We appeal to the oppressed nationalities, students’, human-rights, labour, women’s, farmers’ and international socialist organizations of Pakistan, India, and the world to support the Jammu Kashmir People’s Rights Movement in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Its central demands are for the provision of electricity according to the production cost from hydropowers, subsidies for wheat flour, and the abolition of ruling-class privileges.
We believe that the ways in which the popular masses have expressed their conscious intervention in this movement are extraordinary. This movement is definitely not limited to Pakistan-administered Jammu and Kashmir. Considering the nature of the demands, it is an anti-imperialist movement. That is because imperialism is the political and economic custodian of the system. It is also a major shareholder in the major Mangla and Neelum Jhelum hydropower projects, where UK, U.S., French, and Chinese companies have invested in production. Therefore, it is necessary to stand in solidarity with this mass movement and support the popular people of Jammu Kashmir.
Details and our political stance
On May 10, the Joint Mass Action Committee (JAAC) called a complete shutter down and wheel jam strike against the police crackdown and overnight raids in various areas of Muzaffarabad and Mirpure Divisions, where several of its leaders and activists had been arrested by the police. Clashes broke out when police used heavy shelling of teargas and stone pelting.
Last month, the Committee announced that on Saturday, May 11, people from across the state would undertake a long march toward Muzaffarabad, demanding the provision of electricity according to the production cost from the hydropowers, subsidies on wheat flour, and the abolition of ruling-class privileges.
As background: The Joint Awami Action Committee held a shutter-down strike in August last year with these same demands. After that, dialogues between the government and the JAAC leadership took place at various times. Last December, an official conciliation committee was formed by the government, after which an agreement was reached between the two parties on Feb. 4, 2024. But although the government later issued the notification, it failed to follow up on the agreement. The Joint Mass Action Committee was then criticized by subordinate Mass Action Committees for being so lenient with the government.
As a consequence, in April, the Committee announced the long march on May 11 to protest the government’s “non-fulfillment of written commitments.” In the state capital and other districts, clashes broke out between police and protesters, which later turned violent, with police firing tear gas at peaceful protesters, as police violence led to retaliatory stone-pelting. Demonstrations were held in various cities, where people vowed to continue the struggle for their rights.
Violent clashes broke out between the police and rights movement activists across the region on Saturday, May 11, amid the wheel jam and shutter-down strike, with one policeman killed and over 90 injured, according to various government sources. Thousands of protesters were injured. Police officer and Sub-Inspector Adnan Qureshi succumbed to his injuries after being shot in the chest in Islamgarh town, where he had been posted along with other policemen to stop the rally from going to Muzaffarabad via Kotli.
This time, the leadership and workers of the People’s Rights Movement are looking more enthusiastic, courageous, and organized than in earlier days. The members of the caravans take care of each other. In every town and city, the caravans are warmly welcomed and offered food and drink. People are using music and Bhangra (dance) to ignite their feelings, emotions, thoughts, and courage to participate in the movement without any fear of the state.
In Pakistan-administered Kashmir, most people were praising Pakistan on cultural and religious grounds until a few years ago. They believed and followed the narrative set by the Pakistani state through education, art, and media. For decades, culture, religion and love of the country had been discussed through the media to such a degree that if anyone asked questions in order to understand these issues, they were considered an enemy of the state. Working people were so brainwashed until a few years ago that the ruling class did not face any problem in achieving their interests. Anti-Indian chauvinism was at the core of what was being peddled to the masses. But the new generation has not only smelled the stench of the chauvinism given to their forefathers but is also seeing social change as a cure.
The global economic crisis of 2007-09, the war in Ukraine, and the Israeli aggression against Palestine also played an important role. When world capitalism had to face the economic crisis, the condition of a developing country like Pakistan became much worse. The ruling class of this country has always played the role of a rentier state for the U.S. due to its strategic importance. The social structure has been maintained in such a way that all strata of feudalism, religious patriarchy, capitalism, and rural capitalism were intermingled, always headed by the establishment.
The most authoritative force in Pakistan after imperialism is the establishment, whose capital is tied to imperial capital. It is the establishment that keeps using different parties like tissue paper according to the time and the public mood. It is the establishment that chooses rulers who follow neoliberal and pro-imperialist policies. But for the last two decades, the interests of American imperialism have moved toward India due to the Kashmir issue. That is because India is a larger and important market for imperialism; it is not only playing an important role in the division of labor, but also is an important country providing cheap labor, which opened up the market on very low terms and conditions.
