Freedoms, Fragility and Job Creation: Perspectives from Jammu and Kashmir, India

128 Pages·2019·4.827 MB·English

by  Ali Mehdi, Divya Chaudhry, Priyanka Tomar

SPRINGER BRIEFS IN POLITICAL SCIENCE
Ali Mehdi · Divya Chaudhry 
Priyanka Tomar
Freedoms,
Fragility and Job
Creation
Perspectives
from Jammu and
Kashmir, India
123
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Ali Mehdi • Divya Chaudhry • Priyanka Tomar
Freedoms, Fragility and Job
Creation
Perspectives from Jammu and Kashmir, India
Ali Mehdi Divya Chaudhry
Indian Council for Research Indian Council for Research
on International Economic on International Economic
Relations (ICRIER) Relations (ICRIER)
New Delhi, India New Delhi, India
Priyanka Tomar
Indian Council for Research
on International Economic
Relations (ICRIER)
New Delhi, India
ISSN 2191-5466 ISSN 2191-5474 (electronic)
SpringerBriefs in Political Science
ISBN 978-981-13-1219-9 ISBN 978-981-13-1220-5 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-1220-5
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018947149
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Singapore
The biggest task at hand here is to find work
for the youth of Kashmir.
Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India1
China has made economic corridor in
Pakistan occupied Kashmir. Let us open all
old routes. Let India make J&K gateway to
central Asia. Why can’t we do this? What
would be a bigger freedom than this?
Mehbooba Mufti, Former Chief Minister of
Jammu and Kashmir, India2
1 Malik, S. (2015, November 7). PM Modi announces Rs. 80,000 crore package for Jammu and
Kashmir: NDTV. Retrieved from https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/pm-modi-announces-
rs-80-000-cr-for-kashmir-says-india-incomplete-without-kashmiriyat-1241104.
2 Irfan, H. (2017, January 17). Let Jammu and Kashmir be gateway to Central Asia, rival China:
Mehbooba Mufti. The Economic Times. Retrieved from https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/
news/politics-and-nation/let-jammu-and-kashmir-be-gateway-to-central-asia-rival-china-meh-
booba-mufti/articleshow/56606802.cms.
Dedicated to the youth of Jammu and
Kashmir
Preface
This book is about interlinkages between freedoms (economic, political, social,
etc.), fragility, and job creation, as illustrated in the context of the Indian state of
Jammu and Kashmir, which has been a major source and site of conflict between
India and Pakistan particularly as well as between India and China to a degree. It is
a highly fragile area with immense spillovers across the region as well as interna-
tionally – therefore, both the theme and context of the book are, at once, local and
global.
It argues that the denial of socioeconomic freedoms – reflected in prolonged eco-
nomic exploitation by the state’s rulers before India’s independence in 1947, unrav-
eling of consequences of socialism in the post-independence era, together with “the
limits to growth” imposed by the state’s geography – has been the structural and
limited political freedoms, an immediate cause of fragility in the state. Kashmiris
lacked such freedoms in the pre-independence era too. However, the sense of
inequality of freedoms vis-à-vis other Indian states and citizens has been a trigger,
especially around the time when India was preparing to liberalize its economy (eco-
nomic freedoms) around the year 1991.
Kashmiri youth often raise the slogan, “hum kya chhahtey – aazaadi” (what do
we want – freedom), during their protests. This book engages into an elaborate dis-
cussion of what freedom means in general – particularly in the case of fragile situa-
tions – and argues that the state needs the freedoms which other states and citizens
in the Indian Union have increasingly enjoyed since independence – political
(strengthening of democracy), economic (strengthening economic growth through
local development of, as well as access to external, free markets), and social (gender
and human capital). India needs to bridge this inequality in freedoms between its
citizens.
This book is politically relevant as well as multidisciplinary in its content and
approach and would therefore be of great interest to a wide variety of audience – not
just for the political class concerned about the crisis in Kashmir, but also interna-
tional organizations working in fragile regions as well as academics in development
economics, regional development, political science and international relations in
particular, the private sector, civil society, media, as well as ordinary readers
ix
x Preface
interested in the issue of Kashmir. Needless to mention, this is the only volume on
Kashmir which is, at once, philosophical, social scientific, and policy-oriented, a
rare blend of highly diverse fields as well as approaches to research that the authors
have skillfully developed into a highly interesting narrative.
We owe gratitude to several people for making this book happen. First of all,
we would like to thank Syed Ali Safavi, Zafar Mehdi, Mohd Maqbool Mir, Yunus
Mehdi, Tanveer Sofi, and Saqib Safavi for facilitating stakeholder interactions in the
Kashmir Valley. Our thanks are particularly due to the participants of field research
who kindly agreed to share their views on the issues at hand. We are extremely
thankful to all those who reviewed various parts of this book when they existed in
the form of draft papers – Dr Frances Stewart, Professor Emeritus of Development
Economics, University of Oxford (UK); Dr C Rangarajan, Former Chairman and
Member of Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister of India and cur-
rently Chairman of the Madras School of Economics; Dr Nisar Ali, Former
Professor, Department of Economics and Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences,
University of Kashmir, Srinagar, and Former Advisor (Higher Education),
Government of Jammu and Kashmir; Dr Irudaya Rajan, Professor, Centre for
Development Studies, Trivandrum; Dr Effat Yasmin, Professor and Head,
Department of Economics, University of Kashmir, Srinagar; Dr Surajit Das,
Assistant Professor, Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru
University, New Delhi; and the anonymous reviewer of the entire manuscript from
the publisher’s side. Dr Nisar Ali also needs to be thanked for his great support dur-
ing the course of research, especially in reaching out to several key stakeholders for
interactions in the state. Let us also thank all those who shared their views during
the presentation of draft papers at two international conferences on the theme of
“Jobs and Development” in New Delhi and Washington DC, jointly organized by
ICRIER and the World Bank. Last but not the least, our special thanks are due to
Shinjini Chatterjee and Priya Vyas, Springer, New Delhi, for their exemplary sup-
port and encouragement right from the development and submission of the book
proposal to the publication of the book.
Ali Mehdi
Divya Chaudhry
Priyanka Tomar
Contents
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2 Analytical Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.1 Freedoms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.1.1 Types of Freedoms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.1.2 Economic Freedoms and Free Markets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.1.3 Political Freedoms and Democracy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.2 F ragility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.2.1 Dimensions of Fragility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.2.2 Fragility of What? States, Groups, and Individuals . . . . . . . 15
2.2.3 Causes of Fragility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.3 Job Creation in Fragile Situations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.3.1 Existing Approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.3.2 Challenges for Private Sector in Fragile Situations . . . . . . . 20
2.3.3 Challenges of Labor Supply in Fragile Situations . . . . . . . . 22
2.3.4 Potential Sectors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Appendices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Appendix A: Definitions of Fragility and Fragile States . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Appendix B: Major Constraints Reported by Formal Sector Firms
for South Asian Countries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
3 Contextual Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
3.1 Geography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
3.2 Demography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
3.3 Political Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
3.4 Economic Indicators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
3.4.1 Economic Freedom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
3.4.2 Economic Growth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
3.4.3 Net State Domestic Product (NSDP) Composition . . . . . . . 44
3.4.4 NSDP Per Capita . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
xi