The renewed autonomy debate

The weekend just passed by was full of autonomy debate. Congress leader P Chidambaram pitched for greater autonomy for Jammu and Kashmir on the basis of Article 370. The Congress immediately distanced itself from the statement, terming it as individual opinion, and not of the party. The Congress claimed that the solution to J&K lies within the framework of India's Constitution, not in autonomy. The BJP and its allies immediately jumped to criticise, accusing Chidambaram of being anti-national.



Chidambaram has served as home minister in the past during the UPA government, which had during its 10-year term, appointed three interlocutors and five working groups for Kashmir, including one headed by former vice-president Hamid Ansari.



They also conducted a series of round table conferences on Kashmir, chaired by the then prime minister Manmohan Singh. Each working group and interlocutor had submitted their reports, none of which ever saw the light of day, all still gathering dust. Hence, while Chidambaram, as the home minister failed completely in his mission to resolve the Kashmir issue, raising it now is meaningless.



Commenting when out of power is easy, after all, you are no longer responsible nor likely to be for some more time. In Kashmir, moments after he was re-elected as president of the National Conference (NC), Farooq Abdullah, put forth a similar demand of autonomy, which was followed by Omar Abdullah, who also spoke on similar lines. What is most surprising is that Chidambaram and the Abdullahs only consider Kashmir, while suggesting autonomy. They should have been batting for completeJ&K, including PoK, to be a single autonomous state. Why do they hesitate in mentioning PoK?



If there should be an autonomous region, it should be the entire state and not just a portion, now amalgamated and integrated with India? Jammu and Ladakh would never support their decision for autonomy as it does not trust the Kashmiri leadership nor even the Congress, as was evident in the last elections.



The regions within the state clearly have different views on the subject, which neither Chidambaram nor the Abdullahs thought of mentioning. They, despite being senior politicians, with national standing, speak only of a particular region (Valley) within the state, not the state per se. The criticism of Chidambaram’s comments by Prime Minister Narendra Modi is justified. After all, with elections around the corner, every word spoken by the Opposition is open to exploitation. However, most unimaginative has been his exploiting martyrs and the armed forces in countering these comments.