In its first Assembly session on Wednesday, the Omar Abdullah-led National Conference government set the cat among the pigeons, so to speak. In a carefully crafted resolution that the Assembly passed, it was stated: “This assembly calls upon the government of India to initiate dialogue with elected representatives of the people of J&K for the restoration of special status constitutional guarantees, and to work out the constitutional mechanisms for restoring these provisions.” The resolution effectively calls for the rolling back of the abrogation of Article 370, which had been revoked by the Centre in 2019, and returning the special status given to the erstwhile State.
The resolution made the BJP, which has a strong contingent of 29 MLAs in the current Assembly, see red. The chaos that ensued has seen legislative work in the House crippled, with BJP MLAs getting involved in a scuffle with the marshals the following day. There were repeated adjournments and things came to such a pass that the Speaker had to evict some of the BJP members from the House. The political theatrics stretched on, with the BJP holding a mock Assembly on the lawns of the state legislature on Friday and saying that the House had been “hijacked” by the National Conference and there was a “constitutional crisis” in the offing.
For the Omar Abdullah government, the passing of this resolution has initiated something of a tightrope walk. On the one hand are local sentiments, which strongly favour the return of Article 370. On the other hand is the inescapable fact that he is the Chief Minister of a Union Territory with restricted authority, and good relations with the Centre are crucial. The BJP government in Delhi has signalled that a return to statehood is possible, but only if calls for the return of Article 370 are not raised in the Assembly. For the BJP, the decision taken on August 5, 2019, when the special status of Jammu and Kashmir was scrapped, is a door shut firmly that can’t be opened again.
The passing of the resolution on the first day of the Assembly was, above everything else, a symbolic move for the Omar Abdullah government. It was one of the cornerstones of his party’s election manifesto and it was important for the Chief Minister that the message goes out to the people of J&K that this important promise had not been forgotten. Smartly enough, the resolution was moved by the Deputy Chief Minister, Surinder Kumar Choudhary, a Hindu and an MLA from the Jammu region. The symbolic political importance of getting him to move the resolution is not lost on anyone: the importance of J&K’s special status cuts across religious lines and geographical divides. The message being sent out is that Article 370 is as important for a Hindu from Jammu as for anyone else from another part of the Union Territory.
While all other parties apart from the BJP have welcomed the resolution to restore J&K’s special status, they have also expressed their reservations and pointed out the crucial things missing from the document. Peoples Democratic Party leader and former Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti called the resolution “half-hearted” and lacking in conviction. Sheikh Khursheed, the brother of jailed Baramulla MP Engineer Rashid, expressed his support but with certain provisos. “There is no mention of Article 370 or 35A, no reference to the J&K Reorganisation Act of 2019, and no commitment to reverse the measures imposed on August 5, 2019,” he said in a statement, and branded the resolution an incomplete gesture on the part of the Omar government.
All eyes will now be on Omar Abdullah and his government and how they manage to navigate the treacherous political waters ahead. The historic mandate that Omar has won is both a challenge and an opportunity. He has undeniable public support, which gives him the moral authority to take decisions that will have an impact on the future of Jammu and Kashmir. In a trouble-torn region that counts for a lot, and Delhi would not want to take any drastic step that will make J&K slide further away from democratic process.
At the same time, moral authority and political power and entirely different things. Passing a resolution calling for a restoration of Article 370 is one thing, but initiating a dialogue with the Centre on this will require serious negotiation skills. Omar is an old warhorse on Kashmir’s political chessboard and knows the rules of this game well. If the people have any hope of getting themselves heard in Delhi’s power corridors, there can’t be a better person than Omar to be their herald.