Statistics reveal that in the last 77 years, Kashmir has been directly ruled by New Delhi through governors or proxies for 62 years
By Iftikhar Gilani
Since the Mughals annexed the Kashmir Valley into Delhi Empire on 6 October 1586 the region has been mostly ruled by appointed governors or subidars.
Post-1947, many, including the region’s towering leader Sheikh Abdullah, hoped that under the world’s largest democracy, people in Kashmir would be empowered and allowed to govern themselves.
However, statistics reveal that in the last 77 years, Kashmir has been directly ruled by New Delhi through governors or proxies for 62 years. Unlike other Indian states where a locally elected popular chief minister governs, Kashmir has experienced such governance for less than 15 years.
The atrocities committed by governors during the Afghan, Sikh, and Dogra eras are deeply ingrained in Kashmir’s folklore.
Afghan governors like Haji Karim Dad Khan and Azam Khan left a legacy of bloodshed and desolation. Their heavy taxation policies converted fertile farms into desolate lands and sent artisans to abject poverty. Similarly, Sikh governors such as Dewan Moti Ram and Kripa Ram enforced brutal policies, including hanging 19 people for possessing beef and burning a businessman and his family. The death sentence was enforced for possession of beef.
Yet, amidst these cruel rulers, some governors showed mercy.
Notably, Sheikh Ghulam Mohiuddin and Sheikh Imamuddin, the last two governors of the Sikh era, were compassionate. Ghulam Mohiuddin, for instance, reopened and repaired the Jama Masjid in Srinagar, which had been locked and converted into a stable by the first Sikh governor.
Though he was also non-local a Punjabi from Lahore, his death in 1845 was met with public mourning, and his tomb remains in the compound of Sheikh Hamza Makhdoom’s Dargah on Hari Parbat Hill in Srinagar.
Therefore, the recent decision of India’s Home Ministry to extend the powers of Lieutenant Governor Manoj Kumar Sinha is hardly surprising.
Since 2018, Kashmir has been ruled directly by New Delhi’s governors. Since the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is in power in New Delhi, it tried almost every trick to seek entry into Kashmir Valley.
It manipulated electoral boundaries to its advantage and offered allurements.
Despite this, in the last Lok Sabha elections, BJP proxies suffered significant losses, particularly in Kashmir Valley.
The success of independent candidate Engineer Rashid from North Kashmir highlighted local discontent, with BJP’s proxy candidate getting the lead from only one of the 18 Assembly segments in North Kashmir.
In Central and South Kashmir, BJP proxies lost deposits.
This outcome led to discussions in New Delhi and within BJP circles about postponing the assembly elections under the guise of law and order issues and increasing militancy in the Jammu region.
However, when the Supreme Court validated the government’s decision of August 5, 2019, to abolish internal autonomy, the court directed the government to hold elections by September 2024.
Therefore, to hoodwink and circumvent court orders, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government transferred substantial powers to the lieutenant governor, its own representative, undermining the elected chief minister’s authority.
The lieutenant governor now holds the discretion to appoint senior officers, administrative secretaries, and law officers, sign their annual performance reports, and authorize prosecutions.
Observers say even a municipal committee chairman or a village sarpanch will have more powers than an elected chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir. A larger question is when the chief minister can not control bureaucracy, how will he be able to make them obey his orders?
-Friction between chief ministers and governors
Throughout history, few governors, like Lakshmi Kant Jha and Narendra Nath Vohra, have maintained cordial relationships with elected chief ministers.
In 1953, the Sadr e Riyasat (as the governor post was named at that time), Karan Singh, dismissed Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah’s government without clear constitutional grounds. To this date, nobody knows under which law he was dismissed.
Because the Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir was drafted a year after this dismissal and Indian laws did not have any jurisdiction then on Jammu and Kashmir.
Since then, 10 governors and two lieutenant governors have occupied the splendid Raj Bhawan or Governor’s House in Zabarwan Hills overlooking scenic Dal Lake in Srinagar.
Notably, governors like Jagmohan and Lt Gen SK Sinha often clashed with elected governments, emphasizing New Delhi’s desire for control. When governors were not there, Congress used to ensure that it had tied up with the local regional party and demanded a share in governance.
The BJP has intensified this control and taken this mentality to the next level.
Following the Indira-Sheikh Pact of 1974 that was negotiated after Pakistan’s debacle in the 1971 war, Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah became chief minister in 1975 with Congress support. It was in 1977, when his party, the National Conference got the majority of its own.
During this time, his relationship with Governor LK Jha was very good. Jha, who was an economist did not interfere in the work of the chief minister and used to address Sheikh Abdullah’s ego.
He believed that if Kashmir was to be annexed to India without force, there was no better alternative, but to appease Sheikh Abdullah.