The Pakistani state in the recent past had continued to provide services to American imperialism as a tenant state. However, since her importance has now diminished, American imperialism gave no opposition to India on ending the special status of Kashmir, but formally allowed the ruling elites of Pakistan to continue giving speeches in the UN to continue to fool its people. This simply and bluntly resulted, on Aug. 5, 2019, in the Modi government abolishing the special status of Jammu and Kashmir from its constitution. Behind this control was the imperialist asharbad (back), which had given prior notice of this development to Pakistan.
Pakistan, which in the past kept swearing to hoist the Pakistani flag at Delhi’s Red Fort, not only remained silent on this act of India, but also warned the people of Pakistan-administered Kashmir to remain silent. Some of her X-pro tried to cross the line and were stopped near the Line of Control. Finally, to save their reputation in front of the masses, the UN was once again put in the middle. Do the nationalists not know what the United Nations is? Then the remaining nationalists and revolutionaries formed another coalition called the People’s National Alliance (PNA), which openly discussed the duplicity of the Pakistani state, stating that Pakistan was not a partner of our movement but an occupier.
This was a very correct action, since both countries are occupying and stopping the Kashmiris by drawing a line on both sides. And therefore, the people of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir should fight against the direct occupation of the Pakistani state. But the leadership of PNA continued to use confused border lines with extreme centralization without coming up with a solid program, sometimes empowering the Legislative Assembly, sometimes combining Pakistan-administered Jammu Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan into the Constituent Assembly, etc.
Much of the leadership of this coalition ran away from debates and discussions among the cadres. The main reason for this was the same logic to meet the demands of unity, freedom, and national democratic revolution together with the rulers of the Legislative Assembly. PNA was unsuccessful in evacuating more people. A few thousand reached Muzaffarabad; on Oct. 22, 2019, the state severely tortured them. This process not only demoralized the youth but also exposed the leadership completely, and after that, all the parties of this alliance kept falling apart.
The current movement is mostly led by the youth who have previous or existing associations with resistance in one way or another. It includes those who have been fighting in Pakistan-administered Jammu Kashmir for a long time against the end of occupation, looting of resources, unemployment, and inflation by both occupying countries, Pakistan and India. Most of them are young people who joined their nationalist or progressive groups and are fed up with oscillating politics. It is true that these youth do not have a clear path forward, but they continue to resist. Because of this, the masses are standing with them. The masses have a longing to take revenge for decades of deprivation; they want to heal their past pains and sufferings. The extent of their hatred against the local rulers has never been seen before.
We understand that there are enormous flaws in this social upheaval. The most important weakness concerns the question of when public intervention in historical events should take place; for this it is important to study historical references to times when the masses have wanted to fight on a militant and revolutionary basis. They are now turning from a movement to win rights toward one with slogans for freedom, independence, and revolution. We must remember that it is not today’s deprivation that the people have risen up against, but decades of deprivation that have been tolerated to date. Therefore, it is necessary to struggle while advancing the program.
Civil disobedience has been called for by the popular masses for a long time because while the people consider the rulers of Pakistan as occupiers, they consider the representatives of the Legislative Assembly given by Pakistan as equal partners. This is the assembly that until this time has not given freedom of speech and inscription to Kashmiris. In participating in assembly elections, they cannot even submit papers regarding the independence of Jammu Kashmir, but first they have to take an oath that Jammu Kashmir will become Pakistan.
For 76 years, the ruling class of Pakistan has been fooling the people that by using their occupied Kashmir as a base camp, they will fight for Kashmir for thousands of years. The main reason to keep the Kashmir issue alive is to loot the resources of Pakistan, and on the other hand, to arouse the sentiments of the Pakistani masses. For this, the Pakistani media and curriculum have played an important role. The Pakistani establishment, which is the main player in Pakistan, has kept most of Pakistan’s resources under its control by creating countless institutions since the birth of Pakistan, keeping an arrangement with the United States, but in the name of defending Kashmir, using an important part of the country’s budget, mainly in name of defense. Pakistan was virtually under martial law four times, and the rest of the country remained under the control of the Bonapartist regime, meaning that historically the runaway political regimes remained with the military elite.
