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Building Bridges across regions and communities: Remembering Balraj Puri's Contributions

By Rekha Chowdhary. Dated: 8/30/2015 10:06:54 AM

It is one year that the state lost one of its most prominent intellectual and social and political activist. On 30th August 2014, Balraj Puri passed away. The void that his death has created has not been filled and there is no possibility of its getting filled any soon. Puri, as we remember him a year after his death, was a multi-dimensional person. Apart from being the best known expert on issues related to Jammu and Kashmir, he was a social and political activist. With a progressive outlook, he was part of all things radical and forward looking. Thus he participated in the anti-feudal struggle; he was the best known human right activist; he was the leading feminist of the state; while he was a Gandhian he also imbibed the Ambedkarite ideology and fought for the rights of the not so privileged castes; he stood for the rights of trade unions and he was the spokesperson for the rights of the marginal communities including the Gujjars, Bakerwals, Paharis, etc. It is difficult to imagine that there could be so many sides to the same person but that is what Balraj Puri was - an institution in himself.
With so many dimensions to his personality, it may be difficult to talk in details about everything that Balraj Puri stood for. But in this article I want to pay homage to him by referring to one of his most important contributions to the politics of the state in the post-1947 period. He was one among very few activist of the state who did not limit himself to the narrow confines of a particular constituency, like that of a caste, or a class or a community or even a region; and saw himself as a citizen of the state as a whole. Being a humanist, who defined himself as a global citizen and could relate very well to the larger identities like that of South Asia, he saw the state as a microcosm of the multicultural world. No one understood the plurality and the social diversity of the state as Puri did. That is the reason that when most of the political leaders of the state represented particular constituencies - of 'Kashmir' or 'Jammu' or 'Ladakh' or of particular religion, caste or tribe - Puri talked of all these identities and owned each one of these. He is known for his intricate understanding of the Kashmiri identity and the conflict situation that it was placed in. Writing right since the early post-1947 period, he placed sufficient emphasis on Kashmiri identity being given its due place within the larger national identity. He was convinced that so long this identity was given enough democratic space for its expression, it would be possible to harmonise it within the larger federal reality of India. He was also of the opinion that such democratic space was essential for retaining the secular character of this identity. In many of his prophetic writings much before the onset of militancy in 1989, he had warned the authorities about the fallout of the intrusive politics of the Centre. Apart from plethora of his writings in various newspapers and magazines and the prestigious Economic and Political Weekly, his book Kashmir: Towards Insurgency is the best work available on understanding the crisis in and of Kashmir.
However, while focusing on the Kashmiri identity politics, Puri was also aware of the need to harmonise this identity with other identities within the state. Thus he not merely talked of the regional identities of Jammu and Ladakh but also sought to find a way out of the binary context in which these identities were placed. Rather than falling into the trap of 'Jammu versus Kashmir' identities, he sought to work out a model of Jammu (and Ladakh) getting linked with Kashmir. Much before it became fashionable to talk of intra-state dimension of conflict, Puri wrote his famous book 'Jammu: A clue to Kashmir tangle' as well as 'The Simmering Volcano'. In these books he explained as to how it was essential to factor the urge of Jammu's regional identity in order to find a suitable resolution of conflict situation in Kashmir. Till the time, Jammu's regional identity is not recognised and given a space for its expression, he argued, Kashmiri identity could not successfully negotiate its autonomy. Thus while giving a vociferous support to the concept of state autonomy, he made a strong case for regional autonomy.
In the politics of the state where the range of political demands was stretched between the two opposite and rather mutually exclusive issues: of maintaining the special status of the state under Article 370 on the one hand and that demand for abolition of this article, on the other, Puri provided a third discourse of integrating the concept of Regional Autonomy within the very concept of State Autonomy. He made a logical argument that autonomy that the state negotiates from the Centre cannot be stopped at that level but needs to be further dispersed at the regional and sub-regional levels. Using the concept of federalism, he found it very unreasonable that the state which was demanding more powers from the centre is actually monolithic within and that its constitution is unitary in structure. He therefore made a demand for further federalising the state. While championing the cause of autonomy under Article 370, he demanded that it should travel further to other levels. Thus he gave the model of five-tier autonomy at the level of the state, region, district, block and panchayat. His book 'Jammu and Kashmir: Triumph and Tragedy of Federalism' reflected many such ideas.
Much before the 73rd constitutional Amendment of Indian constitution which redefined Indian federalism by adding Panchayats as the third tier of federalism, Puri emphasised on the institution of Panchayat and its incorporation into the concept of Autonomy. While arguing for regional autonomy, he was conscious of the limits that this concept would have if one did not talk of other layers to which autonomy should travel.
Relevance of Balraj Puri's model to the state can be seen from the perspective of the political situation in which we are placed. Like always, the political class is divided on regional and communal basis and if anything, is contributing to the widening of the regional, sub-regional and communal gulf. With not many bridges being built between the regions and communities, there is always a possibility of politics of mutually exclusive and contradictory pulls and pushes overtaking the state. Puri provides us a model which can redeem us by accommodating divergent identity politics within federal, democratic and secular framework.
(Feedback at rekchowdhary@ gmail.com)