During this period, the Governor always arrived first at celebrations, welcoming the chief minister. According to protocol, it should have been the other way around, as the Governor represents the constitutional head, the President of India.
When BK Nehru, a relative of Indira Gandhi and a former bureaucrat and India’s ambassador to the US, replaced Jha in 1981, things changed. Nehru was known as a man who strictly adhered to the rules of the book, this protocol violation was the first to cause friction between the two.
Once, when both of them were invited to a function at the Amar Singh Club in Srinagar, the governor instructed his secretary to inform the cavalcade to leave 10 minutes after the chief minister’s cavalcade departed.
His aim was to force the chief minister to receive him at the function, as per the protocol.
Similar drama was being enacted at the chief minister’s residence too. He had also instructed his secretary that he would leave only after the governor reached the place.
Time passed, and neither of them was ready to go first. Meanwhile, calls from the organizers at the Amar Singh Club were becoming more frequent. Annoyed, Sheikh Abdullah asked his secretary to announce the cancellation of his appointment and tell organizers that the chief minister had been bitten by a bee.
When the Secretary to the governor inquired about the chief minister’s departure, he was also told that Abdullah had cancelled the appointment as he had stung him. The Governor, dressed in a suit and ready to leave, got annoyed, and he also conveyed a message to the organizers that he too had been forced to cancel the appointment as bee had stung him.
When news of the delays of both the governor and the chief Minister reached the Amar Singh Club, many people were surprised. However, knowledgeable individuals realized it was a battle of egos, and the state would have to bear the consequences.
Meanwhile, Abdullah had shown that he was an independent and different chief minister who would not compromise his powers.
According to BK Nehru’s memoirs, Abdullah was reluctant to accept Indian Administrative Service officers from Delhi and did not give them sensitive postings.
He also prohibited the transfer of the Kashmiri Chief Justice of the High Court.
He got the Resettlement Bill passed by the Assembly, allowing people who had migrated across the Line of Control due to the bloody riots of 1947 to return to Kashmir and reclaim their properties.
Nehru states that when he told the chief minister he would not sign the bill because it was unconstitutional, Sheikh Abdullah replied that interpreting the bill’s constitutionality was not their business.
If anyone has objection to its constitutionality, the courts would determine it.
Despite the strife, BK Nehru generally did not interfere much.
In 1984, when Indira Gandhi asked him to sack Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah two years after Sheikh Abdullah’s death, he refused, adhering strictly to the book.
This led to his transfer to Gujarat, and Jagmohan replaced him as Governor of Kashmir.
On 13 October 1983, during a cricket match between West Indies and India in Srinagar, Pakistani flags were hoisted, and portraits of Pakistani players were displayed.
Indian government openly expressed concern that Farooq Abdullah was losing control of the state.
Within a few months, in July 1984, Jagmohan dismissed the elected government.
Jagmohan claimed he acted in the national interest, alleging that the state government was not taking a firm stand against Sikh militants of Punjab, who would take shelter in the state.
However, the question remains whether it was justifiable to dismiss an elected government based on the cricket match incident. Just three months after Farooq Abdullah’s ouster, Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards.
-Rubber stamp governors
The governors themselves have been powerless and have acted as rubber stamps of the Indian Home Minister.
Satya Pal Malik exemplifies this helplessness and lack of information of the governor of Kashmir.
By the evening of August 4, 2019, he was telling everyone, including three former chief ministers, that he was unaware of any preparations for a constitutional change in Jammu and Kashmir, dismissing the anxiety and panic, as mere rumours.
In an interview with Karan Thapar for The Wire, Malik said that on the late evening of August 4, 2019, he received a call from Home Minister Amit Shah, asking him to sign some papers arriving from Delhi the next morning by a special plane.
Since the powers of the Assembly in Kashmir were transferred to the governor during the central rule, his recommendation was required to abrogate the provisions of Article 370.
Satya Pal Malik admitted that, despite being the governor, he was as ignorant of the process as the rest of the population.
An important question is why the governments in New Delhi have always been so keen to have direct or indirect control over Jammu and Kashmir.
In other Indian states, such as Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Odisha, local regional parties have successfully formed governments and completed their terms.
Even if there is no Governor’s rule in Kashmir, local parties are forced to form governments in coalition with national parties, leaving the elected chief minister heavily disempowered.
In the last 438 years, the truly elected representatives of the Kashmiri people or the Kashmiris themselves have never ruled from Srinagar most of the time, except for occasional periods.
This is an important factor in the ongoing turbulence, resentment, and resistance in Kashmir, which many fail to realize.
Even pro-Indian individuals question why this region is not treated like Tamil Nadu or West Bengal.
The behaviour of the Indian government, politics, and other institutions openly suggests that there is something amiss. That is why they treat Kashmir differently from other states.
This disparity suggests underlying issues in New Delhi’s approach to Kashmir, perpetuating the region’s turmoil and instability.
####