This military elite and its fringe political elite have never allowed any development within Kashmir, always providing the justification that Kashmir is a remote/divided area whose future is yet to be decided. Although there could have been good tourism in this land of beautiful mountains, forests, rivers, and waterfalls, it was not allowed because if tourism took place, how would the families of military officers spend their summer holidays in such a peaceful environment?
Industry could have been set up in Jammu Kashmir, but it was not allowed to happen because if the industry had been set up, more of the 20 million to 30 million people who migrated to other countries for employment would not have been available for exploitation there. Hydropower plants have been installed in Jammu Kashmir, from which approximately 4000 to 5000 megawatts of electricity is currently being generated, which will reach 8000 to 10,000 megawatts in the next three to five years. Most of the workers engaged in this production process do not even belong to Kashmir, and then the total requirement of electricity in Kashmir (about 385 megawatts) is being provided very sparingly. The rulers of Pakistan-administered Kashmir put all the responsibility on Pakistan Wapda and Pakistan Wapda puts it back on these incompetent rulers of Kashmir.
Shimla Agreement Based for Partition of Kashmir
There is no doubt that the primary partition of Kashmir started with the partition of the subcontinent, when the people of Jammu Kashmir were busy with unnecessary taxes and the struggle for freedom, which had already started before the partition of the subcontinent. The movement was so intense that the ruler of Jammu Kashmir, Maharaja Hari Singh, was ready to give more concessions to the masses with all his cruelty and oppression, but in October 1948, Pakistan intervened at the behest of the British Empire and brought in a large number of tribals. This provided justification to the Maharaja to seek help from India, for which India was already prepared. How can it be that after the division of the subcontinent, the rulers of both countries and the British Empire were not aware of the division of Kashmir? The armies of both countries were still being trained by the imperialist commanders. We believe that this was a strategic move of old imperial Britain and the emerging imperialism, which also exploited the Kashmiris. It was not only looted by the elites of both countries, but by keeping the Kashmir issue in the UN, imperialism also defended its strategic interests.
In 1971, there was a war between India and Pakistan, in which Pakistan was traumatized and India arrested about 93,000 soldiers of Pakistan. Both countries declared it as their private issue, and the international powers America and Russia also significantly supported this arrangement, while the original heirs of the issue, the people of Kashmir, were excluded from the list of parties. Thus, the Kashmir issue was excluded from the United Nations and made a private issue of both the countries.
When India was in the Soviet camp, America was in dire need of Pakistan, not only with the help of Pakistan in the war against Russia in Afghanistan but also in Kashmir. It continued to help in armed activities against India, but Russia turned to the free market economy. By doing so, the situation has changed. U.S. imperialism, as a single superpower, changed its policies for many states in favor of its economic and strategic goals within each region. On the one hand, India is a market for cheap and in-demand labor, which has become a metropolitan state due to the division of labor. On the other hand, the United States needed an ally against the emerging imperialist China, for which neighboring India was the best option to keep China under constant pressure.
The Role of the Current Movement
We have already explained the background of this movement as a continuation of the previous movements. But sometimes what might take decades to develop can be achieved in days. This is happening not only in Pakistan-administered Kashmir; this movement has also inspired the workers of Pakistan to turn their hunger given by the rulers and their so-called freedom into actual autonomy. The movement of Pakistan-administered Kashmir in general is a general movement against the rise in consumer prices and especially electricity, and against the rulers. The meaning is definitely not only to challenge the rulers of Pakistan, but also to resist the rulers of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, who for a long time have looted the resources of Jammu Kashmir at the command of the Pakistani ruling class.
Pakistan’s parties were introduced in this controversial area, but after coming to power, they acquired many properties in Jammu Kashmir, Pakistan, and foreign countries—where the children of these rulers obtain higher education in the universities of America, Canada and the United Kingdom. They also take care of their own business there and then come back in a better way and get elected to the Legislative Assembly by giving lies to the masses, in order to protect the wealth earned by their parents and to gain further sources of wealth. To get a glimpse of this spectacle, look at the descendants of the rulers in the present assembly, who won the election to the Legislative Assembly with the establishment’s laissez-faire policies and are sitting as ministers. What more evidence do we need of the lust for wealth and greed of these rulers?
