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:

• There is a need for immediate course correction.
• Jammu and Kashmir’s statehood must be restored and political activities should be freely allowed, for a start.
• Resumption of political activity, and restoration of statehood are a must in Jammu and Kashmir.

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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.