INDIA: ‘Anti-Woman’ Bill in Kashmir Deferred but Still Explosive

By Ranjit Devraj Reprint | | Print |

Ranjit Devraj

NEW DELHI, Mar 13 2004 (IPS) - While a Kashmir state-assembly bill seeking to deprive women of inheritance and other rights if they marry outsiders has been deferred for now, it could still be a headache for the new central government in India that takes power after the May general elections.

Passed on Mar. 7, a day before International Women’s Day, the permanent resident (disqualification) bill deems that women who marry men from outside Indian-controlled Kashmir would lose their rights as permanent residents and to own property in a territory often described as the ‘Switzerland of Asia’ due to its snow and alpine scenery. On Mar. 11, following a nationwide outcry led by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and with opposition building up within the state, Kashmir Chief Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed put the bill on hold till after the elections

The bill asserts the special rights that Kashmir enjoys under the Indian Constitution, but it is clearly discriminatory because it does not apply to Kashmiri men who marry outsiders.

In truth, the bill only seeks to restore a 1927 law of the former Jammu and Kashmir kingdom struck down in 2002 by the state High Court on the grounds that it was gender discriminatory.

To become law, the bill needs to be passed by the Legislative Council of the state’s bicameral house with a two-thirds majority. But Mufti’s People Democratic Party (PDP) cannot count on support from its ally, the Congress party, to see it through.

Mufti cannot also count on support from the opposition in the state led by the National Conference Party (NCP), which has 15 members in the 36-seat Kashmir Legislative Council, although it has been demanding greater autonomy for the state whose possession has long been disputed by neighbouring Pakistan.

Women’s rights groups across the country have come out strongly the bill. Brinda Karat, general secretary of the All-India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA), said it flies in the face of the fundamental Constitutional guarantee of equality.

”This is a piece of fundamentalist legislation which deprives women of their freedom to choose their place of living and marriage,” Ranjana Kumari, social scientist and convenor of the Centre for Social Research (CSR), said in an interview.

Karat pointed out that the law was particularly harsh on Kashmiri women, both Hindu and Muslim, who have been forced to live outside the state by more than 15 years of violent militancy by extremist groups and by heavyhanded army action to counter it.

More than 50,000 people are estimated to have died in the violence.

Activists have drawn a parallel between the bill and laws in countries like Malaysia, which denies permanent residence to the foreign husbands of its women but allows foreign women who marry Malaysian men to gain citizenship.

But the Kashmir bill is worse, critics say, in the sense that apart from taking back the women’s right to own and retain property, it disowns women who marry outsiders and denies them the right to government jobs and to apply for seats in state-run educational institutions besides.

Karat said the bill and its stripping of key rights raises questions about the livelihood of women. For instance, those working for the Kashmiri government would lose their jobs once they marry someone from outside the state and would also not be able to rely on any property because she would lose the right to own that too.

Beyond this, the bill is also mired in the emotional issue of retaining autonomy for Kashmir, guaranteed under Article 370 of the Indian Constitution. This arises from agreements under which the former ruler of the state, Maharaja Hari Singh, acceded to India in 1947.

Article 370 of the Constitution limited New Delhi’s control over Kashmir to the areas of defence, foreign affairs and communications. However, this was substantially eroded by federal legislation in subsequent years as the dispute over the territory with Pakistan flared into open warfare in 1965 and 1971.

Mehbooba Mufti, president of the ruling PDP party and the daughter of the chief minister, initially opposed the bill on the grounds that it discriminated against women. But she later made a turnabout, saying her party could not compromise on a bill ”designed to preserve the distinct identity of the state”.

Among the high-profile women likely to be affected if the bill becomes law are Rubaiya Sayeed, the younger sister of Mehbooba Mufti who is married to a resident of Chennai in the far south of India.

Two daughters of Farooq Abdullah, who served several terms as Kashmir’s chief minister, are married to people outside the state, one to a British national and the other to Sachin Pilot, an Indian politician. But the law will not affect Farooq Abdullah’s political heir and president of the National Conference, Omar Abdullah, whose wife is from outside Indian-controlled Kashmir.

Many Kashmiri women are also married to the nationals of Pakistan, which controls a third of the former kingdom across the Line of Control that runs through Kashmir. But the bill is silent on their status.