nehru on July 24, 1952.

Events moved fast after Sheikh Abdullah’s imprisonment. New Delhi foisted puppets on Srinagar and initiated an endless process of eroding Article 370. The Indian constitution (Application to Jammu and Kashmir) Order 1954 deviated from the instrument of accession as well as the Delhi Agreement. The committee listed 42 (Application to J&K amendment) orders between 1954 and 1986. It noted that out of 395 articles of the Constitution as many as 260 were applied to J&K, out of 97 entries in the Union list 94 were applicable, out of 47 entries in the concurrent list 26 were applied, and that seven out of 12 schedules had become applicable to J&K.

The Autonomy Committee made important recommendations with a view to rehabilitating Article 370. “Designed to protect the state’s autonomy,” it concluded, “(Article 370) has been used systematically to destroy it. A compact is necessary between the Union and the State that Article 370 can no longer be used to apply to J&K any other provisions of the Constitution of India beyond the ones extended under 1950 order and the Delhi agreement, 1952.”

The above narrative would be pedantic if Pakistan had not thrown its weight behind self-governance. It becomes highly relevant to any future negotiations between India and Pakistan and between their governments and the representatives of the people of Jammu and Kashmir. There are international precedents for settlement on the basis of autonomous association or partnership — both words borrowed from Sheikh Abdullah’s lexicon — but in all of them autonomy is inviolable. Prof Abdul Ghani Bhat has told an English language daily of Lahore that radical changes in global politics have affected the Kashmir freedom struggle and that the Kashmiri youth would have to adjust their outlook.

The APHC’s shift to realpolitik is understandable but neither Pakistan nor the APHC can dispense with the responsibility of making the best possible deal for future generations. So far as the areas that liberated themselves in 1947 — the freedom of which has been defended with the blood of Pakistani soldiers for 58 years — are concerned, there has to be even greater caution.

I have recounted the tragic history of the autonomy for which Sheikh Abdullah spurned Pakistan only with a view to emphasizing the need for much greater vigilance in the days ahead. I hope to devote the next article to my understanding of this vigilance. I have no doubt in my mind that if, for any reasons, we cannot exercise it today, we should leave it to another time and to another government. Pakistan cannot be in the business of selling yet another mirage to a people who have buried 70,000 martyrs. Realism does not mean abdication of all moral responsibility.

The writer is a former foreign secretary.

Musical chairs of Kalabagh

A GREAT deal is being written and broadcast on the achievements of the present government. The sycophants waste no opportunity in telling the nation, if one can borrow a phrase from the late Harold Macmillan, that they have never had it so good, and that the country is jolly lucky in having somebody like President Musharraf at the helm of affairs.

In fact, astonishing as it may seem, a week after the devastating earthquake, a servile flatterer came out with a four-page supplement in this newspaper extolling the virtues of the president whose benign and reassuring presence has for six long years held the country together. The timing of the supplement was atrocious.

Recently, the nation got a visual taste of how decisions are at times taken in the government. This was the president’s much publicized press conference on the Kalabagh dam screened on national television — a shining example of what is generally meant by transparency in Islamabad. “Let’s hear what the opposition has to say. Bring the arguments out into the open. Don’t hold anything back.”

That is precisely what didn’t happen. It was all very friendly, tidy, polite and pleasant — like a meeting in a gentlemen’s club. Farooq Leghari, a former president, spent some time on a convoluted preamble, unravelling for the audience his ethnic antecedents and telling them where his loyalties really lay. He then concluded by saying no matter what anybody says, the dam was in the supreme national interest. Arbab Rahim, the chief minister of Sindh, who a few days earlier reinforced the resolve of the Sindh government to stand firm in the face of pressure from Islamabad, squirmed in his chair as he gave a magnificent display of doublespeak, speaking both for and against the proposal, leaving the viewer gasping for breath.

The only person who did not kowtow to the formidable northern lobby and stood firm, was Mohibullah Shah of the flowing white beard and white hair. He struck a serious note of dissent and played the tune to the end. In chaste Urdu he crystallized what could be called Sindh’s reaction to the proposed construction of the Kalabagh dam — a collective view which is full of misgivings and mistrust. He was followed by Abdul Hafeez Shaikh, minister for privatization, who kept the television audience guessing as to the direction he would take after a five-minute introduction during which the ball landed on both sides of the court, ending in a eulogy that could at best be described as “an exercise in critical ambivalence.”

After that a couple of members of the provincial media struck a somewhat dissonant chord which disturbed the harmony, causing the moderator’s face to dissolve into weary resignation and the president’s face to register a look of startled innocence. But these pressmen were in a minority. Their discords were drowned by the harmonious chorus of assent, as a string of ministers, officials and other hangers-on outdid one another in gratuitous novelty and took turns to tell the president that he was the only person in the room who had actually done his homework. One even went to the extent of saying that is was impossible to really know what the actual position was, as different newspapers gave different figures and that he, the president, was the only person in the country who knew exactly how many cusecs of water flowed down the Indus.

