Time is apt to restore J&K's Statehood
Political uncertainty culminating in political premonition serves nobody's interest. It needs to be replaced by an optimistic vision for the future, drawing from compassionate terms of engagement between New Delhi and J&K. Handing over full executive powers to J&K's elected government is the first step.
The Supreme Court (SC) in December 2023 recommended the restoration of J&K's Statehood but did not specify a deadline. Now is the apt time. Among many reasons is the urgency to not fritter the democratic participation that Kashmir Valley witnessed in last year's Assembly elections. A population reckoning with bureaucratic rule wanted to empower a regional leader. The people reposed faith in Omar Abdullah's capacity for calibrated navigation, hoping the National Conference (NC) would negotiate a respectable arrangement for J&K, at the least Statehood.
New Delhi ought to engage with and empower a Chief Minister elected with a historic mandate. It is advisable to also engage with other regional players, especially former Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti and emerging young leaders such as Waheed Parra. The mainstream leaders' secular politics is Indian democracy's asset. Trying to scupper them by facilitating political proxies will be preposterous.
Mr. Abdullah has shown political sagacity by repairing ties with New Delhi. But over a podcast recently, he lamented that he is unable to get work done as he has little authority over the officials. His presence merely as a custodian of status quo is causing dissatisfaction among the voters. It has also earned him accusations of pusillanimity, including from elements within his party, who are publicly advocating a more confrontationist course, significantly expanding their personal appeal. Mr. Abdullah could also animate his constituency with lofty sound-bytes, but he understands a collision course with New Delhi will not help J&K's case.
Sources say Mr. Abdullah is hopeful that Statehood will be restored in August. Acknowledging the people's will even when the Union government has the power to perpetuate the LG's hegemony will generate far more political optimism than economic implements could alone.
Only twice in history has Kashmir witnessed relative peace: from 1948 to 1952 when Jawaharlal Nehru empowered Sheikh Abdullah to effect social and economic overhaul; and from 1975 to 1984, following the Indira-Sheikh Accord to when Indira Gandhi toppled Farooq Abdullah's government. Clearly, 'peace' is contingent on harmonious relations between New Delhi and the State government.
Recently, a daily in Kashmir reported that restoration of Statehood will be followed by fresh elections, as the previous elections were meant for a Union Territory. This created a furore in Srinagar. It is unlikely that there will be another Assembly election. But the lack of a political roadmap built on consensus is deepening public apprehension.
Particularly alarming is the regional divide between Kashmir Valley and Jammu. An example of it was the mob violence in Jammu against a Kashmiri man accused of stealing. Such incidents underline the urgency of setting up a State Human Rights Commission and the SC-recommended Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
In the foreseeable future, the BJP will remain the predominant force in Jammu, and the NC in Kashmir. The NC made a noble gesture by anointing its lone Hindu MLA, Surinder Choudhary, from Rajouri as the Deputy Chief Minister. It is the BJP's turn to reciprocate. Infiltration in Poonch and Rajouri is alarming. There is hardly time for procrastination.
Anando Bhakto reports on Kashmir and national politics
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In case of Bihar, the 11 acceptable documents listed by the ECI are birth certificate, passport, matriculation certification, permanent residence certificate issued by a state authority, forest rights certificate, caste certificate, National Register of Citizens or NRC (wherever it exists), family register prepared by state/local authorities, any land/house allotment certificate by the government, any identity card or pension payment order issued to a regular employee or pensioner of central government/state government/PSU, or any such identity card/certificate/document issued by the government/local authorities/banks/post office/LIC/PSUs prior to 1 July, 1987. During the hearing, senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, appearing for the ECI, assured the court that the only purpose behind the exercise was to ensure that everyone who was eligible is on the electoral roll, and that it was looking at the aspects of citizenship and age. However, the court immediately pointed out, 'All the documents you have listed are related to identity.' Justice Joymalya Bagchi was quoted as saying, 'Why citizenship? Only identity. None of these illustrative documents that you listed or by themselves proof of citizenship.' This is why the petitioners have challenged the selection of documents by the ECI, alleging that the exercise is 'arbitrary, because the inclusions and the potential exclusion of documents do not make sense from the perspective of what they claim they are trying to do, that is to authenticate citizenship', the lawyer quoted earlier asserted, speaking to ThePrint. The Aadhaar dichotomy There seems to be a dichotomy between the ECI's resistance towards accepting Aadhaar for the revision in Bihar, and its past actions. ECI's manual on electoral rolls issued in March 2023 mentions the Aadhaar as an acceptable document to be attached with Form 6, the official application form used for new voter registration, or for those voters who may be shifting their residence from one constituency to another. It says that Aadhaar may be furnished, both as proof of age and proof of ordinary residence. Back in 2015, the commission had launched a nationwide comprehensive programme, National Electoral Roll Purification and Authentication Programme (NERPAP) with an objective of bringing an 'error-free and authenticated electoral roll' by linking EPIC (Electoral Photo Identity Card) data of electors with Aadhaar number, mobile number and e-mail. However, on 11 August that year, the Supreme Court passed an interim order in the petitions challenging the Aadhaar scheme, asserting that the production of an Aadhaar card would not be mandatory for obtaining any benefits, and that it would not be used for any purpose other than the PDS and LPG distribution schemes. Post this order, the poll body had halted its Aadhaar programme, directing its Electoral Officers to suspend all activities to collect and feed Aadhaar numbers of voters. 