On July 12, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs extended the administrative authority of the Lieutenant Governor (LG) of Jammu and Kashmir by amending the Transaction of Business Rules through an executive notification.
Under the new rules, the LG will now have the final say on the functioning of the All India Services that includes the senior bureaucracy of the Union Territory. The new rules have also placed the Anti-Corruption Bureau, the Directorate of Public Prosecutions, Prisons, and the Jammu and Kashmir Forensic Science Laboratory under the LG’s control. The LG will also have the final approval over the appointment of the Advocate General and other law officers.
The government will have to first seek the LG’s approval for the grant or refusal of prosecution sanction or the filing of an appeal.
Pertinently, following their incarceration after abrogation of Article 370 in August 2019, many local politicians, who previously held big ministerial posts and portfolios were waiting for their resurgence. But now, they may have to practise a different style of politics in Kashmir.
“This change was introduced to ensure the continuity of Central control in Jammu and Kashmir,” said Rekha Chowdhary, former professor of political science at Jammu University. “The political parties have been understanding the situation from the very beginning. Being a Chief Minister in a Union Territory is very different from being a Chief Minister in a State. In a Union Territory, a Chief Minister’s power remains limited.”
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The Peoples’ Conference chief Sajad Lone termed these amendments a violation of the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019. “Please don’t strengthen the perception of being at war with your own people in J and K,” Lone posted on X.
The amended Transaction of Business Rules gives power to the Lieutenant Governor to make rules with the “aid and advice of Council of Ministers.” Quoting sources, a Kashmir-based news agency reported that the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly may still make laws with respect to any of the matters enumerated in the State List except “Police” and “Public Order” and the “Concurrent List in the Seventh Schedule to the Constitution of India”. “This notification does not in any sense alter the balance of powers as enshrined in the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganization Act, 2019,” the news agency reported.
Repeated betrayal
Four-time MLA and Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader, Mohammed Yousaf Tarigami described the new order as anti-people. “It seems that even after August 5, 2019, the Central government is still unsure if they have full control over the region,” Tarigami told reporters on July 14.
Tarigami told Frontline, “This amendment amounts to a repeated betrayal of the promises made by the BJP government regarding the restoration of full statehood to Jammu and Kashmir. This is the only region that remains without an Assembly since 2018. Even if elections are held, it will not provide any sense of achievement to the people as the elected legislature will not be effective in providing any substantial relief.”
Kashmir’s noted political pundit Noor Ahmad Baba believes that the new diktat eliminates even the semblance of democratic participation. “The present amendment has further specified that the Chief Minister will have very limited administrative powers and authority, with no real power,” Baba said.
However, when Article 370 was eroded, the Central government claimed that Jammu and Kashmir would have a full-fledged democracy, better rule of law, and improved economic development. But this amendment, Baba noted, indicates that the Centre still lacks confidence in the situation. “The parliamentary elections sounded alarm bells for the Bharatiya Janata Party and hence such amendments,” he said.
Elections ahead
On December 12, 2023, the Supreme Court issued a directive to the Election Commission and mandated it to conduct elections in Jammu and Kashmir by September 30, 2024. The Election Commission had set the ball rolling on June 21 when it ordered the summary revision of electoral rolls and its publication by August 20.
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As someone who made the recent Parliamentary election quite captivating with his speeches on democratic rights, Waheed ur Rehman Parra of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) is now feeling a let-down. The PDP’s poster boy, who contested from the Srinagar Lok Sabha seat is now questioning the legitimacy of the forthcoming Assembly election. “Why hold elections in Jammu and Kashmir when the powers of the elected government are permanently delegated to an unelected administrator?” Parra posted on X. “This erosion of the People’s Representation weakens our democratic institutions permanently.”
Reacting to the recent amendment, former Chief Minister and Jammu and Kashmir National Conference’s Vice-president, Omar Abdullah, said India’s federal structure was undermined. “It’s an absolute fact that this amendment will empower LG and disempower democracy,” Abdullah told Frontline. The people of Jammu and Kashmir have not selected the LG, he said, but instead he’s been imposed on them.
He added that an elected government will not be able to decide on any issue that is of importance to the people of Jammu and Kashmir: law and order, security, electricity supply, the way in which new taxes are sought to be imposed on the people.
Zaid Bin Shabir is a journalist based in Srinagar.
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