As the president soaked in the subtle compliments one wondered what the rest of the audience was doing in the hall since they apparently hadn’t done their homework, unless it was to give the Islamabad lobby moral support. One also wondered why some of the PPP hardliners had not been invited to the conference. Their inputs would have certainly livened up what could best be described as a tame, somewhat staid one-sided performance.

Nevertheless, the meeting did at least succeed in mellowing the president’s earlier resolve to forge ahead with the construction of the controversial dam, in spite of the opposition from the south. It also demonstrated that he had an open mind on the subject. One wishes he would have more such meetings with members of the public on national television, and instead of filling up the hall with government toadies, invited representatives of a cross section of public opinion.

A subject that certainly needs to be discussed in a public forum is: how does the present government see Pakistan 10 years from now? And what plans does it have to improve conditions? Perhaps this question should be asked in October 2007, when one hopes the nation will return more enlightened people to the two assemblies. But the way things are going it looks like one set of oppressive rulers will be replaced by another and that the destiny of the people will continue to be guided by a bunch of retrogressive conservatives whose priorities gravitate in the direction of personal comforts and purchases rather than protecting human rights and solving the problems of the populace.

It didn’t have to be like this. The person, who could have made a difference, is the president. How the nation welcomed him when he took over six years ago from a democratically elected prime minister. How the people praised his initial resolve, hanging on to every promise when he addressed the nation on television, as if it had the authority of scripture. He enjoyed all the power a man could wish for, like the late General Ne Win of Burma.

Imagine what would have happened if he had decided one fine morning to become serious about abolishing panchayats and jirgas, and had decided to do away with the iniquitous Hudood Ordinances. All it really needed was a few strokes of the pen. The mullahs would have made the usual noises, and it might have cost the government a few diesel trucks. But he would have had the support of the liberal, secular lobby in the country and 50 per cent of the electorate who wouldn’t have really cared if he had stayed on for another five years in the same uniform. Besides, he could have always blamed it on the Americans. But for some inexplicable reason he chose not to.

In the Kalabagh dam conference, the camera focused on a gentleman who one presumes represented the business community. After making sure he wasn’t ruffling any feathers and paying the same cliche-ridden tribute he made a point about the importance of information technology. But this was the wrong forum. Today, all concepts of progress, development, growth, justice and innovation are being swept along by the same retrogressive tide which denies rights to women and children, purchases eleven-million rupee Mercedes Benzes for people who give the thumbs-up sign to men who kill women in the name of honour, buys new VVIP aircraft for VVIPs reinforcing the saying that Pakistan is a poor country with rich people, widens the gulf between the haves and the have-nots and crushes liberal elements in its wake.

It reminds one of that last poignant scene in Frederico Fellini’s epoch making film La Dolce Vita, which brings us an unflinching view of the emptiness brought on by riches, fame and corrupt living. The film centred on Papparazzo, the photographer who lived on the fringe of an effete and decaying society, after whom have been named the members of the flash-bulb fraternity that make their living by invading the privacy of the rich and famous.

After wading for 90 minutes in the mire of lascivious living, indulging in the odd flirtation for appearance’s sake, he discovered that he didn’t really belong to that social order whose lifestyle had for centuries been feeding on the carcass of an impoverished society. And so he tried to make contact with a girl who was a Downer like himself and who also belonged to that amorphous mass referred to as the proletariat. But it was too late. An inhospitable breeze separated them. They belonged to two different worlds. It’s time the government woke up to the harsh realities of life in the Islamic republic and decided to do something for the people who elected them. Otherwise, it might become too late.

CCI’s revival: a welcome step By Dr Mubashir Hasan

THE news that the government has decided to revive the Council of Common Interest (CCI) is most welcome. By the creation of CCI, as required by the Constitution, some of the thorny problems faced by government may be resolved. One can recall that during the initial discussions over the future constitution of Pakistan in 1972, the leaders of political parties in the Constituent Assembly had expressed strong resentment against the absolute control exercised by the central government over matters of oil, gas, electricity, river waters, dams, railways, industrial projects, etc., etc.

To satisfy the demands from leaders of all the four provinces, the innovative provision of the Council of Common Interest was laid down as Article 153. Through Articles 153-155, the 1973 Constitution made the four provinces of Pakistan shareholders in some of the decisions which interested them greatly and were traditionally treated as purely federal subjects.

“Article 154 (1) of the 1973 Constitution provided:

The Council shall formulate and regulate policies in relation to matters in Part II of the Federal Legislative List and, in so far as it is in relation to the affairs of the Federation, the matter in entry 34 (electricity) in the Concurrent Legislative List, and shall exercise supervision and control over related institutions.”