'Henceforth, no more collection of Aadhaar numbers from electors or feeding/seeding of collected Aadhaar data shall be done by any election authority or official connected with NERPAP,' the commission's directive had reportedly read. In 2021, on the ECI's recommendation, the government had amended the Representation of People Act, 1950, introducing a new form 6B to collect Aadhaar numbers from existing electors on voluntary basis for authentication of his entries in the electoral roll. Also Read: Congress, TMC oppose EC's 'special intensive revision' of electoral rolls in poll-bound Bihar What is ECI's mandate? The revision exercise in Bihar has triggered concerns over the commission indirectly entering the domain of determining citizenship of citizens through the revision of voter rolls. During the latest hearing in the top court in the case, senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Rashtriya Janata Dal MP Manoj Kumar Jha, asserted that it is only the Government of India that can contest a person's citizenship, and not a 'small officer of the EC'. 'The Supreme Court has said in many cases that it is not the remit of the Election Commission to go into the citizenship aspect. That is creating a little problem here,' Former Lok Sabha secretary general and Constitutional expert P.D.T. Achary told ThePrint. 'The job of preparing or revising the voters list is with the ECI. When the ECI is preparing the list, the question is whether they have the power to go into the question of citizenship. How will they decide whether a person is a citizen of India or not? What are the guidelines or the documents which the ECI can ask for, that is not clear at all.' Achary pointed out that the Representation of Peoples Act does not deal with this aspect at all. 'That means, the Election Commission does not have the remit to decide this question, because it can only be decided by the Home Ministry, which administers the Citizenship Act,' he said. 'ECI is thinking about this only because Article 326 stipulates citizenship as one of the conditions of eligibility, and its question is genuine. But I don't know why they are thinking about it now, when all these years they have not been doing it. There is a presumption that a person is a citizen.' The inclusions and exclusions The 1995 Citizenship Act is administered by the Ministry of Home Affairs, which is tasked with framing the rules under the law and overseeing its implementation. During the hearing Thursday, when advocate Dwivedi asserted that Aadhaar isn't proof of citizenship, Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia shot back saying, 'But citizenship is an issue to be determined not by the Election Commission of India, but by the MHA.' Former EC Lavasa also points out that it is the MHA which is tasked with determining citizenship under the 1955 law. 'Every Act has its own administrative mechanism. That administrative mechanism is supposed to carry out the functions that it is responsible for,' he told ThePrint. Apart from exclusion of Aadhaar, Achary is also troubled by the fact that the commission isn't accepting voter ID cards as well. 'That is a very strange position to take, that you have given the voter identity card, which is given to a person who is enrolled as a voter, and that voter's list was prepared under the law and the Constitution. What question remains after that? What is the value of this document?' he remarked. Besides, the petitions filed by the top court point to several issues that emerge from each of the 11 documents. For instance, Rajya Sabha MP Jha's petition cites various government surveys and data to highlight that a negligible part of Bihar's population holds several of these documents, including birth certificate, passport, permanent residence certificate, and identity card/pension payment order issued to regular government employees. It also points out that at least two in this list—NRC and family register—do not apply to Bihar. How have revisions been done before? Intensive revisions have taken place ever since the first general elections in the country. For instance, the preparation of first electoral rolls began in 1947, well before the 1950 Act, or the establishment of the ECI. However, it was noticed that in the rolls used for the first elections, several names of women electors had to be deleted because they were enrolled as 'mother of' or 'wife of', instead of their proper names. To fix this, after the first election in 1952, the ECI had directed revision of electoral rolls in 1/5th of each state annually from 1952 to 1956 to finish the exercise before the Lok Sabha polls in 1957, and 1/3rd of each state annually from 1957 to 1961 to complete the exercise before the 1962 polls. Post this, the commission had said that summary revisions should be sufficient in 1962 and 1964, while intensive revision was conducted once again in 1965 in 40 percent of the country, and in 1966 in the remaining 60 percent areas. Lavasa explained that the approach in earlier intensive revision exercises was 'very simple'. 'In case of intensive revision, it was done as a fresh exercise. During house-to-house verification, the head of the family gave the names of the people who lived in the same house. The ERO would then put out a draft roll, and the expectation was that if a person had given false information, somebody would object to it,' he said. In the normal course also, if someone objects to a person's eligibility as a voter, it is on the objector to prove the claim that a voter is not eligible, unlike the current exercise in Bihar, where the burden of proof of citizenship has been placed on the already-enrolled voters. However, Lavasa asserted, the old 2003 order directing intensive revision should be made available to check how that exercise had been undertaken. 'Till that notification is available, it is difficult to say with certainty how it was done in 2003.' (Edited by Mannat Chugh) Also Read: 'Arbitrary, to be replicated in Bengal.' 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