Sheikh Abdullah’s land reforms anti-Jammu, Omar’s gender equality concept anti-women

Omar Abdullah’s inaugural address

On January 23, 2025, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah inaugurated Dr. B R Ambedkar Bhawan, constructed by Dr. B R Ambedkar Educational Society in Bari Brahmana, Jammu. He took the opportunity to commend what he called the “transformative vision” of B R Ambedkar, Chairman of the Constitution Drafting Committee. He also used the occasion to hail his late grandfather Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah and J&K Wazir-e-Azam (1948-1953) for advancing what he called “equality and justice.”

What exactly did Omar Abdullah say while delivering the inaugural address? He, inter-alia, said: “Dr. Ambedkar gave India its constitution, enshrining equal rights without discrimination. He tirelessly fought for the rights of marginalized communities, giving them a voice, an identity, and a sense of dignity. In J&K, Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah complemented his vision by implementing land reforms that restored dignity and a future for the oppressed…Dr. Ambedkar ensured equality from the very beginning, granting women equal voting rights at a time when many nations denied such basic rights. His vision established a foundation of justice and equality, which remains unparalleled even today…If Dr. Ambedkar had foreseen the underrepresentation of women in Assemblies and Parliament in 2025, he might have introduced reservations for women from the start. While we have made progress, with women achieving milestones like becoming prime ministers and presidents, the journey toward equality continues…”[1]

Disparities between what Omar said and the stark realities

First, Sheikh Abdullah’s land reforms: Soon after usurping the throne of Maharaja Hari Singh/Jammu with the full backing of the unelected Prime Minister of the Indian Dominion, Jawaharlal Nehru, Wazir-e-Azam Sheikh Abdullah, started the agrarian “reform” programme in J&K in 1948 with the “abolition of sinecure payments such as jagirs and muafis and mukarraries.” Hitherto, the beneficiaries of jagirs and muafis used to enjoy many privileges within the territorial limits of such jagirs. In one stroke, Sheikh Abdullah’s unelected government “abolished 396 jagirs/ muafis involving an annual land revenue assignment of Rs.5,56,313.” His government also abolished “fixed cash grants known as mukarraries (2,347) to the tune of Rs.1,77,921 per annum.”

The Sheikh Abdullah government’s next step in 1948 was to protect the rights of the tenants through the amendment of the State Tenancy Act of 1924, which had been enacted by Maharaja Hari Singh to ameliorate the socio-economic life of the small and marginal farmers. The amendment provided safeguards to the “tenants-at-will”, or to those “peasants who could be ejected from the land at the landlord’s pleasure.” To be more precise, the 1948 amendment secured the tenure of the “tenants-at-will” by making their “ejectment illegal.”

These changes in the tenancy law were followed by the Big Landed Estates Abolition Act, 1950, the J&K Agrarian Reforms Act, 1972, and the J&K Agrarian Reforms Act, 1976. The most striking feature of the “reforms” introduced as a result of the implementation of the Big Landed Estates Abolition Act, 1950, was the “ownership of land in the state subject to a maximum ceiling of 22.75 acres (excluding orchards and forest)[2].” The only exemption made for legislation on the land ceiling was for the Buddhist monasteries in the cold desert of Ladakh. According to one estimate, “of 5.5 million kanals of land under the erstwhile zamindars or jagirdars, about 4.96 million kanals were confiscated and transferred to tillers…”[3]

All these changes were described as “very revolutionary” because they “took away the privileges of the erstwhile maharaja and feudal vassals over most of the cultivated areas in the state without payment of any compensation.” These agrarian “reforms” were also seen as “correcting a historical wrong against the peasantry and were one of the most important promises of the National Conference’s New Kashmir Manifesto (1944).” Not just this, these changes were also termed as radical: abolition of landlordism, land to the tiller and cooperative association, distribution of wasteland among the landless, and remission of land revenue on smallholdings.[4]

It was widely believed that the Naya (New) Kashmir Manifesto was prepared for Sheikh Abdullah by Pyare Lal Singh Bedi, a Punjabi and a communist, and his English wife Freda Bedi, both Lahore-based political journalists and both strongly influenced by the Soviet Union and Comintern/ Communist International. It was handed over in person to Maharaja Hari Singh in July 1944 and adopted formally by the NC at its annual session held in Srinagar in September.

Land Reforms Anti-Jammu

What Omar Abdullah said about Sheikh Abdullah’s land reforms was nothing but a blend of lies and half-truths. In fact, he took his audience for a ride and wilfully suppressed many facts. One of the facts he suppressed was that the whole reform scheme of Sheikh Abdullah was discriminatory, anti-Jammu/ anti-Dogra; and it was deeply rooted in vindictive politics. It was fundamentally communally motivated.

