A monthafter Article 370 was revoked, a group of Kashmiri Pandits met Prime MinisterModi in Houston. They kissed his hand in gratitude for revokingthe special constitutional status of J&K.
Closer home,Pandits became an integral part of the jingoistic coverage on theconstitutional conquest of Kashmir; many celebrated it on the streets bydistributing sweets. Many more offered free advisory on social media toprospective buyers of land in the valley. The saner voices, a sprinkling atbest, were drowned in the din of delusion.
Caught inthe propaganda, which was pervasive and pernicious, the Kashmiris Pandits wereled to believe that the new framework would enable them to go back to where theybelong.
Theircelebration of the abrogation of Article 35A, especially in light of the latersequential developments, is a tragic irony. It is ironic that those whoconceived and delivered the domicile law in Kashmir, celebrated its demise. Itis tragic because the new domicile law disenfranchises them even more than theKashmiri Muslims.
First theirony. To suit the present narrative, past has been recrafted to argue that thestate subject was a big favour to the Kashmiri Muslims by Hari Singh, latercontinued by the Jawaharlal Nehru in 1954; an appeasement in lieu of ancontentious accession.
The fact isthe state subject law was enacted because of the Pandits, by the Pandits andfor the Pandits. And executed by the British and not the Dogra Maharaja. It hadnothing to do with the Kashmir Muslims.
In 1889immediately after Pratap Singh was made to give up his powers, the StateCouncil replaced Persian, the court language, with Urdu as the officiallanguage. This hit the Kashmiri Pandits hard, especially the “Karkun Bhatte”who had learnt Persian (those who learnt sanskrit were called the “BhashaBhatte”) during the time of Zain-ul-Abidin. To regain their place in thebureaucracy and position in the power structure which they lost to the urdu-letteredPunjabis, they campaigned for reservation of Kashmiris in government jobs.
By 1894,they had set up Sanatan Dharam Sabha, which started the “Kashmir for Kashmiris”movement. It advocated exclusive reservation for Kashmiris and exclusion ofnon-Kashmiris from the State service. In the fight to secure the rights of the”mulkis” vis a vis the “non mulkis”, they were joined by the Dogra Sadar Sabha.
By 1910,they had succeeded in convincing the State Council of their demands and in1912, the state subject law with employment protection was enacted. Hence, toemphasize: neither Maharaja Hari Singh nor his Muslims subjects – the supposedbenefactor and the perceived beneficiary — were in the picture at all. It wasall done by the British and the Kashmir Pandits with some Dogras thrown in asgarnishing!
The wellknow State Subject Notification of 1927 issued by Maharaja Hari Singh was justa revision of the criteria as the earlier law had proved to be ineffective incurbing the influx of non-Kashmiris. The revisions made the law more stringentand extensive by adding exclusive property rights. Even this revision was gotdone by the Kashmiri Pandits on their own. Not to miss an interesting factoid,the Revenue Minister who issued it, R K Kaul, was a Kashmiri Pandit!
At thistime, Muslims were nowhere in the picture because, marginalised and excluded asthey were, they had no stakes in the system. Their educational status wasabysmally low and they were appallingly poor. According the Census of 1911,there were just six Muslim graduates. Out of the 1500 students in the StateHigh Schools, not even a hundred were Muslim. There was not a single Muslimstudent among the 300 odd boys in the C.M.S. School.
Far fromsupporting the move, the representatives of the Muslim community actuallyopposed the state subject law and its employment reservations. The cerebralpioneer of the freedom struggle of Kashmir, Ghulam Ahmed Ashai, who was tolater become a member of the Glancy Commission, formally opposed it in 1921 inhis deposition before the Committee on State subject.
He believedthat Kashmiri Pandits with their monopoly over the bureaucracy had madeKashmiri Muslims suffer. So he reckoned that “non-mulki” Muslims might be moresympathetic to their plight than the “mulki Pandit”.The Kashmiri Muslims werethat time more concerned about their wage hikes rather than aspire for salariedgovernment jobs as was evident from the Silk factory strike of 1924.
A 100 yearslater, we have come a full circle. The champions of state subject law are thecheerleaders for its revocation while its erstwhile opponents are resisting itsremoval! Ironic.
Now for thetragedy. Even as the new domicile law inits present form has taken care to include the West Pakistan Refugees, the KashmiriPandits have been left out; if not by design but by default. Most of KashmiriPandits, displaced from Kashmir in 1990, will not qualify criteria that havebeen laid out. It may seem like an administrative impediment, but strictlyspeaking as of now as per the new domicile act they stand excluded. A deemeddomicile status could have been easily provided to include them.
In fact, ifanything, a majority of Kashmiri Pandits have lost the most by the new domicilerules. It has been a double whammy for them; first as Kashmiris and then asKashmiri Pandits. As the former, the share downgrade from having been adomicile of origin — a legal right — to a domicile of choice, not even anenabling statute, but just a condition. As Kashmiri Pandits, the newnotification does not cover a majority of them who were forced to abandon theirhome and migrate to outside the state.
Up untilnow, all of them, migrant or not, had a documented domicile of origin – thehereditary state subject certificate – giving them the natural and legal right thatcould not have been “entirely obliterated and extinguished”. Even when they hadopted for another domicile, be in India or anywhere in the world, and even ifthey had relinquished it, it would remain in abeyance during the continuance ofthat acquired domicile.
Mostsignificantly, the hereditary domicile status that they had would not requireto be regained or reconstituted animo et facto in the event of a lossas has happened in their case because of the mass displacement in 1990. Now, asthings stand, they will have to. No matter what amendments are made, a majorityof the Kashmiri Pandits will have to re-establish their domicile status as ifit is the acquisition of a new domicile. This is tragic.
The samegroup of Kashmiri Pandits who were seen thanking the Prime Minister in US, orthe ones distributing sweets in Delhi or getting goose bumps in TV studios arethe ones who have legally been excluded from the domicile rights in the land ofhis forefathers.
Their forefathers— Pandit Shankar Lal Kaul, Jia lal Kilam and J L Jalali — the crusaders forthe state subject law in Kashmir, must be distressed at the short sightednessof their progeny. How they fell for the populist propaganda and lost what theyhad fought for and achieved in 1927.
Given the bureaucratic maze and the procedural formalities that will be invoked on the ground, it will be even more difficult, now than ever before, for the Kashmiri Pandits to venture going back to their land; administratively, socially as well as legally.
Tail piece:
Much afterthe state subject law was notified, when the educational situation of KashmiriMuslims improved, thanks to Mirwaiz Rasul Shah, the first crop, which includedSheikh Mohammed Abdullah, came into the state services job market. Naturally,they raised the issue of discrimination in state services with the GlancyCommission which submitted a favourable report.
No soonerthis happened, the Kashmiri Pandits started the Roti agitation and appealed tothe British, that their “enlightened, educated, law-abiding community which haddrunk deep at the fountain of English learning and culture” was under siegefrom the “barbarous and ignorant” Muslims!