Can These Legislative Assembly Rulers be Trusted?
If the evolution of the political consciousness of the current rulers is honestly analyzed, the biggest lesson of the history of Jammu and Kashmir will be that these rulers should never be trusted. The old political party of Jammu and Kashmir was known as the Muslim Conference. Since its inception, it has been loyal … first to the Muslim League and then to Pakistan. The posture of the leadership of the Muslim Conference was created in such a way that the public would give examples of the honesty and simplicity of its leadership. The rulers of Pakistan were introduced as big brothers. Kashmir Baniga (become) used to give importance to the narrative of Pakistan so that on the one hand they took advantage of the simplicity of the people to usurp the resources, and on the other hand, the rulers of Pakistan, especially the establishment asharbad (back).
But since the changes taking place in the society are also subject to the laws of science, as the human consciousness develops, it keeps questioning the old and searching for the new. When the masses of Jammu and Kashmir started a series of questions, countless formulas arose under which GB and the so-called Azad Kashmir were included in Pakistan’s possession. It is not acceptable that territory should be added to Pakistan. Thus, the formula of the leadership of the Muslim Conference to include all of Kashmir in Pakistan was difficult for the establishment. On the other hand, the leadership of the Muslim Conference was revolving around Sardar Abdul Qayyum after the departure of Sardar Ibrahim Khan. He handed over the leadership of his party to his son, Sardar Atiq, to establish further centralization after him. As a consequence, the rest of the party leadership distrusted him and founded the party of capitalists of Pakistan, the Muslim League-Nawaz.
Even before this, the Pakistan People’s Party was launched by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s feudal popular leader. Not only was the first level leadership of the Jammu Kashmir Muslim Conference joined in the form of Sardar Ibrahim Khan, but also numerous nationalists, the important leader who discussed the issue of a referendum. KH Khurshid, the former president of Jammu Kashmir, also changed his party to the People’s Party. Many Stalinists of Jammu Kashmir followed their Pakistani Stalinist brothers and fell at the feet of Bhutto. Earlier they were the rulers led by Sardar Ibrahim Khan, who in October 1949 signed an agreement with the rulers of Pakistan in Karachi to complete his job and gave an important part of Jammu Kashmir (the Gilgit-Baltistan) to lie under the complete control of Pakistan. As the demography of the important strategic region has been changed, taking advantage of this, plans are being made to make the respective region a province of Pakistan.
Therefore, it is important not to trust the representatives of the Legislative Assembly, keeping in mind the past experiences. The main reason for this is that they have earned so much wealth that there is a huge difference between their standard of living and the standard of living of the common people. All the proof of all the corruption they have done to get wealth are kept by the establishment so that none of them can do any economic or political activity without the approval of the establishment.
Will these rulers use the same food items, electricity prices, family treatment and children’s education so that some kind of alliance can be made with them?
Therefore, it is important to organize the movement in the layers of popular fighting masses without trusting these rulers!
Role of Middle Class/Small Entrepreneurs in the Movement
By middle class we mean small entrepreneurs who are running their business with few employees; bank managers, well-paid doctors, lawyers and mid-level officers are also included. At present, the middle class in Jammu Kashmir, especially the small traders, are suffering from extreme difficulties, due to which they are part of the movement. Taxes are calculated. Due to inflation, the common people are forced to be frugal in buying and selling, which has caused the small traders to face difficulties. Big stores where everything is available in special discounts have provided extreme complications for small traders. They are compelled to give goods on credit, and where they never expect pay back from customers due to the economic crisis.
So there is a crisis in all sectors. People prefer to spend whole days in public hospital queues to avoid private doctors’ fees, heavy prescriptions, and tests. People have reduced their visits to police stations and courts so that they do not have to face lawyers and judges. People have come to know the reality of educational justice to such an extent that even spending a little on their children’s education seems wasted. Workers are tired of paying taxes on their salaries. The semi-colonial middle class is squeezed by inflation and their labor charges, and therefore oppose big business.