The other most negative aspect of the reforms was that there was selective application of land reforms in J&K. For example, while wealthy orchard owners in Kashmir (almost 90 percent Muslims) were exempted from land ceiling laws, the implementation of these discriminatory reforms adversely and disproportionately affected Jammu’s landholders (mostly Hindus), thus violating the principles of justice and equality. The fact of the matter: The Sheikh Abdullah’s Big Landed Estates Abolition Act primarily targeted landowners in Jammu province, especially the Hindu community; J&K’s land reform policies were primarily calculated to weaken the Dogra landholding class and driven by Sheikh Abdullah’s personal political vendettas rather than a genuine commitment to social justice and equity. In contrast, successful land reforms were introduced in several Indian states, including Maharashtra and West Bengal, to regenerate the socio-economic life of the agrarian community. All these agrarian reforms were aimed at uplifting the landless/ small and marginal farmers and ensuring fair compensation to landowners.

Candidly acknowledging that Sheikh Abdullah’s land reforms were communally motivated and designed to jeopardize the interests of the Hindu landlords, Andrew Whitehead in his The Making of the New Kashmir Manifesto wrote thus: “The preponderance of Hindus among the landlords gave rise to charges that land reform was a communal measure aimed at benefitting the state’s (in this case Kashmir’s) Muslim majority…”[5]

Plight of Pak refugees, Valmikis, Gorkhas

If Omar Abdullah adopted a selective approach to creating an impression that his grandfather was a great revolutionary and a great reformer, his whole approach to women, gender equality, and marginalized communities in Jammu province, including the suffering and discrimination against Hindu-Sikh refugees from Pakistan, Valmikis and Gorkhas, was no different. He didn’t say that he, his father Farooq Abdullah, his grandfather Sheikh Abdullah, and their NC treated the Hindu-Sikh refugees from Pakistan and Valmikis and Gorkhas worse than the brutes. They had left no stone unturned to create a situation that would leave these hapless communities with no other option but to quit Jammu like the miniscule minority of Kashmiri Hindus, Jammu Dogras and thousands of Punjabis quit the Valley in January 1990 to save their lives, honour, culture, and religion and escape physical liquidation. They considered these communities as communities of aliens and a threat to the state’s demography, notwithstanding the fact that all of them were residing in Jammu province alone. They were denied the right to own immovable property, the right to government jobs, the right to vote, the right to education in higher educational institutions, and the right to bank loans.

Sheikh Abdullah, Farooq Abdullah, Omar Abdullah, Bakshi Ghulam Mohd, and their NC; GM Sadiq, Mir Qasim, Ghulam Nabi Azad, and their Congress; Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and Mehbooba Mufti and their Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) exploited to the hilt Article 35A to render these communities weak, helpless and unreal. It was applied to the solitary State of J&K on May 14, 1954, bypassing the Parliament, and that too with a retrospective effect. It was applied w.e.f. May 14, 1944, when India was still under London and J&K still a princely state, and this unconstitutional and illegal Article was not even a part of the main body of the Indian Constitution. It was inserted in the Constitution as an appendix. Not just this, “Article 35A flows from an ‘agreement’ in 1954 between India and Pakistan”, or between Prime Minister JL Nehru and his Pakistani counterpart Mohammad Ali Bogra.[6]

Article 35A was a provision that empowered the J&K Legislature to define permanent residents of the state. It was added through the Constitution (Application to J&K) Order, 1954. The J&K Constitution, which was adopted in November 1956, defined a Permanent Resident as a person “who was a state subject on May 14, 1954, or who has been a resident of the state for 10 years, and had “lawfully acquired immovable property in the state.”

Omar Abdullah and Article 35A

What was the stand of Omar Abdullah on Article 35A/ special status? The answer lies in what he said on August 7 and 18, 2017, February 25, 2019, August 3, 2019, and August 17, 2024.

On August 7, 2017, Omar Abdullah objected to the Centre’s suggestion to the Supreme Court that there should be a “larger debate” on Article 35A. He said that the state’s accession to the Indian Dominion and its special status were two sides of the same coin and if there was a debate on the legality of the Article, then there will also be a debate on the issue of accession itself.

