THE GIST of Editorial for UPSC Exams : 25 August 2020 People’s parties(The Hindu)

People’s parties(The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2:Governance 
Prelims level: 
Mains level: Important aspects of governance, transparency and accountability

Context:

  • Six mainstream parties of Jammu and Kashmir on Saturday vowed to work together for the restoration of its special status under the Indian Constitution.
  • On August 5, 2019, the Centre scrapped Article 370 and dismemberedJammu and Kashmir into two Union Territories through a dubious legislative route.

Reiteration:

  • Saturday’s joint declaration is a reiterationof their Gupkar Declaration a day before the Centre’s move last year.
  • Still, this signals a slow return of political activity in Jammu and Kashmir which had been stalled for over a year.
  • With leaders in jail and curbson communication and gatherings, mainstream politics has been under lockdown even as militancy showed an uptick.
  • Several leaders have since been released, but many still remain in detention, including former Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti.
  • They have said their “political activities will be subservientto the sacred goal of revertingto the status of Jammu and Kashmir as it existed on 4th August 2019”.
  • Regional parties, the Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Movement and the PDF, also supported the declaration.

Kashmir Policy:

  • The Centre’s Kashmir strategy apparently assumed that mainstream parties had no popular support and would wiltonce the heavy restrictions on their leaders stayed long enough.
  • It also tried, rather naively, that a new cadre of politicians could be raised and a dramatic change in political culture achieved through external stimulants.
  • Defectors from the PDP and panchayat leaders who won in an election boycotted by most parties completely failed to build any alternative politics.
  • The Kashmir policy has been a mix of reckless audacityand ignorance, laced with the BJP’s brand of unitary nationalism.
  • Asymmetric power sharing with several regions and the Centre has been critical to the formation and stability of the Indian Union.
  • The current government itself, which is ostensiblyopposed to special arrangements, negotiated on one with Naga rebels.
  • The Centre has also reiterated there would be no alteration in any of the existing arrangements in the Northeastern region.
  • In the case of Jammu and Kashmir, the mainstream parties with deep social roots have always welded the region close to India.
  • The BJP and the Centre sought to delegitimise them all as ‘soft separatists.’
  • They were immobilised and rendered vulnerablebefore their own people.
  • These moves undermined all elementary principles of democracy and federalism, but also impairedwhat the Centre claimed it was doing — closer integration of Jammu and Kashmir with India.

Conclusion:

Prelims Questions:

Q.1)With reference to the expansion scheme of National Cadet Corps, consider the following statements:

1. A total of one lakh cadets from 173 border and coastal districts will be inducted in the NCC.
2. One-third of the Cadets would be girl Cadets.

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

(a) 1 only
(b) 2 only
(c) Both 1 and 2
(d) Neither 1 nor 2

Answer: C

Mains Questions:

Q.1)Resumption of political activity, and restoration of statehood are a must in Jammu and Kashmir. Critically comment. 

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