Greater autonomy in J&K will not end militancy: report

Greater autonomy for Jammu and Kashmir, as demanded by Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah, is no guarantee against militancy in Kashmir contrary to the state government's claim that it would end the Kashmiri people's alienation, says a recent report.

The report, Chargesheet on Autonomy, says that secessionist forces operating in the state do not accept the exclusion of Jammu and Kashmir from the constitutional organisation of India as a basis for settlement on Kashmir.

They also do not accept the restoration of pre-1953 status to the state as a basis for a settlement on Kashmir and their operations would continue despite the state's exclusion from the Indian constitutional organisation, the report says.

''what is the guarantee that after the state is excluded from the Indian political organisation, the secessionist forces will not take advantage of the dissolution of all federal instrumentalities in the state and deliver another military offensive against Kashmir?'' asks the report.

The state government has appointed a commission to look into the quantum of autonomy to be given to the people of the state to end alienation among the people, particularly the Kashmiris.

The report has been compiled by the Panun Kashmir Movement, an organisation of Kashmiri pandits.

The report seeks a guarantee that the exclusion of the state from the Indian political organisation would not be used as a plank to pull the state out of India.

Also, the report wonders how the government would ensure the return of half a million migrants from Kashmir and the Doda district of Jammu in a state excluded from the Indian political organisation.

The report disputes the argument that the erosion of autonomy had consolidated the secessionist and separatist forces in the state. ''All such insinuations are a misreading of history and part of the disinformation campaign to camouflage the real character of secessionism in the state,'' it says.

According to the report, the separate political identity of the state contravenes the basic structure of the Constitution and negates ''Indian secularism.'' It says the claim of restoration of the 1952 position underlines the revocation of the provisions of the Constitution extended to the state after 1954 to secure its exclusion from the constitutional reorganisation of India.

It also underlines that after the state is excluded, militants will use violence again to force a settlement on India in which Kashmir, the contiguous Muslim majority areas of Jammu and the frontiers of Ladakh are delinked from India.