Part II of the Federal Legislative List in the Fourth Schedule of the constitution specifies the following subjects:

“Railways; mineral oil and natural gas; development of industries under Federal control...; institutions, establishments, bodies and corporations administered or managed by the Federal Government immediately before the commencing day, including West Pakistan Wapda, West Pakistan Industrial Development Corporation, all undertakings, projects and schemes of such institutions, establishments, bodies and corporations, industries, projects and undertakings owned wholly or partially by the Federation or a corporation set up by the Federation.”

It is fervently hoped that the council now revived by the government shall soon assume the powers and control over the matters specified in Part II which it has been denied so far.

Worthy of special note is the fact that the Constitution places the decisions of the Council of Common Interest (CCI) on a status higher than the decisions of federal or provincial governments.

Clause 5 of Article 154 says:

“If the Federal Government or a Provincial Government is dissatisfied with a decision of the Council it may refer the matter to Parliament in a joint sitting whose decision in this behalf shall be final.”

The constitutional provisions mean that the president, federal government, the National Assembly, the Senate and provincial governments are obliged to honour the decisions of the CCI. The CCI alone has the authority to formulate and regulate policy and exercise control and supervision over the operations relating to matters in the subjects specified in Part II of the Federal Legislative List. Should there be a complaint against the decisions of the CCI, only the federal government or one or more of the provincial governments can appeal to the joint sitting of the parliament against a decision of the CCI.

The 1973 Constitution also contains special provisions pertaining to complaints as to interference with water supplies such as objections to the construction of a reservoir or the diversion of water from a river into a canal.

Article 155 (1) says:

“If the interests of a Province, the Federal Capital or the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, or any of the inhabitants thereof, in water from any natural source of supply have been or are likely to be affected prejudicially by — (a) any executive act or legislation taken or passed or proposed to be taken or passed, or (b) the failure of any authority to exercise any of its powers with respect to the use and distribution or control of water from that source, the Federal Government or the Provincial Government concerned may make a complaint in writing to the Council.”

Article 155 (2) lays down the procedure to deal with such complaints. It says: “Upon receiving such complaint, the Council shall after having considered the matter, either give its decision or request the President to appoint a commission...”

Faithfully and truly to revive the Council of Common Interest (CCI), the government will have to put the ministries dealing with water, power, oil, minerals, railways, steel mills and other industries under ministers who are designated as members of the CCI. All of them may not necessarily be members of the federal cabinet. The chief ministers of the provinces might also be eligible to take charge of the subjects under the CCI.

The CCI is not to be responsible to the federal government. The prime minister or a minister nominated by the president will be chairman of the council. The prime minister, if he nominates himself as a member of the council, shall be head of the CCI. The Constitution designates the CCI is an entity separate from the federal government just as a provincial government is a separate entity.

The government should immediately proceed with framing rules of business to carry out the work of the council. Probably the CCI will require a cabinet secretariat of its own, reporting to the prime minister.

The writer is a former finance minister.

US economy and Mr Bush

THE past year has been remarkable for the economic disasters that did not happen. The huge US trade deficit, which threatened a collapse in the dollar and a destabilizing spike in US interest rates, actually delivered neither. High oil prices, which peaked dramatically after hurricanes devastated the Gulf Coast, created neither gas lines nor the wider economic fallout that many had anticipated. Instead, the US economy kept growing at a rate close to the impressive 4.2 percent notched up in 2004, which many had assumed was unsustainable.

All this testifies to the flexibility of the economy and the wisdom of the Federal Reserve — though it shouldn’t be assumed that the trade deficit, even bigger now than it was a year ago, will remain forever free of consequences.

Yet on one important measure, the economic news hasn’t been as good. The majority of workers have not felt the benefits. The issue is not joblessness: Ten years ago economists debated whether unemployment could fall below six per cent without triggering inflation, but in November joblessness stood at just five per cent, down from 5.4 per cent a year earlier — a feat that the euro zone, with an unemployment rate of 8.3 per cent, can only envy.

Rather, the problem for workers lies in take-home pay. Wages for blue-collar manufacturing workers and non-managers in services have remained stagnant since the economic recovery began in November 2001.

Part of the reason lies in the rising cost of non-wage benefits, especially health insurance. The value of benefits received by the average civilian worker rose 5.1 percent in the year to September, and that increase followed two years in which benefit costs were roaring ahead at a rate of more than six per cent. These increases, which outpaced inflation, help explain disappointing wages. If it costs more to provide medical insurance to workers, employers will pay themselves back by holding wages down.

But it may also be true that technology and globalization are contributing to wage stagnation; if workers can be replaced by machines or foreigners, they have limited bargaining power.

—The Washington Post