Omar Abdullah, in fact, among other things, said: “Questioning the special status of J&K will in fact put a question mark on the accession itself. Like Article 370, Article 35A was negotiated between the princely state of J&K and the Government of India and it is the bedrock of accession (a white lie)…How can the Attorney General welcome a debate on Article 35A? Are they ready for a debate on accession? The special status of J&K is enshrined in the constitution and it cannot be tampered with or removed. It is an article of faith…What you saw during the (2008) Amarnath land row (in J&K) was nothing in comparison to what will happen (if Article 35A is tampered with)…That (land transfer to Shri Amarnath Shrine Board) was a notional idea but this (tampering with Article 35A) will be a clear-cut indication. You (Centre) are in effect altering the demography of J&K state…”[7]

On August 18, 2017, he sought a special session of the J&K Legislature before August 29 to “frame an appropriate response to counter the narrative on Article 35A of the Constitution.” “The issue is of vital importance for the people of Jammu, Kashmir, and Ladakh as abrogation of Article 35A will have serious ramifications…The people of J&K would rise above party politics and fight every ‘overt or covert’ attempt to trample with Article 35A, which is regional neutral, religiously neutral, and ethnic neutral,” said Omar Abdullah while seeking a special session of the J&K Legislature.[8]

On February 25, 2019, Omar Abdullah, inter-alia, said: “J&K might find itself in a situation that is worse than what Arunachal Pradesh presently facing if the Centre interferes with Article 35A of the Constitution…You keep threatening us with Article 35A. Look at what is happening in Arunachal Pradesh now where there is no militancy. They have interfered with their Permanent Residence Certificate (PRC) as we have. What is now happening there…”[9]

On August 3, 2019, Omar Abdullah and his senior party colleagues met the J&K Governor, Satya Pal Malik, at Srinagar to discuss the whole issue of Article 35A and Article 370. After the meeting, he told media persons that the Governor had assured his party that no moves were planned on repealing Articles 370 and 35A, or the state’s trifurcation. At the same time, he said that he wanted assurance on these issues from the Centre in the Parliament.

“He (SP Malik) assured us that there was no movement on repealing Article 370 or Article 35A or delimitation (of constituencies in the state)…I have asked my party MPs to move a motion in the Parliament, seeking a statement from the Union Government on the situation that has developed in J&K over the past few weeks…We want the government to make a statement on the situation in the state in the Parliament…The people of the state (should) keep calm and control their emotions and not take any step that may align with the aim of the people with vested interests…”[10]

And, on August 17, 2024, Omar Abdullah said that the J&K Assembly will pass a resolution against the Centre’s decision to end Article 370 in its first decision after the assembly polls in the Union Territory. “The J&K Assembly, in its first order of business after elections, will pass a resolution against the Centre’s decision to strip the region of its statehood and special status,” Omar Abdullah declared while addressing an election rally in Kashmir.[11]

On November 7, 2024, the NC-dominated J&K Assembly and the Omar Abdullah-led Government passed a resolution seeking dialogue for the “restoration of special status and constitutional guarantees” to the Union Territory and urging that “constitutional mechanisms” be worked out for the same. It was passed by a voice vote, with all Kashmiri parties, including the PDP, the Congress, the Peoples Conference (PC), the CPIM, and the Awami Ittehad Party (AIP), barring the 29-member BJP, supporting it.

The resolution, moved by Deputy Chief Minister, Surinder Kumar Choudhary, read like this: “This Legislative Assembly reaffirms the importance of the special status and constitutional guarantees, which safeguarded the identity, culture, and rights of the people of Jammu and Kashmir, and expresses concern over their unilateral removal…This Assembly calls upon the Government of India to initiate dialogue with elected representatives of the people of Jammu and Kashmir for restoration of special status, constitutional guarantees and to work out constitutional mechanisms for restoring these provisions.”[12]

But these were only a few of the several such statements and actions, coupled with threats to the Narendra Modi government, which indicated Omar Abdullah’s hatred and contempt for the Hindu-Sikh refugees from Pakistan, Valmikis, and Gorkhas. These also indicated his resolve to restore the pre-August 2019 position.

Modi Government And Marginalised Communities

Full credit goes to the Hindu-Sikh refugees from Pakistan, Valmikis, and Gorkhas as they resisted the onslaughts of the Abdullahs, the Muftis, the Azads, and the ilk with courage and determination and fought relentlessly for citizenship rights. Full credit also goes to the Narendra Modi government which on August 5-6, 2019 abrogated the state’s special status by reading down Article 370, abrogating Article 35A, scrapping the J&K Constitution of 1957, and bringing the restive region under the ambit of all the Indian laws to not only break the backbone of Kashmiri separatism, puncture and defeat the Kashmiri Muslim sub-nationalism and tell the international community that J&K was an as integral part of the country as other states and union territories but also to grant full citizenship rights to the Hindu-Sikh refugees from Pakistan and Valmikis and Gorkhas. On that historic day, the Modi Government also divided the erstwhile State of J&K into two Union Territories, the Union Territory of Ladakh and the Union Territory of J&K.

