Opposition parties issue the Srinagar Declaration on Centre-State relations

Who: A conclave of opposition parties at Srinagar. Gurmit Singh prints the drafting committee as Ashok Mitra (CPI-M), K. P. Unnikrishnan (Congress-S), Raghunatha Reddi (Democratic Socialist Party), Mohammad Shafi (National Conference), Chanderjit Yadav (Janvadi), I. K. Gujral (United Front), Surjit Singh Barnala for the Akali Dal, a member of the Telugu Desam, Rajeshwara Rao (CPI), Dandapani (DMK) and Harbans S. Bhalla (Congress-J). Parkash Singh Badal spoke for the Akali Dal at the conclave.

What: The conclave issued an agreed statement on Centre-State relations, approved by the participants and released on 8 October 1983. It says the Constitution was meant to be federal but its unitary features have come to overshadow its federal ones, and that years of one-party rule at the Centre and in the States have eroded the powers of the States. Among its demands:

• an end to the dismissal of elected State governments and the dissolution of State assemblies;
• Governors to be appointed by the President from a panel sent by the State government, and Articles 356 and 357 amended so that elections are held within six months;
• residuary powers given to the States, Article 249 omitted, a mandatory Inter-State Council under Article 263, and Article 370 preserved;
• law and order treated as a State subject, with no Disturbed Areas Act extended to a State without its approval;
• a larger share of taxes and borrowing for the States, who it says receive about 30 per cent of the resources raised.

The declaration says the appointment of the Sarkaria Commission, though welcome, is an inadequate response to the situation. Gurmit Singh quotes Badal's speech there, in which Badal said the Akali Dal had adopted the Anandpur Sahib Resolution to recast the country's structure on federal principles and to remove any danger to national unity.

Where: Srinagar, in Kashmir.

Why it mattered: Gurmit Singh uses the declaration to argue that the federalism of the Anandpur Sahib Resolution was ordinary opposition doctrine, shared by parties that nobody called anti-national. The Government took a different view. Its White Paper says the Resolution's propositions on Centre-State relations are at total variance with the nation's unity and cannot be accepted even as a basis for discussion, while it welcomed submissions to the Sarkaria Commission on the subject.