Luv puri
Journalist and author
One of the main reasons for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent meeting with the J&K political parties was to gain their support for the demarcation exercise. As a result, the Boundary Commission visited J&K this week and met 290 groups in Srinagar, Pahalgam, Kishtwar and Jammu to gather first-hand contributions on the exercise.
The main argument in support of the delineation is that the reservation for Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) in the Assembly, the inclusion of 1947 refugees – commonly referred to as refugees from West Pakistan in the electorate J&K Assembly – and an increase in the number of Assembly constituencies justifies the establishment of a Boundaries Commission.
The current distribution of seats in the Assembly is based on the 1981 census. The impact of the exercise on these aspects or even on the broader legislative dynamic must be tempered by the realities on the ground within the former state. .
The Jammu and Kashmir Reorganization Act 2019, passed in August of that year, increased J&K Assembly segments by seven seats. Indeed, they went from 83 to 90 demarcation posts.
First, the political reserve for SCs already existed at the previous J&K Assembly. Several key J&K ministers came from SC seats. Among them, former Deputy Chief Minister Tara Chand, who was one of the guests at the Prime Minister’s meeting. Members of the SC community – primarily in Jammu, where they make up nearly 18 percent of the province’s population – were the beneficiaries of the progressive land reforms of the 1950s at J&K.
Second, it is true that the delineation would facilitate the reservation of seats for STs. The main beneficiaries will be the Gujjars, who are Muslims. In the last Assembly election, the Gujjar candidates were elected in the Lolab and Kangan Assembly segments in the Kashmir Valley. In Jammu, the Assembly segments of Surankote, Mendhar, Rajouri, Gulabgarh, Darhal, Kalakote and Gool Arnas were represented by Gujjar candidates.
According to the 2011 census, the population of Gujjars represents about nine percent of the total population of the former state. This number is less than 10.8% of the community representation at the previous J&K Assembly, excluding the four seats in Ladakh, which is now a separate UT.
There will be little incentive for political parties to give ST candidates a higher mandate than they are required to do under the legislative change. Thus, the de facto reality will be that the representation of the Gujjar in the future Legislative Assembly of J&K would be the same as in the last elected Assembly in 2014.
Third, J & K’s major demographic trends are often overlooked throughout the delineation debate. The Total Fertility Index (TFR) at J&K, according to the National Family Health Survey report for 2019-2020, is 1.4. It is even less than many southern states unlike Hindi speaking states, where it fluctuates between three and four. If this trend continues, J&K population levels are expected to decline.
Fourth, with the revocation of Section 370, the population eligible to vote in the J&K Assembly elections has changed little. According to the 2011 census, the actual number of people arriving from outside the former state is only 1.6 lakh. This is too small a number to immediately start the demographics of J&K even though many of them are able to meet the conditions of the new domicile order.
Even the number of refugees who came from the Pakistani Punjab in 1947 – who actually asked for domicile – is too marginal to have an impact. The community is mainly concentrated in one segment of the Assembly: the RS Pura Assembly segment, on the border of Sialkot district in Pakistan.
Official figures underscore this point. In March 2021, the central government announced that around 31 lakh certificates had been issued to dependents / holders of former permanent residents of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir. In total, only 32 lakh were accepted. This means that as of August 2019, only residents of 1 lakh who were not eligible under the previous rules to receive Permanent Resident Certificates (CRP) have been granted domicile.
In fact, for several years, the delineation exercise became a demand for some actors within J&K to address interprovincial parity between the provinces of Jammu and Kashmir. At the last Assembly, the Kashmir Valley had 46 seats while Jammu had 37.
J&K, established in the 19th century by merging various cultural and geographic units, underwent a major change in 1947. The population of Jammu, according to the 1941 census, was 19 lakh while that of Kashmir was 17 lakh.
The J&K fork in 1947 kept the Kashmir Valley more or less intact while dividing Jammu into a more populous and religiously diverse region. According to the 2011 census, the population of Kashmir is almost 16 lakh more than that of Jammu, although the area of ​​Jammu is almost double the size of the valley. The point is that the valley is relatively more homogeneous than Jammu geographically, and by religion and ethnicity. It is unlikely that a delineation exercise could address the complex ethnic and geographic divide that exists within J&K.
The delimitation is important in the context of a possible redistribution of certain Assembly segments.
Some of the J&K Assembly segments have indeed become bloated, particularly in the urban parts of the capitals of Jammu and Srinagar. The two largest segments of the J&K Assembly are in Jammu City with 1.6 lakh voters in Gandhi Nagar and 1.5 lakh voters in Jammu West, while the third largest assembly segment is located in Kashmir, which is the segment of the Batamaloo Assembly with 1.2 lakh voters.
The redistribution of Assembly constituencies into religiously mixed Assembly segments in the Chenab Valley in Jammu will be closely watched, as some constituencies like Bhaderwah are almost equally divided between Muslims and Hindus.
On the ground, the delimitation would bring little change by ensuring a greater number of seats for the SC as well as the ST communities than that of the last Assembly. Its impact on the larger and complex set of reasons that are responsible for the ethnic and regional divide that exists in the diverse J&K region will also be limited.
A more concerted effort needs to be made to harness this knowledge to ensure an institutionalized political and economic devolution of power from the state to regions and lower levels taking into account similar experiences of devolution of power elsewhere.