Gender Equality Concept Anti-Women

As for Omar Abdullah’s gender equality concept, the less said, the better. Suffice it to say that he, like all other Kashmiri Muslim leaders, without any exception, opposed tooth and nail the concept of gender equality. It was this writer who approached the J&K High Court in 2004 (PIL No. 1002/2004 & CMP No. 1089/2004) to urge it to start contempt proceeding against the J&K government for not following the judgment delivered by the Full Bench of this court in the State of J&K & others v. Dr Susheela Sawhney & others (LPA (sw) No. 27/79 C/W LPA No. 24/79) in 2002, whereby endorsement of “Valid Till Marriage” on the State Subject Certificates of unmarried daughters of the State Subjects had been struck down. On September 24, 2004, the Division Bench of the High Court consisting of Justices YP Nargotra and VK Jhanji delivered the judgment. It said: “In the meantime, respondents are directed not to make any endorsement of ‘Valid Till Marriage’ on the State Subject Certificates issued to unmarried daughters of State Subjects.”

Sadly, however, the Mufti Sayeed-led PDP-Congress-CPIM-Peoples Democratic Front (PDF)-J&K National Panthers Party (JKNPP) coalition government did not implement the High Court’s September 24, 2004 verdict. On the contrary, the Commissioner/Secretary to Government, Revenue Department, in January 2005 issued a circular (No. Rev(LB)87/74, dated January 25, 2005), which said: “The (State Subject) certificate may provide that the certificate may be re-issued after marriage to indicate if the lady has married a State subject or non-State Subject.”

The negative attitude of the Mufti Sayeed-led government left this writer with no other option but to again knock at the door of the High Court and seek contempt proceedings against it (COA(PIL) No. 2/2005). On July 11, 2005, the Division Bench of the High Court consisting of Justices Parmod Kohli and VK Jhanji stayed the January 2005 circular.

However, it was on August 8, 2005, that this Division Bench gave its final verdict. It read like this: “This shall dispose of WPPIL No. 1002/2004 and COA(PIL) No. 2/2005. Mr AH Qazi learned Additional Advocate General has placed on record Circular No. Rev/PRC/04-WP dated August 2, 2005, issued by the Government of J&K. Revenue Department in compliance with judgment of this court in the case titled ‘State of J&K V. Dr Susheela Sawhney’ and order dated September 24, 2004 passed in PIL No. 1002/2004 titled Prof Hari Om V. State of J&K and others’ and order dated 11.07.2005 passed in COA(PIL) No. 2/2004, whereby circular Nos. Rev(LB)87/74 Dated 27.01.2005 and No. Rev(PRC)/04-WP Dated 29-07-2005 have been withdrawn. In view of the circular dated August 02, 2005, passed by respondents, the grievance of the petitioner (in this case this writer) stands redressed and, therefore, this Public Interest Litigation as well as the contempt petition are disposed of having been rendered infructuous. Rule, if any, issued is discharged.”

It needs to be underlined that before August 8, 2005, daughters of J&K married to non-J&K residents were denied all citizenship rights in the state, including the right to inherit ancestral property, right to a government job, and right to vote in the assembly/ local bodies’ elections in J&K. It was only on August 8, 2005 that they got the right to marry persons of their own choice outside the state and exercise all the citizenship rights available to the State Subjects.

All this should lay bare the disparities between what Omar Abdullah said on January 23, 2025, and what he actually believed in and fought for, and continues to believe in and fight for.

Note:
1. Text in Blue points to additional data on the topic.
2. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of PGurus.

Reference:

[1] Sheikh Abdullah’s land reforms exemplified Dr Ambedkar’s vision of equality in J&K: CM – Jan 24, 2025, Daily Excelsior

[2] Prasad, Anirudh Kumar, “Sheikh Abdullah and land reforms in Jammu and Kashmir,” Economic & Political Weekly – Aug 2, 2014, Vol. XLIX, No. 31

[3] Land Reforms in Kashmir – Feb 12, 2023, Agrarian Studies

[4] Prasad, Anirudh Kumar, “Sheikh Abdullah and land reforms in Jammu and Kashmir,” Economic & Political Weekly – Aug 2, 2014, Vol. XLIX, No. 31

[5] The Making of the New Kashmir Manifesto – Andrew Whitehead

[6] Article 35A’s Pak connection: Result of Indo-Pak ‘agreement’ in 1954 – Sep 02, 2018, Greater Kashmir

[7] Article 35A: NC for J&K Opposition meet, slams Centre’s call for larger debate – Aug 7, 2017, The Indian Express

[8] Omar Abdullah for special session of J&K legislature on Article 35A – Aug 18, 2017, The Indian Express

[9] J&K will be worse than Arunachal if Article 35A touched: Omar Abdullah – Feb 25, 2019, NDTV

[10] Governor assured us no move to repeal Article 35A, 370; want statement in Parliament: Omar Abdullah – Aug 3, 2019, The Times of India

[11] J&K will pass resolution against ending Article 370 after polls: Omar Abdullah – Aug 17, 2024, India Today

[12] J&K Assembly passes resolution for restoration of special status, seeks ‘dialogue’, emphasises ‘national unity – Nov 7, 2024, The Indian Express

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