POLITICAL ALIENATION

It was alleged that partial application of the secular equality, envisaged by the Constitution of India, to the State, impaired the religious political and economic precedence of the Muslims, which formed the basis of its autonomy. It was also alleged that secular equality emobodied by the Constitution of India could not be reconciled to the Muslim identity of the State and the militant violence symbolised this irreconcillability.

Accusations were levelled against the Government of India and the Hindus inside the State as well as in the rest of the country, that they had unceasingly sought to demolish the separate and independent identity of the State and terminate the autonomous political organisation, ensured for it, by the provisions of Article 370 ofthe Constitution of India. Many leaders in the Congress which was in the opposition in l990, when the terrorist violence erupted in the state, several leaders of the political parties in the United Front Government and many leaders in the left parties and parties professing commitment to socialism and classless society, went as far as to make wild claims that the accession of the State was conditional upon the recognition of its autonomous Muslim identity and the National Conference, led by Sheikh Mohamad Abdullah, had supported the accession of the state to India on the assurance of the Indian leaders that the Jammu and Kashmir State would not be intergrated into the secular constitutional organisation of India and would instead be reconstituted into a separate political entity on the basis of the Muslim majonty character of its population. Inside the State, the Pradesh Congress, even the Janta Dal factions, blamed everybody: the Indian Government, the State Governments which they had themselves run, the Hindus, imperialist forces and foreign hands, for the onset of the militancy in the State, absolving the Muslim fundamentalist forces and secessionist movement of all responsibility for the death and destruction, the terrorist flanks had brought about. Most of these leaders indulged in self- condemnation and went as far as to enumerate the wrongs done to the Muslim community and their failures recognise to the right of the Muslim majority to reorganise the State on the basis of the Muslim law and percept.

Many of these leaders demanded and insisted upon the restoration of the automous position, the State enjoyed before the constitutional changes embodied in the "Delhi Agreement", were implemented by the Presidential Ordinance in May 1954. The National Conference leaders demanded a political organisation for the State, which would be based upon the exclusion of the State from the constitutional organisation of India, by abrogating the application of the provisions of the Constitution of India, which were extended to the State by the Presidential orders of 1954, and the subsequent orders promulgrated to intergrate the State into the secular political organisation of India. They demanded a political package, to form the basis of the political process, scheduled to be initated in the State, to contain Muslim militancy which they proposed to envisage:

• Complete exclusion of the Jammu and Kashmir State from the constitutional organisation of the Constitution of India, extended to Jammu and Kashmir by successive Presidential Orders;
• the recongition of the right of Muslims to reconstitute the state into a Muslim polity;
• the recognition of precedence of the Muslim majority in the society, economic organisation and the government of the state and;
• virtual relegation of the Hindus and other minorities in the State to a subject and surrogate people.

Another major political factor which was alleged to have led to the alienation of the Muslims was that they were denied palticipation in the political processes ofthe State Government and the Union Government had always manipulated the configuration of power in the State, to the exclusion of the Muslim masses Allegations were made that the electoral processes in the state were massive rigging, to keep out the "true representatives of the Muslims." It was claimed that, had fair elections been held in the State, the Muslims would have given to themselves a government, based upon Muslim law and precept and independent of the federal government of India. In a Muslim State, which would be based upon the religious law and precedent of Islam and in which the precedence of the Muslims would be recognised in economic, social and political organisation, the Muslims would not have needed to rise in revolt against India.

Allegations were also levelled against the Government of India that the Muslims had been denied the political power, which they were ensured by the separate constitutional organisation of the State. The successive State Governments were blamed of having organised the decision-making units in the State in a manner that were dominated by the Hindus, who converted the decision-making processes of the State Government to the disadvantage of the Muslims. Several left extremist leaders went to the extent of identifying the Muslim militancy with the conventional classwar in which the Muslims were characterised as the downtrodden and the exploited masses.

The Muslim leadership in the State, which had overty and covertly supported the fundamentalisation of the Muslim society, also blamed the Government of India and the Hindus of having excluded the Muslims from their rightful share in the exercise of political power and the decision making processes of the State Government. They joined to denounce India for the ills which, they alleged, had led to the militarisation of the Muslim protest. The Muslim United front, a combine of several organisation ideologically committed to the Muslimisation of the State and its secession from India, the Jamait-Islami, the main fundamentalist Muslim orgalusation, and the dissident splinters of the National Conference, accused the Indian Government and the Hindus of having deprived the Muslims of political power by having rigged the electional held in 1987, and installed mto power the National Conference-Congress coalition, headed by Farooq Abdullah. The National Conference leaders expressed their anger against the Government of India and the Hindus in their own way. Most of the Conference cadres, bred up in the anti-India movemnet led by the plebiscite front blamed the Congress leadership of having interfered with the function of the Conference government. In the moments of great crisis, when the militant violence began to spread rapidly and paralysed the entire administrative organisation of the State, the National Conference leaders denounced the appointment of Jagmohan as the Governor of the State, who was called by the rank and file of the Conference called the "Assassin of the Turkman Gate" and a sworn enemy of Islam. Farooq Abdullah, who headed the Conference-Congress Coalition Government in the State accused the United Front Goverment of interference in the affairs of the State with a view to scuttle the freedom of the Muslims. The Coalition Government resigned in protest against what the leaders of the Coalition Government termed as the deliberate attempt of the Indian Government to throttle the aspirations of the Muslim majority in the State. The Congress leaders in the State, as well as in India, joined the Conference in its condemnation of the quick and effective measures Jagmohan adopted to contain the rapidly escalatiing militant violence.

The Conference leaders added fresh candour to the disinformation campaign to cover the real motives behined the ethnic cleansing of the Hindus from the valley. They made wild statements about the exclusion of the Muslims from the services of the State Government and the Government of India, which they alleged were dominated by the Hindus. The run-away leaders of the National Conference and the local Congress and the remanents of the left factions of the Communist Parties, who had not made public confessions of their guilt and fraternised with the Mujahids, and who had fled Kashmir before the Hindus did and had taken quarters in Jammu and the other towns of India, led the campaign to spread false stories and canards about the terrorist voilence in Kashmir. Flanked by swarms of special security officers and housed in well guarded fortresses, they commended the courage of the Muslims in Kashmir in having risen against injustice and denounced Jagmohan, the Indian seculity forces deployed in Kashmir and the Hindus who had oppressed the Muslims and deprived them of their rights.