Dialogue Earth asked Aga Syed Ruhullah Mehdi, an NC member of parliament, about his party’s environmental record in government. Due to the political turmoil and conflict in Jammu and Kashmir, he says “normal governance” in the region “took a back seat”.
Mehdi says this “mistake” was “unfortunate”, taking a toll on the environment that the NC has realised cannot be overlooked any longer.
The PDP, which was in power from 2015 to 2018, had a far more detailed manifesto that largely focused on protecting forests, afforestation, the promotion of electric vehicles, and wetlands restoration.
When Dialogue Earth interrogated the implementation of these pledges, however, there was little in the way of concrete provisions. The senior PDP leader Naeem Akhtar told us: “Manifestos are a statement of intent. The policies come later.”
When questioned about the party’s time in power and the fact that little had been done on the environment, Akhtar said: “That was a very disturbed period … you could not expect us to do anything.” Echoing the views of Mehdi, he conceded the environment has been “highly neglected”.
It is worth noting that, during its term in power, the PDP was in a coalition alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party, which has led the coalition governing India since 2014. The Bharatiya Janata Party was also the principal political party in charge of policy in Jammu and Kashmir during the time it was under direct rule from New Delhi (2018-2024).
Meanwhile, every political party emphasises a desire to grow tourism. This is despite many resorts currently struggling to deal with the environmental impact of more tourists.
Conflicting views on power of new government
There are also conflicting views on how much power Jammu and Kashmir’s political parties actually have – and whether their manifestos even matter.
Dialogue Earth spoke to Mohammed Ashraf Mir, a former secretary for the region’s Department of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs.
He says that, before the constitutional changes in 2019, matters like forests, the protection of animals and birds, electricity, and population control and family planning were matters for the state legislative assembly. This was different from other Indian states, as these residual powers were exercised under Article 370 of the Indian Constitution, which gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir.
The constitutional amendments removed this power from the state assembly, though Mir says that even before then, “if [state laws] were in any way inconsistent with any law made by [India’s] parliament, the parliament’s law would have prevailed by virtue of Article 254 of the Constitution.”
Nadeem Qadri, a prominent environmental lawyer in Jammu and Kashmir, disagrees with Mir on how much the state was responsible for pre-2019 environmental laws. He says most state environmental laws were mere adaptations of those passed at the national level.
“Just the nomenclature [of the laws] was changed … all the laws were commanded and controlled from the central parliament”, says Qadri, adding that Jammu and Kashmir’s newly elected government “cannot amend central laws”. Instead, it can generate policy related to the environment, the climate and wildlife, as well as eco-tourism. “For the past 15 years, there has been no policy pertaining to the environment and climate change. At least they should do it now.”
Qadri says, however, that even these policies would require the lieutenant governor’s endorsement before they could be implemented – the national government would still exercise control of such policies.
Kashmiri activists turn to the courts
In neighbouring Ladakh, similar environmental and constitutional concerns are growing. Some Ladakhi activists led a rally to New Delhi in October, demanding statehood and Ladakh’s incorporation into the Sixth Schedule of the Indian Constitution.
The mechanism currently provides significant autonomy to the tribal areas of the states of Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram. This is designed to preserve the cultural and social characteristics of these lightly populated and mountainous areas.
When asked whether such demands could be made in Jammu and Kashmir, most locals and experts who Dialogue Earth spoke to preferred to stay off the record; given the Kashmir Valley’s history of violence, it was unlikely that the Indian state would respond well to any similar actions.
Instead, with little faith in the legislative process dealing with environmental issues, activists are turning to the courts.
“I have filed around six petitions pertaining to illegal river bed mining, solid waste management, restoration of wetlands etc in the last four years before the National Green Tribunal [India’s highest environmental court],” says Raja Muzaffar Bhat, an environmental activist from Kashmir. For him, this seems to be the only avenue for positively dealing with Kashmir’s many environmental challenges.
Syed Shahriyar, a Srinagar-based independent journalist, contributed to this report.
This article was originally published on Dialogue Earth under a Creative Commons licence.