Commenting on the conflict that led to the killing of Joan of Arc, Bernard Shaw wrote, “an irrational force met with an immovable object and generated the heat that consumed poor Joan”. The story of Joan, to Shaw, devolves on the tragic encounter of two seemingly contrary, but similar, fetishes. A fetish is an irrational object of worship. Rationality expresses itself through dialogue; irrationality through suppression and violence, each side claiming to have truth and justice wholly on its side.
The people of Kashmir have been victims of a grandly induced confusion. They were made to mistake separation for autonomy. It is a poor and self-alienating understanding of autonomy that needs formidable and permanent barricades for safeguarding oneself. Autonomy is a desirable goal, provided it is understood aright. A tree in nature is, for example, in a state of autonomy. It is autonomous insofar as it enjoys the freedom to grow to its full scope as a tree of its kind, and produce fruits characteristic of it. But the ‘autonomy’ of a tree is limited insofar as it is devoid of freedom of choice. Autonomy in the human context must blend ‘fruitfulness’ with freedom; for freedom is the essence of being human.
Central to the tragic confusion in Kashmir is the confusion of autonomy with separation. The separatists propagate this deadly confusion. The people of Kashmir were, regrettably, led by the nose by leaders who, for their own vested interests, schooled them in this confusion. Their advantage on this count lay in exempting themselves from prioritising the all-round development of the people to the extent that circumstances allowed. The fact that ideal circumstances were not obtained is no alibi for not attempting earnestly enough to do what little they could well have done.
This makes the pro-greater-autonomy argument of the kind that people like former Home Minister Chidambaram make less than convincing. The confusion as to what autonomy entails prevailed not only among self-styled separatists but also, in a less explicit fashion, among mainstream political leaders like Mehbooba Mufti and Omar Abdullah. Their spells of governance, otherwise, would have been marked by more effective initiatives for the development of the people of J&K. The state, for the most part, presents a spectacle of blighted brilliance and cankered beauty. The talented students of the state have to go elsewhere for meeting their aspirations. The track record of poor governance this implies does not make a convincing case for greater autonomy. There really is no reasonable ground for the people to assume that greater autonomy would usher in better days for them.
The problem on the ground is that the fetish of separation provokes, in the opposite camp, the fetish of assimilation. This is an issue crucial to the infrastructure of federalism as a whole. States that value freedoms of integrated autonomy, such as is envisaged in federalism, cannot afford to confuse autonomy with separatism without eroding the discipline and doctrine of federalism. At the same time, if and when the federal power seeks to dilute or erode the constitutionally configured autonomy of states, it could stoke flames of separatism mistaken as autonomy.
It is unhelpful and bankrupt vis-a-vis the essence of democracy to conceive federalism as a tightrope walk between the powers of the states and those of the Union. Power is not the end, but the means, of democratic governance. The people by and large are indifferent to the technical subtleties of federalist tight-rope walking. They are interested, instead, in good governance, which is the historical justification for federalism going back to the American War of Independence (1783).
When the goal of good governance is excluded from strategies for containing autonomy masquerading itself as separatism, the people trapped in the conflict zone could begin to see it, not as an innocent restoration of constitutional federalism, but as a physical triumph, a sort of military annexation, accomplished by other means.
While this activates widespread euphoria and approval elsewhere, it holds out the danger nationwide of colouring the democratic tastes and outlook of the people. Democracy is not predicated on defeat and victory, submission and domination among citizens; but on people-centred governance sensitive to the welfare and affirmation of every citizen. A style of governance that is indifferent to the plight of every citizen, or every people-group, falls short of the benchmark: ‘government for the people’. It can only be government for the ruling elite and for the majority, which is anything but democracy. Government-formation in democracy happens, admittedly, on the legitimacy of numbers in a first-past-the-post system; but democratic governance functions, and ought to function, on the equality and equity of treatment available to citizens both as discrete individuals and as members of well-defined communities.
Ironically, what has facilitated the present way of solving the vexed Kashmir problem, as well as what makes it seem more sinister than it needs to, is the ambience of Hindutva, with its commitment to cultural homogenisation and communal consolidation as Hindu Rashtra in conformity to the vision of Veer Savarkar. But it could still be a less traumatic exercise if Savarkar’s view that all religious communities should have the right to exist and pursue their interests within the over-arching framework of the Hindu Rashtra is honoured. Overwhelming force is undesirable as an arbiter in political adjudication. The gains of force are like lines drawn on water.
Valson Thampu
Former principal of St Stephen’s College, New Delhi
Email: vthampu@gmail.com