But this opposition has sometimes been greater and sometimes less. The middle class in Jammu Kashmir, led by traders and transporters, was resisting in many districts with the people at the beginning of the People’s Rights Movement. Now many of them are opportunistic and self-interested soldiers of the state, shouting for peace but involved in the state strategy to sabotage strikes and sit-ins. This analysis was made by the Red Army Commander Leon Trotsky, the second most important leader of the Great Bolshevik Revolution of the 20th century, after seeing the same maneuvers of the middle class. As the revolutionary movements intensify, the middle class, out of cowardice and fear of losing something, checks the balance of power. If the working class seizes power by force, the middle offers its services to the working class, and if the ruling class maintains its hold by force, the middle class will sit back in its lap. Therefore, it is important that the people get the power to control; the middle class will then come to their support.
Failure of Nationalist and Socialist Tendencies
The nationalist and socialist political organizations played the same role as traditional parties did in both sides of Jammu Kashmir. They continued to perform the same responsibilities to some extent, and they tried to resolve the issue on a conditional basis. No one has offered a complete solution. Some kept it subject to the liberal and progressive constitution of India, while some talked about the accession of the Muslim-majority state of Jammu Kashmir to Pakistan. They continued to see the occupation as a lesser evil and even said that Pakistan was not the occupier but a friend in the freedom fight against India.
Some justified the occupation by India by saying that because of Pakistan’s October 1948 surrender, India entered into an agreement with Maharaj Hari Singh in Kashmir, and therefore Pakistan is the occupier. India is not an occupier, according to them Jammu Kashmir was a fiefdom of the Maharaja, and when the common people revolted against the cruel taxes of his fiefdom, it was not a rebellion but an external conspiracy by Pakistan. By simply ignoring the popular uprising and movement, they lean towards the so-called secularism of India. Is it possible to fight against another usurper at the behest of one usurper?
That is why we say that Kashmir is occupied by both the countries. In fact, Pakistan intervened and sabotaged the movement of the common people against the Maharaja from the asharbad (back) of the British Empire by keeping a special group together in Muzaffarabad, 5135 square miles of Jammu Kashmir. It founded the interim Pakistan-administered Jammu Kashmir government, consisting of Poonch and Mirpur divisions and later Gilgit-Baltistan, whose control was handed over by the British Empire from the Maharaja to an agency of its own. After the partition of the subcontinent, Pakistan occupied it in 1949. And then to make this occupation permanent, on April 28, 1949, he signed the Karachi Agreement with the Interim Pakistan-administered Jammu Kashmir government of his own making.
In this article we will also discuss some nationalists and revolutionaries who talk about the independence and revolution of Kashmir. Some of them talk about mass power with a very confused position on the slogans of independence and the ever existing assembly. It should be adopted and sometimes without the coordination of the people of Gilgit-Baltistan (Gilgit-Baltistan and Pakistan-administered Jammu Kashmir would be given a constitutional assembly). Butno clear position has ever been presented about how will all this would happen.
The rest of the revolutionaries subject national oppression to [class] exploitation and make the politics of the issues and the solution of the Jammu Kashmir problem conditional on creating a socialist federation of the subcontinent; that is, partial and interim solutions have no importance to them.
The major problem of both these political tendencies is that they see things from a very centralized point of view, and democratic centralism is never given importance within their parties. That’s why some break after every year and some after decades. The leadership goes around creating followers from the ranks largely by writing long speeches or books from selected leaders. Hence, they evolve from parties to companies, due to which the resisted element mistrusts them and organizes joint mass action committees critically. Even in the present situation, JAAC also needs a program for progress.
The Working Class
Because historically it has been proved that the service sector plays an important role in movements after industrial labor, and due to the absence of industrial production in Kashmir, the main responsibility of services workers is to protect the rights of the popular masses as well as their own. In the current revolutionary situation, they must force the leadership of their trade unions and associations to take forward the demands of their workers with the popular masses and start a series of protests, since for the last several years, trade unions are being attacked. The Act 2016 and Ordinance 2023 are aimed at depriving workers of the right to strike, altering service structures and pension reforms, and including various right-sizing and downsizing tactics. It is necessary to fight back because, if workers organize organize together with popular masses, they can get back their rights and interests.
Due to global crises of the capitalist system, workers are being constantly attacked in a colonial region like ours. The many achievements that are still available are easily taken away under the neoliberal policies. We often hear in conversation about the fact that education is being privatized; and this is true in Pakistan, where privatization has already started. If state violence was used against teachers’ strikes during the process of privatization, will it not also happen in Kashmir?
