On 16 October, after more than six years of direct rule from New Delhi, an elected government was sworn into power in the Indian Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir. The election was won by the National Conference (NC), headed up by Omar Abdullah. Among the many questions confronting his government is whether or not it will be empowered to tackle the region’s growing environmental challenges. Since earlier governments have not taken action earlier, and there is little in the manifestoes to indicate a change of policy, there is also the question of whether the political parties are serious about addressing the environment.
In August 2019, India made a series of constitutional changes while Jammu and Kashmir was under New Delhi’s direct rule (and therefore without its own elected assembly). Not only was the region downgraded from a state to a union territory, but Ladakh in the east was carved out to create another, separate union territory.
These actions meant laws previously passed by the Jammu and Kashmir state assembly, including on land usage and forests, were superseded by national law. Furthermore, the power granted to the elected legislatures of India’s union territories is severely restricted; each union territory’s national government representative – usually a lieutenant governor – exercises greater power.
In July, just before the announcement of elections for Jammu and Kashmir, the government amended the powers of the union territory’s lieutenant governor, granting them more power over Abdullah’s new local assembly.
Environmentalism overshadowed by politics
When it comes to Jammu and Kashmir, media coverage is dominated by its political turmoil. What is often missed is the academics documenting how climate issues have made the region – particularly the Kashmir Valley – increasingly vulnerable. Due to rising temperatures, the region’s glaciers are receding rapidly. Dry winters, heatwaves, droughts and shifting patterns of precipitation have disrupted its agriculture, strained water resources and heightened the vulnerability of the region’s ecosystems.
These impacts are exacerbated by environmental degradation, as the rapid urbanisation accompanying a population increase degrades wetlands. Sand mining has expanded rapidly in the past few years to cater to real estate needs, and despite court orders, illegal practices mar the industry.
The impacts may be well-documented, but the three major political parties of the Kashmir Valley barely regarded them during the election. The NC and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) only lightly touched upon the issue, while the smallest and youngest Jammu and Kashmir Apni Party (JKAP) did not address the issue at all.
The NC, which has now formed the government, made room in its manifesto for three environment and sustainability pledges: “green initiatives” (renewable energy, afforestation, pollution reduction, sustainable practices), efficient waste management, and residential solar power (also mentioned in the green initiatives section). None of this was accompanied by much detail.
The NC was last in government between 2009 and 2015 and in 2012 approved a state disaster management policy. This proved totally inadequate for dealing with floods in September 2014 – the worst in a century.
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
