Events & Issues

New Delhi, 22 September 2009

Delimitation Exercise

WILL IT TAKE PLACE IN J&K?

By Sant Kumar Sharma

The word delimitation evokes sharp emotional reactions in Jammu and Kashmir. The polity is divided amid the midriff and the general impression is that the people of Jammu region want it to happen, whereas the people of Kashmir don’t. The former believe they can gain from it and the latter fears that if it happens they would be the losers. Some Jammu-based parties, particularly Jammu & Kashmir National Panthers Party (JKNPP) and the Samajwadi Party (SP), are in the forefront raising the demand for delimitation, with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) joining the bandwagon, though belatedly.

The State’s SP chief Sheikh Abdul Rehman, a former MP, was the first political leader to raise this demand. Hailing from Bhaderwah in Doda district, Rehman had contended in his public speeches that the present boundaries of the Legislative Assembly as also the Lok Sabha constituencies were unfair and biased in favour of the Kashmir region.

Seeking rationalization and reorganization of constituencies through delimitation, he had filed a writ petition in the Jammu and Kashmir High Court seeking delimitation of the Assembly constituencies, way back in 2007. Rehman demanded that the territorial boundaries of be rationalized through de novo delimitation as had happened across the country.

Two more writ petitions were filed later before the same court and they were all clubbed together. The Chief Justice of J&K High Court, Barin Ghosh, and Justice Mansoor Mir, heard the petitions, as they were declared to be Public Interest Litigation (PIL). The Bar Association of Jammu (BAJ) and the Bar Association of Kashmir also joined the litigation as interveners. They adopted diametrically opposite stances in the court, with former supporting the demand for delimitation and the latter opposing it with equal vehemence.

At one point, the Bar Association of Kashmir had even argued inter alia that there could be no delimitation in J&K as the territory was ``disputed,” awaiting a final settlement. The learned judges had refused to enlarge the scope of the petitions in this context and heard both the sides.

Incidentally, in the 87-member Assembly, the balance of power is firmly in favour of the Kashmir Valley as it gets to elect 46 MLAs, whereas the Jammu region has 37. Four MLAs are elected from the Ladakh region. The fear of the Kashmiris obviously is that delimitation would theoretically change that and make the equation between the regions more evenly balanced.

Regrettably, it is unfair to put the people of one region against the other in this manner. The fact is that common people do not understand the grave political points, such as delimitation, a fairly complicated redrawing of boundaries of electoral constituencies. They usually are led to adopt positions, for or against, on such vital issues by the politicians. 

So far, the politicians of both the Kashmir valley and Jammu have been garnering support, tentatively, by adopting for and against positions. It however, is a pity that they have not taken the trouble to explain, in the smallest detail, the proposals in connection with the process of delimitation. Worse, they are asking the masses to harden their stance without explaining things.

The issue was taken up a couple of times in the recent Assembly session held in Srinagar and Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, had dismissed the demand abruptly. The danger inherent in adopting this course of action is that if the leaders harden their respective stances, reconciliation on the issue through a dialogue would become very difficult, if not impossible altogether. 

It is pertinent to recall the terrible price the J&K has had to pay due to the Amarnath land row in 2008. This happened because the issue assumed the proportions of an inter-regional dispute, to begin with, and then became a deeply divisive communal conflagration. Its wounds are still raw and any issue that has similar disruptive potential needs to be tackled carefully and with due diligence.

Earlier, in 2004, the Women’s Disqualification Bill passed by the State Assembly on March 5, had too pitted the two regions against one another. The Bill sought to deprive the women of the State citizenship if they married outsiders (citizens of other States), as unlike the rest of India, not all citizens can be the citizens of J&K.

With the introduction of the Bill, the State literally got divided into two opposite camps with protests breaking out on the streets in Jammu against it instantaneously.  Even more important is the fact that it threatened the political stability in the State as the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its coalition partner, the Congress, had adopted contradictory positions. The Bill had posed the first real threat to Mufti Mohammed Sayeed government. And had it been passed the Government would have surely fallen.

Interestingly, the National Conference had supported the Bill, asking its members to vote, along with PDP members. There was a vested interest: to bring down the Mufti government by splitting the Congress and the PDP alliance. Indeed, the NC had succeeded in driving a wedge between the two partners. Soon after, the State Congress leadership distrusted the PDP and the favour was returned, ultimately leading to a break-up of the alliance. The party which gained in the struggle of one upmanship was eventually the NC, as it replaced the PDP as the Congress’s alliance partner after the Assembly elections last year.

The PDP is, however, now preparing the ground for administering the same medicine to the NC as it plans to pilot a Bill on the same issue. It has already sought the NC’s support for getting it passed.  

The JKNPP chief, Professor Bhim Singh, has filed a Special Leave Petition (SLP) in the Supreme Court now as the J&K High Court had earlier dismissed petitions seeking fresh delimitation. The Advocate General of Jammu & Kashmir, M I Qadri, has said that the Government will defend its stance, in the Supreme Court. The issue is being seen by many as a divisive issue, having the potential of spreading the poison of acrimony and bitterness between the Kashmir valley and Jammu, if not handled properly.

At the same time, while the authorities would need to tread carefully it is important to remember that while the delimitation exercise has been undertaken in 513 Lok Sabha constituencies across the nation four times since 1947, J&K’s six parliamentary constituencies remain untouched. ---INFA

 (Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)