Looking at the current attacks, it seems that the ruling class of Jammu Kashmir is definitely going into a process of privatization of education, health, electricity, etc. Therefore, it is important that the workers should understand these attacks and protect the interests of their organizations, not individually but start a joint fight instead of saving face. Of course, all the previous two sectors have jointly elected a council for the federation, but the need for this process is that while holding a conference together, the abolition of anti-worker laws of the ruling class and more demands should be asked.
The workers should bring their leadership by creating pressure from below to support the organizations whose leadership is trying to build a federation. The only workers’ unions that can be worth mentioning are ones that involve workers democratically. Indeed, in union politics. I always think the people. Procedures vary. The nature of their responsibilities is different, their leadership affiliations are different. Most of the leadership of some trade unions and associations revolves around solving the small problems of specific workers within their sectors. This is the Prabrajaman (to dominate) mentality. Trade unions around the world take care of the interests of their workers, but in our country, the help of government officials and ministers is taken for the interests of the workers. For some years, young workers and some honest senior leadership intensified workers’ politics, which has led to attacks on trade unions and associations by the state. That is why it is necessary to lay the foundations of a militant, democratic, and popular federation whose program includes workers of all institutions. All kinds of exploitation and coercion should also be included in the demands, along with the interests of workers.
The Politics of Mass Action Committees
Without going into the background of the politics of public action committees, all the working people, from villages to cities, should be congratulated from whatever stratum they belong to, and perhaps seems that this was the right method due to which mass action committees were formed. The movement and leadership has reached this point. We pay tribute to these workers who wrested control from the traditional leadership and forced the nationalist leadership to believe that your strategy, methodology and centralism are obsolete. Some activists awakened the popular masses in such a way that today almost 90 percent of masses have understood that their direct intervention in politics can take care of their interests. As the movement progresses. In the same proportion, the morale of the common people is also rising. The youth are moving forward with new colors.
Weaknesses of Mass Action Committees
All of us are self-critically aware that there are immense weaknesses within the prevailing leadership of the Mass Action Committees. Most activists on the central committee are still remaining sectarian despite breaking away from their nationalist parties. Due to their different backgrounds, they still avoid discussing the program openly with each other. For fear of polarization by the leadership, the slogans were not advanced, with the masses now doing it themselves. From the platform of public action committees, there is a repeated appeal to leave aside the actual reality of the program and limit it to demands only. There should be no dialogue of alternatives against those responsible for all this helplessness for decades. It is not wise not to give an alternative even if the rulers are ineffective.
What To Do?
It is important at this time to generalize the question of “what is to be done” because the intensity of this question is present during every movement—how and with whom the movement should be carried forward. At this time, it is necessary to use the ineffectiveness of the ruling elites to call a constituent assembly in Pakistan-administered Jammu Kashmir. In calling the constituent assembly, it is important to demand a temporary revolutionary government because due to the exposure of corruption and immense wealth of the current ruling class, the people have lost their trust in them. The people have understood that they are loyal and puppets of the Pakistani ruling elites. They keep different foods, drink, house, car—everything is different from that of the popular masses. Their caste and tribe are different. Because of them, how many mothers send their children to work in Pakistan or foreign countries at the age of 18? How many young people who have run away from the narrowness of their homes have fallen in love with nature by using dinky routes? How many families go into depression due to lack of better education and health for their children?
Seventy percent of people are outside the country, of whom 20 to 25 percent are working in Pakistan, and 40 to 45 percent are working in the U.S., UK, Gulf countries, etc. These dirty rulers and their masters do not feel ashamed when they receive remittances from foreign exchange that belong to these immigrants. They serve for those who could not provide employment opportunities here. See these sorrows, sufferings and mental stress! Friedrich Nietzsche—remember the saying that the rich have left the poor nothing but God!
So struggle without trusting them! The rulers came and told the people every day that Pakistan does them an injustice, according to their promises, nothing is provided, etc. There were objections. Therefore, it is important to take advantage of their spontaneity. The people should not do anything to empower them, but now it is important that not only they but all the state stakeholders—including representatives of the general public, working-class leadership, the middle class (lawyers, professors, traders, and transporters), women, and neighborhood and student leaders should be included to form a provisional revolutionary government that will carry out the duties of making a constitution for the Constituent Assembly.