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Now for some governance please

If 'well begun is half done' is a proven truism, then the exceptionally healthy turnout in the first phase of the J&K assembly election last week is an ominous signal to Pakistan and its surrogates in the state who tried so desperately to muzzle democracy with gnarls, guns and grenades.

The initial turnout is also a tribute to the courage of the state's electorate and adds a feather, besides, in the cap of our country's Election Commission even after making allowance for its error of first announcing a 44 per cent turnout and, two days later, correcting it to 52 per cent (as per Anjali Mody's report on the op ed page of The Hindu, September 18.)

One cannot, however, avoid rubbing in the salt that the EC should, in retrospect, accept that the state assembly poll in Gujarat would have been much more simple if only the EC had not been so overly concerned about a teeny proportion of the total population being in refugee camps or had migrated elsewhere. If even the endangered species of J&K have come to the polling booths, then there's no reason to believe that the bulk of the riot-affected ones in Gujarat would have stayed away. But let that pass for no other reason than that the latest election in J&K could be a turning point in the state's ultimate destiny.

Probably the biggest revelation of the J&K poll is what itinerant correspondents found a week or so before the first phase of voting and on the voting day itself. The newspaper reports came to an almost unanimous finding: the people's disgust with the dynastic rule of the National Conference government. Below are some them popular responses and perceptions.

• 'These elections are not being fought on any grand ideology or political platform. Wherever there is a real contest, it is local, roti-kapda-makan issues that are striking a chord. People have daily problems. This is the beginning of a people's movement.' (Outlook magazine, September 16)

• 'All of us women will vote this time. We have so many problems. Look at me. I am educated but have no job. The militants kill us once but the NC kills us again and again.' (Amina, a resident of Darial village, Outlook, September 16)

• 'These independent candidates have been compelled to contest because of people's pressure. People have day-to-day problems that have to be addressed. They have been begging to stand and raise local issues.' (Editor of an Urdu newspaper quoted in Outlook, September 16.)

• 'J&K's chief minister Farooq Abdullah is a hated figure in the valley, a symbol of all that's gone wrong in recent years.' (Outlook, September 16).

• 'They want to get rid of the ruling National Conference.' (Mohammed Amin, 27, quoted in The Indian Express, September 17).

• 'For the last 13 years, we suffered because of the wrong policies of earlier governments.' (Mohammed Bhat, 61, quoted in The Indian Express, September 17).

• 'Your leaders have established a dynasty here and taken people for a ride. You said you will build a Naya Kashmir, and you have not built even a road.' (A polling agent of People's Democratic Party to his NC counterpart as quoted in The Indian Express, September 17).

• 'The (NC) party has not been able to carry the population of Jammu and Ladakh along with it and the result is that there are strong demands for the separation of Jammu and Ladakh from the state. This is proof of the total failure of the NC leadership which has ruled the state for over three decades now.' (Attributed to Ghulam Nabi Azad, chief of the J&K state Congress, in Outlook, September 16).

The above sentiments represent not so much the anti-incumbency factor ubiquitous in India's voting pattern, but rather a telltale fallout most foul of entrenched and endemic misgovernance. The sentiments do not indict New Delhi, be it noted. Nor are they a plaint against the much-believed rigged polls of the past. They represent a crying need, a craving, not for autonomy but for a clean, sensitive and forward-looking government.

And yet, the ironic tragedy of it all, Farooq Abdullah has been crying hoarse for pre-1953 autonomy -- an autonomy that will, among other freebies, permit the state's chief minister to be designated as Wazir-e-Azam (prime minister). And it's a sad commentary on Sonia Gandhi's knowledge of the issues involved that only the other day she publicly said at Srinagar that greater autonomy is the key to the J&K crisis. Perhaps she doesn't read Outlook and The Indian Express but only her speeches written by some anti-BJP lackey.

The above sentiments of the ordinary people of J&K also expose those 'experts,' ex-foreign secretaries included, who have been urging New Delhi to grant more financial packages to J&K, to hold dialogues with all and sundry including the holier-than-thou Hurriyat Conference, and to generally bend backwards -- all so as to win over 'the alienated people of J&K' and to 'preserve Kashmiriyat' (whatever that myth means) and to fulfil the nation's promise at the time of 1947 accession and to honour Constitutional obligations...

It's really inexplicable how such high-sounding, lofty prescriptions have emerged from the political class or think tanks or editorial analysts or committees of one hue or the other

• without remembering that in a federal setup it is the state government, not the Centre, that is responsible for administration and socio-economic advancement
  
• without knowing that J&K already has much more autonomy than other states
  
• without understanding Article 370 forward and backwards
  
• without ascertaining the impact of various Parliamentary laws not made applicable to J&K
  
• without grasping the concessions under the 40-odd Constitution (Application to J&K) Orders issued by the President of India under Article 370
  
• without reading the J&K State Constitution under which all J&K citizens are Indian citizens but all Indian citizens are not necessarily the privileged citizens of J&K
  
• without assessing the considerable regional disparities in all matters between the Valley on one side and Jammu and Ladakh on the other.

All the above subjects have been explained in this column more than once while pleading that what J&K has really needed is simple: governance, better governance, and economic-cum-emotional integration with the rest of the nation.

In utter contrast, even an apparently lay member of the letters-to-the-editor fraternity has zeroed in to the essence. In The Times of India, Mumbai, September 19, one S K Mishra of New Delhi wrote as follows:

'Article 370 has isolated Kashmir from the rest of the country. But for Article 370, entrepreneurs from all over the country would have invested in the state and set up industries and other lucrative business ventures. By now Kashmir could have been one of India's most prosperous states.

'Thanks to the existence of this piece of legislation, however, Kashmiris continue to believe they are foreigners and the central government is constrained to shell out vast sums of money in a bid to divest them of this notion. Where does this money used by the government to assuage the easily ruffled feathers of the Kashmiris come from? The taxpaying public, of course. But do any of the valley-based, self-styled Kashmiri leaders ever acknowledge our contribution?

'The time has come for the government to abrogate Article 370, stop subsidising Kashmir and end this parasitic relationship?'

A more precise, more pragmatic and more apolitical summation of the J&K situation hasn't been made in the last 50 years than what this letter writer has done above. It is vaingloriously tempting to believe that this columnist's views have somehow spread to the likes of S K Mishra. One can only hope and pray that such wisdom somehow dawns on the new government in J&K as well.

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The J&K election

Arvind Lavakare