J&K delimitation and the ethnic, regional gulf

One of the main reasons for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent meeting with J&K political parties was to enlist their support for the delimitation exercise. As a consequence, the Delimitation Commission visited J&K this week and met 290 groups in Srinagar, Pahalgam, Kishtwar and Jammu to gather first-hand inputs on the exercise.

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The main argument in support of delimitation is that reservation for the Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) in the Assembly, the inclusion of 1947 refugees — commonly referred to as West Pakistan refugees in the J&K Assembly electorate — and an increase in the number of Assembly constituencies warranted the constitution of a delimitation commission.

The present distribution of the Assembly seats is based on the 1981 Census. The impact of the exercise on these aspects or even the larger legislative dynamics needs to be tempered by the ground realities within the former state.

The Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019, passed in August that year, increased the Assembly segments of J&K by seven seats. In effect, they went up from 83 to 90 post delimitation.

First, political reservation for the SCs already existed in the previous J&K Assembly. Several key ministers from J&K came from reserved seats for SCs. They include former Deputy Chief Minister Tara Chand, who was one of the invitees to the PM’s meeting. Members of the SC community — mostly in Jammu, where they are nearly 18 per cent of the province’s population — were the beneficiaries of the 1950s’ progressive land reforms in J&K.

Second, it is true that delimitation would facilitate reservation of seats for the STs. The main beneficiaries will be the Gujjars, who are Muslims. In the last Assembly election, 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.

As per the 2011 Census, the population of Gujjars is around nine per cent of the total population of the former state. This number is less than 10.8 per cent of the community’s representation in the previous J&K Assembly, if one excludes the four seats of Ladakh, which is now a separate UT.

The political parties will have little incentive to give a higher mandate to ST candidates than what they are required to do as per the legislative change. So, the de facto reality will be that the Gujjar representation in the future legislative Assembly of J&K would be the same as it was in the last Assembly that was elected in 2014.

Third, often missed in the entire debate on delimitation are the broad population trends in J&K. The total fertility rate (TFR) in J&K, as per the National Family Health Survey report for 2019-20, is 1.4. It is even less than many southern states in contrast to the Hindi-speaking states, where it hovers between three and four. If this trend holds, the population levels in J&K are set to decline.

Four, with the revocation of Article 370, the population eligible to vote in the J&K Assembly elections has changed little. As per the 2011 Census, the actual number of the people who came from outside the former state is a mere 1.6 lakh. It is too insignificant a number to make an immediate dent in J&K’s demography even if many of them are able to satisfy the conditions of the new domicile order.

Even the number of refugees who came from Pakistani Punjab in 1947 — who actually applied for the domicile — is too marginal to make an impact. The community is mostly concentrated in one Assembly segment: the RS Pura Assembly segment, bordering Sialkot district of Pakistan.

The official figures underscore this point. In March 2021, the Central Government announced that around 31 lakh certificates were issued to the dependents/holders of the erstwhile Permanent Residents of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir. In total, only 32 lakh were accepted. That means that since August 2019, only 1 lakh residents who were not eligible as per the previous rules to receive the Permanent Resident Certificates (PRCs) got the domicile.

Actually, for over several years, the delimitation exercise became a demand for some stakeholders within J&K to address inter-provincial parity between the Jammu and Kashmir provinces. In the last Assembly, the Kashmir valley had 46 seats whereas Jammu had 37.

J&K, created in the 19th century by merging diverse cultural and geographical units, saw a major change in 1947. The population of Jammu, as per the 1941 Census, was 19 lakh whereas that of Kashmir was 17 lakh.

The bifurcation of J&K in 1947 kept the Kashmir valley more or less intact while dividing the more populous and religiously diverse Jammu. According to the 2011 Census, Kashmir’s population is nearly 16 lakh more than that of Jammu, although the area of Jammu is nearly double the size of the Valley. The fact is that the Valley is relatively more homogenous than Jammu geographically, and by religion and ethnicity. It is unlikely that any delimitation exercise could address the complex ethnic and geographical gulf that exists within J&K.

The delimitation is important in the context of a possible redrawing of some Assembly segments.

Some of the J&K Assembly segments have indeed become bloated, particularly in the urban parts of the capital cities of Jammu and Srinagar. The two largest Assembly segments in J&K are in Jammu city with 1.6 lakh voters in Gandhi Nagar and 1.5 lakh voters in Jammu West whereas the third largest Assembly segment is in Kashmir which is the Batamaloo Assembly segment with 1.2 lakh voters.

The redrawing of the Assembly constituencies in religiously mixed Assembly segments in Jammu’s Chenab valley will be closely watched as some constituencies like Bhaderwah are nearly equally divided between Muslims and Hindus.

On the ground, the delimitation would make little change in ensuring greater seats for the SC as well as the ST communities than that in the last Assembly. Its impact on the larger complicated set of reasons that are responsible for the ethnic and regional gulf that exists in the diverse J&K region will also be limited.

A more concerted effort needs to be made to exploit this knowledge to ensure institutionalised political and economic devolution of power from the state to regions and lower tiers by taking into consideration similar experiments of devolution of power elsewhere.