Kashmir gets new truncated government five years after losing autonomy

NEW DELHI: Leaders of Kashmir’s biggest political party took the oath of office on Wednesday to run its new truncated local government — the first since India stripped the disputed region of autonomy and statehood five years ago.

The new government is led by Omar Abdullah as chief minister and six ministers from his National Conference party, which won the most seats in the region’s recent election.

Abdullah had served as the chief minister of the state of Jammu and Kashmir between 2009 and 2014. His current second term comes as the region is no longer a state, after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government repealed Article 370 of the Indian Constitution, which granted the Kashmir semi-autonomous status and downgraded it to federally controlled territory.

“I was the last chief minister to serve a full six-year term, and now I’ll be the first chief minister of the union territory of Jammu and Kashmir. The last distinction — as in the one who has served six years — I’m quite happy about. Being a chief minister of a union territory is a different matter altogether,” Abdullah told reporters.

“It has its own challenges, but I hope that the status of a union territory is a temporary one. We look forward to working in cooperation with the government of India to resolve the people’s problems, and the best way to do that would be to start by restoring the statehood to Jammu and Kashmir.”

Jammu and Kashmir is part of the larger Kashmiri territory, which has been the subject of international dispute since the 1947 partition of the Indian subcontinent into Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan.

Both countries claim Kashmir in full and rule in part. The Indian-controlled region is predominantly Muslim and has for decades witnessed outbreaks of separatist insurgencies to resist control from the government in New Delhi.

It has been without a local government since 2018, when Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party brought down a coalition government, forcing the assembly to dissolve.

The recent election to the assembly, which concluded on Oct. 1, was the first in 10 years.

The National Conference, the oldest party in Kashmir, which is led by Abdullah’s father, Farooq Abdullah, won 42 out of 90 assembly seats. Modi’s BJP secured 29, while the country’s main opposition Congress party, which contested the election in alliance with the National Conference, won six seats.

Modi took to social media to congratulate Abdullah on assuming office, saying that the central government “will work closely with him and his team for J&K’s progress.”

The prime minister promised to restore Kashmir’s statehood last month when he visited its main city, Srinagar, to campaign for his party.

Without the restoration, the new local government is stripped of most of its essential authority, leaving Lt. Gov. Manoj Sinha with greater influence than the chief minister.

The office of lieutenant governor was established in 2019 to put Kashmir under direct control of New Delhi, with India’s Parliament as its main legislator.

Kashmir’s statehood would have to be restored for its local administration to have similar authority to other states of India.