Final Part 3: Abrogation of Article 370 was correct.:

 The Kashmir Story

Final Part 3: Abrogation of Article 370 was correct.:

The clause 7 of the Instrument of Accession signed by Maharaja Hari Singh declared that the J&K State could not be compelled to accept any future Constitution of India. 

The State was within its rights to draft its own constitution and to decide for itself what additional powers to extend to the Central Government.

Article 370 of the Constitution of India was a 'temporary provision' inserted on 17 October 1949 which gave special status & powers to the state of Jammu and Kashmir, lawfully authorising it to have its own constitution.

Article 370 was drafted in Part XXI of the Indian constitution titled "Temporary, Transitional and Special Provisions".

Implementation of Article 370 meant that :

● Jammu - Kashmir's citizens enjoyed dual citizenship.

● Jammu - Kashmir's national flag was different.

● Jammu - Kashmir' Legislative Assembly's term was 6 years, whereas its 5 years for other States of India.

● In Jammu - Kashmir it was not a crime to insult India's national flag or the national Symbols!

● The order of the Supreme Court of India was not valid in Jammu - Kashmir.

● Parliament of India could make laws in extremely limited areas for Jammu - Kashmir.

● In Jammu-Kashmir: If a Kashmiri woman married a person from any other state of India, her Kashmiri citizenship ended!. 

In contrast if a Kashmiri woman married a person from Pakistan that person would get citizenship of Jammu - Kashmir. This amounted to providing Indian citizenship to Pakistani terrorists.

● Because of Section 370 RTI does not apply in Kashmir.

• RTE was not implemented

• CAG did not apply.

• Indian laws were not applicable.

● Sharia law was applicable to women in Kashmir.

• There were no rights to panchayats in Kashmir.

●Minorities in Kashmir [Hindus and Sikhs] did not get 16% reservation.

● Due to Article 370 Indians from other states could not buy or own land in Kashmir. However a Kashmiri could buy land anywhere in India.

● Private industries were not allowed to establish because they couldn't acquire or own land. This led to unemployment in youths. This unemployment gave them enough time to take part in activities like stone pelting and separatism movements.

● Because of Section 370 Pakistanis got Indian citizenship for which they only needed to marry a girl from Kashmir.

● Our security and nationalism was always compromised in Kashmir.

Now, let us turn to what were the different advantages or disadvantages of Article 370.

Advantages:-

• J&K was merged into India on the assurance to the people & ruler of J&K that their sovereignty (vestige) will be respected & safeguarded at any cost. Here, it is needed to be mentioned that Art. 370 was the strong guarantee of sovereignty.

• Article 370, in a time, whenever there was a lack of trust between the state & the centre, acted as a bridge between of them. 

Disadvantages:-

• Above everything, a state’s unity, integrity & sovereignty is paramount. For the integrity of the country, it is needed to have a united country in terms of administration. Hence, this article may be regarded as in juxtaposition of the notion of unity & integrity of our great nation.

• When, even the constitution of J&K said that it is and will remain integral part of India, this provision, itself had become obsolete and implores getting jettisoned.

• The epoch when this article was introduced had lost its sheen. 70 years after, Kashmir no longer remained alien to the rest of the country. Hence this temporary provision had outlived its utility & become obsolete.

• Article 370, many-a-times had become a stumbling block in the pathway of centre’s outreach to the state and its beautiful people. Doing away with it would offer direct contact channel between centre and the state, rendering greater integration of Kashmiris into rest of the country.

The history of last 70 years after the Bloody Partition of 1947 was familiar to everyone.

In Kashmir, an aura of being special and exclusive and answerable to none had proliferated.

(1) During the chaos of Partition in 1947, the Pakistan Army illegally occupied a part of Jammu region PoJ, a part of Kashmir region PoK, Gilgit and Baltistan.

These are India's Territory.v

(2) Then PM Nehru and Sheikh Abdullah cooked up the controversial Temporary Article 370 and Sec 35 A to “appease” the Islamo - Fascists who deliberately did not leave for Pakistan, and stayed put in J&K State. This was done thru' a Presidential order.

The temporary article 370 and Section 35 A resulted in :

(a)The absurdity of “One Nation with two Constitutions”. 

This led to:

(i) Sponsorship of Islamic Wahabi Radicalisation among Indian Muslims by the Islamic State of Pakistan.

(ii) Demands for Koranic Sharia Laws or Nizam e Mustafa within the Republic of India, especially in the State of Jammu Kashmir and Ladakh.

(iii) The rise of violent divisive politics, based on Islam, by the Kashmiri Muslim Leaders, exploiting the 70:30 Muslim majority .

(iv) The infiltration of Islamic Jehadi Terrorists into India, by the Islamic State of Pakistan.

(v) Thirty years ago, the Hindu Kashmiri Pandits were driven out of the Kashmir valley, their ancient homes, through Terror, violence, rape and murder committed by the Pakistan backed Terror outfit-- the JKLF.

(vi) The “ethnic cleansing” was to turn Kashmir valley into a 99.9% concentration of Muslim population.

(b) For 70 years after Partition 1947, the Prominent Political Players remained the PDP of Mufti Family, the National Conference of the Abdullah Family and the Indian National Congress.

Political, social and economic power was concentrated in the hands of these 3 players and nepotism, corruption leading to seperatism had become rampant in Kashmir.

Infiltration from PoK, terror activity continued unabated.

The Central Govt often was reduced to a meek spectator. 

Kashmir stayed with India only because of the massive presence of the Indian Army.

This had to stop and the only option was to abrogate Article 370 and section 35A.

August 5, 2019

The BJP government then revoked Article 370 on August 5, 2019, because some people were misusing it for their own ends, resulting in lack of development in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) that had resulted in a sense of separatism there.

Realising that this policy of appeasement thru Article 370 had not worked for the past 30 years, the government then decided to “change the landscape” to “look for answers” in a “challenging situation”.

One should not worry too much about what other countries would say about J&K and that India’s position would “prevail”.

• Article 370 was a temporary provision. 

• This provision had actually become dysfunctional. 

• That it was being arbitraged by a narrow set of people for their own gains. 

• And by doing that they were impeding development. 

• And that lack of development was feeding a sense of separatism. 

• And that separatism has actually been utilised by Pakistan to carry out cross-border terrorism.”

Most Indian people did understand this flow of logic. And posed with the question that - here’s an incoming government. 

It has two choices. 

Either it continues the policy of the last 30-odd years, and you know the casualties ... of all of that. 

So we know what didn’t work for 30 years. 

So choice one is that what did not work should still be continued for the future. 

Or choice two is to try to do something very different. And try to change the landscape ... and find ... answers in what is a challenging situation.”

The BJP govt.opted rightly for the second choice.

(End of final Part 3)

@ Dayanand Nene

(With media inputs).