Hunger in Kashmir

DATELINE SRINAGAR (Daily Greater Kashmir, 27 Sept, 2009)

Food for thought

Harsh Mander's report ‘Hunger in the Valley’ deserves attention

BY ARJIMAND HUSSAIN TALIB

Kashmir’s political governance has always been far from easy. The British recognised the challenges of governing this mountainous region even at the pinnacle of its Raj in the sub-continent. Famous British writer, Lord Birdwood, in his book, Two Nations and Kashmir, went to the extent of terming Kashmir a ’geographical monstrosity’.

In 1929, when Sir Albion Bannerji, an Indian Christian, who had served the government of India and was a Senior Member of the Council of the State of J&K, resigned from the would-be post of the State’s Prime Minister, he wrote about the grounds of his resignation in India’s vernacular press, ‘…J&K State is labouring under many disadvantages, with a large Muhammadan population absolutely illiterate, labouring under poverty and very low economic conditions of living in the villages and practically governed like dumb-driven cattle [by the Maharaja regime].’

The 1877-78 famine in Kashmir, triggered by a devastating flood, is an important historical event, which has lessons even for today’s Kashmir. Thousands of Kashmiris died of starvation then because the Maharaja’s border guards refused people to leave and enter Punjab in search of work and food. Political disempowerment, coupled with geographical isolation, created the perfect conditions for the famine.

After analysing the circumstances of the starvation, Lord Kimberley, the then secretary of State for India, in 1884, wrote to his government, ‘… as to the urgent need for reforms in the administration of the State of J&K, there is unfortunately, no room for doubt.’ This British thinking had severely alarmed the Maharaja’s regime.

Times have certainly changed for Kashmir, but the circumstances are not very different than those which existed prior to 1947 here. The process of political disempowerment has continued, albeit in different ways. The crisis in political governance is far from over. The unnatural social and economic circumstances created by the Line of Control (LoC) cannot be ignored. The economic crisis and a situation close to mass-hunger that unfolded in Kashmir during the Amarnath forest land controversy in 2008 reinforce Kashmir’s political and geographical vulnerability even today. Long-needed administrative reforms are elusive because they are seen as ‘politically volatile’.

The just-released report ‘Hunger in the Valley’ by Mr Harsh Mander and his team is thought provoking. At one plane this painstaking effort provides a rare and valuable glimpse into the state of some basic social services in Kashmir. On the other plane, the report falls little short in recognising the distinct social, economic, constitutional and political circumstances which characterise J&K’s political governance.

Mr Harsh’s work for human and civil rights after resigning from the Indian Civil Services in protest against Gujarat’s anti-Muslim carnage is widely recognised. His interest and work in Kashmir deserves respect too.

The report has come up with some significant findings and recommendations on issues like JK Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (JKREGS), Family Benefit Scheme (FBS), food security, Old Age Pension Scheme, ICDS, etc. which require government’s keen attention.

The report has underlined the defunct state of Panchayats as a major reason for improper functioning of public services at the grassroots level. What also needs to be recognised is that the reason the Panchayati system is in suspended animation is that its space is currently meant to be utilised by the MLA tier of the political system. And there are profound political reasons why that is so.

One of the key issues raised in the report is the aggravating food insecurity in this state. The report rightly points to the decreasing land holding as an evolving livelihood challenge.

On JKREGS, the report has supported the widely-existing viewpoint that the minimum wage of Rs 70 in J&K’s context is impractical. Now that J&K government has enhanced the minimum wage, things are expected to get better. However, the finding that not a single individual covered in the sample survey has been able to access unemployment allowance is very serious. So is the finding that 64 per cent of the surveyed people have no job cards.

It is good to know that the coverage of the Mid Day School Meals scheme was found better, with 98 per cent children reporting that they ate hot cooked meals regularly at school.

The survey makes an interesting point when it says that the PDS was functioning better in Kashmir than most parts of India. However, the factors that impact its functioning in far flung areas need an in-depth analysis.

What is also serious is the finding that 65.04 per cent of the surveyed individuals do not receive the ‘old age pension’. The findings on the Family Benefit Scheme (FBS) are serious too. That 92 percent of the respondents, though eligible, had not received any benefit needs immediate governmental attention.

On the issue of caste and discrimination, the report would have done better in recognising the dissimilarities between Kashmir and the rest of India. In India the caste system is rooted as a socio-religious system. In Kashmir, it does not form the basis for separate identities or discrimination.

The report seems to have relied excessively on the official census data in the planning process. On a number of occasions in the past such exercises at non governmental level have experienced serious limitations as the geographical definition of villages and their demography have come in collision with the realities on the ground. Such discrepancies constrain the planning and execution processes. And that is what seems to have happened on the planning process on including religious minorities and the ‘scheduled castes’ and the ‘scheduled tribes’.

Any sample study on J&K’s socio economic issues also needs to recognise that the quality of its governance and the raging political turmoil are closely inter-linked. We are not a normal democratic set up. The reason J&K’s right to information law is differently designed than the rest of India, and largely cosmetic, is that the standards of democracy are different. There are serious problems with our governance because the accountability and transparency standards are shielded and largely secluded from public scrutiny.

Further, if we look at J&K’s governance from the prism of the last two decades of violent conflict alone, we tend to overlook the historical and present political circumstances which fuel the crisis here. And that is where our analysis would come into conflict with the grassroots realities.

The reason most of the centrally-sponsored schemes fail their basic purpose is that their design come in direct collision with the socio-economic and political realities in our state, particularly in the Kashmir region. The case of the centrally-sponsored schemes underlines why we need to see at the project of governance in Kashmir from a different angle. In other words, the yardstick to measure the standards of governance in J&K and the rest of India have to be somewhat different.

At the end of the day, any such grassroots-based sample study in Kashmir, often against heavy odds, must be admired. A second part, looking at other dire issues like health care and linkages between human security and development would be great.