The Left view on Kashmir

Both the parties which have a marginal presence in the state the CPM has a lone MLA in Yusuf Tarigami while the CPI has none say that a framework for discussion should at least emerge through the dialogue so that the talks will not collapse even before they begin.

Yet, recent articles by Harkishen Singh Surjeet and A B Bardhan, the general secretaries of the CPM and the CPI respectively, provide indications of what they feel are the pitfalls that the government needs to watch out for while engaging in a dialogue on Kashmir. One, a communal division of the state as suggested in the Autonomy report passed by the Jammu & Kashmir Assembly or as in the report prepared by the US-based Kashmir Study Group and two, the interest shown by the United States in the Kashmir imbroglio.

Both the left parties vehemently oppose a communal division of Jammu and Kashmir which seems to have found favour among certain sections of political outfits and the intelligentsia. In a recent article in The Hindu Surjeet warned about the “bifurcation of Jammu into Hindu dominated and Muslim dominated districts and similarly in Ladakh between Muslim and Buddhist dominated districts. This is a very dangerous move with grave repurcussions.

It is disruptive of national unity and cannot be entertained at any cost.”The CPM leadership feels that a section of the BJP and the Sangh Parivar is game to a communal division of the state as it would suit “their narrow interests”. Bardhan in fact singled out the RSS as advocating a communal division of the state. “RSS is virtually encouraging a trifurcation of J&K on the basis on religion. This is a move where they find common ground with the Muslim communal forces in J&K. It is also a move that has backing abroad from imperialist circles,” he wrote in The New Age, the CPI’s party organ.

The spectre of “imperialist circles” trying to gain a foothold in the state has worried the Left, which has always viewed the Kashmir issue in an international context. Considering the strategic location of Kashmir, the Left feels that the US could use the state as a base to influence the geopolitics of the subcontinent as well as pose a threat to Russia. One reason why Indian communists who, during the days of the Adhikari thesis suggested an India which would be “a voluntary federation of autonomous national states”never gave a thought to the idea of an independent Jammu and Kashmir.

But the Left is wary of the increasing role the US has found for itself in the Kashmir dispute. When the National Conference spoke about going back to the pre-1953 status of Jammu and Kashmir, the Left was quickly to denounce it. “The situation within the state and the international scene has changed. There is no point in continuing to harp about separate flag, constitution, and labels like Sardar Riyasat,” says S.R. Ramachandran Pillai, a member of the CPM polit bureau. Yet the party feels the NDA government’s step to condemn the autonomy resolution without even a preliminary discussion in Parliament was wrong.

Even while discussing the autonomy, the Left leadership has pointed out that the Kashmir issue should not be restricted to a debate on more political and financial autonomy. It needs to be viewed in the particular historical context in which the state decided to join the Indian union. Hence the Left demands that the central government should not take any steps to do away with Article 370.