Citizens’ forum calls for early elections in Jammu & Kashmir

The Forum finds: “It has been nine years since the last legislative election in Jammu and Kashmir

 

By Ajai Shukla

Business Standard, 5th Aug 23

 

Four years after the Central government revoked Jammu and Kashmir’s (J&K’s) special status under Article 370 of the Constitution, a concerned citizens’ report released on Thursday found that continued human rights violations in the region makes holding early elections imperative.

 

This was the fourth report of the Forum for Human Rights in Jammu and Kashmir (The Forum). Titled “Five Years Without an Elected Administration: Human Rights in Jammu and Kashmir, August 2022 – July 2023,” the report was released by The Forum, along with National Conference president Farooq Abdullah, and members of parliament Manoj Jha (Rashtriya Janata Dal), Supriya Sule (Nationalist Congress Party), Kanimozhi (Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam), Shashi Tharoor (Congress), Sitaram Yechury (Communist Party of India – Marxist) and Mohammad Yusuf Tarigami (People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration).

 

The co-chairs of The Forum are Gopal Pillai, former Union home secretary and Radha Kumar, former member, Group of Interlocutors for Jammu and Kashmir.

 

In July 2023, the union Ministry of Home Affairs filed a counter-affidavit before the Supreme Court against petitions that challenged the constitutionality of the Presidential Orders of August 5, 2019. 

 

These read down Article 370 of the Constitution of India, as well as the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act of August 9, 2019, and claimed that the two actions had “brought unprecedented development, progress, security and stability to the region.”

 

The Forum, in three annual and two thematic reports, documented over three dozen economic, political and social rights that were allegedly violated between August 2019 and July 2022. It also details economic losses of over Rs 50,000 crores.

 

Equally glaring, in the period up to June 2023, the right to representation has been denied to J&K for five years.

 

The report finds that civilian insecurity persists and “targeted attacks” continue on Pandits and migrant workers – Hindu and Muslim. While there were fewer deaths due to armed attacks and counter-insurgency than in 2021-22, an “unacceptably high” number of policemen died, including Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) troopers.

 

The report says: “71 CRPF troops were killed in the four years between 2019-2022, twice as many as in the previous four years, 2014-2018, when 35 died. By comparison, in the four years between 2012-2015, which can be categorised as an uneasy interregnum between the post-peace process years and the rise of conflict in the BJP-PDP coalition, 27 CRPF troops were killed.”

 

Furthermore: “In 2023, it was found that J&K had the largest number of licensed gun holders amongst union territories and the highest per capita amongst states as well as union territories, at 500,105 in June 2023, or four (guns) per hundred people.”

 

Highlighting the resurgence of militancy in the Jammu region, the report says: “After decades of peace, the border areas of Poonch and Rajouri districts in Jammu division are re-emerging as a locus for militancy with cross-border support from Pakistani-held territories of the former state.”

 

The report criticises the delimitation in 2022 of fresh legislative constituencies, which added Muslim-majority Poonch and Rajouri to Kashmir’s Anantnag. It stated that the sharpening of communal divides in Jammu may have added to the alienation in these Muslim-majority areas.

 

On the subject of elections, The Forum finds: “It has been nine years since the last legislative election in Jammu and Kashmir. The union administration accepted the delimitation commission’s report a year ago and it is eight months since fresh electoral rolls were prepared.All the preparations for an election have thus been completed, but the election commission has yet to announce dates for it.”

 

Criticising the state of prisons, The Forum pointed out that J&K matched Delhi in having the most undertrials as a proportion of its prison population – at 91 per cent, against the national average of 76 per cent, it said.

 

The region’s prisons can house 3,629 inmates, but were actually lodging 5,300 as of June 2023, it added.