Ranbir Singh Pathania
“You wish India should protect your borders, she should build roads in your area, she should supply you food grains, and Kashmir should get equal status as India. But Government of India should have only limited powers and Indian people should have no rights in Kashmir. To give consent to this proposal, would be a treacherous thing against the interests of India and I, as the Law Minister of India, will never do it.”
This was the reply of Baba Saheb to Sheikh Abdullah while the latter was asked by Pandit Nehru to seek support of Ambedkar as Sardar Patel had already put his foot down vis-a-vis incorporation of Article 370 in the Indian Constitution.
It was also a secret out in the open that Patel had gone to the extent of offering privately his resignation to the PM against undue interference by Mr Gopalaswami, Minister without portfolio, in the Deptt of States.
Nonetheless, the Nehru-Gopalaswami somehow managed to push through Article 370 in the Constituent Assembly.
J&K, as such, was allowed to have its own Constituent Assembly, Flag, Constitution, Prime Minister and Rajpramukh/Sadar-e-Riyasat. And except the notified subjects, no central law could be ipso facto made applicable to J&K unless it was ratified by the Legislative Assembly of J&K.
Time bears testimony that insertion of Article 370 for a single Muslim-majority state of J&K has more been misunderstood and misinterpreted by a section of vested interests in the Valley of Kashmir as ‘peanuts-worth price for going with India’ and less a benevolent, liberal measure by the framers of Indian Constitution. A concession was rather painted and projected as a compulsion.
The result was that National Conference which has ruled the State for a major period and its three generations leading the State as Chief Ministers plucked divisive, secessionist strings althrough with a view to giving false hopes to the youth of J&K and giving a side-bye to ‘politics of development’.
Abdullah , for whom the popular, progressive Maharaja was dethroned and Government offered to him on a platter with a ‘special status’ for J & K, was later on dismissed and got arrested by Nehru and a case popularly known as Kashmir conspiracy case registered and tried. Sheikh Abdullah, his family and favorites were charged for receiving funds, typewriters and explosives from Pakistan, with a view to starting an armed struggle against India.
May I quote Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad, immediate successor of Sheikh Abdullah, in his radio broadcast:-
“A fraud was being committed on the interests of the country. The slogan of independence was dangerous. Under the control of an imperialist power an independent Kashmir would have been a serious danger for the people of India and Pakistan.”
His son, Farooq Abdullah was also seen crossing the Rubicon while saying, “Pakistan-administered Kashmir belongs to Pakistan and this side to India. I tell this to them, and to the world. This is not going to change. Let them fight how many wars they want to,” “Internal autonomy is our right. They should restore it. Only then the peace will return.”
It looked as if they wanted to create an Abdullahdom for themselves. Their main focus was to rest and repose on a touch-me-not citadel while squandering and sapping the resources of the State as well as Central grants and accounting for nothing.
Peoples Democratic Party whose father-daughter duo ruled the State repeatedly as Chief Ministers had propounded the concept of double currency, self-rule and opening up of borders with a hostile country like Pakistan.
Mehbooba going to the extent of saying that, “Who is doing it? Why are they doing it? (challenging the Article 35A). .. I have no doubt in saying that there will be no one to hold the national flag.”
The simplest logic that I seek to bring about – Can a nation have a soft approach on its sovereignty, unity and integrity? If a nation could allow anti-national and a divisive narrative to be propagated on its soil.
Pitiably enough, this is precisely what happened in J&K. The dogma of special status was turned and twisted into an instrument of ‘politics of fundamentalism, blackmail and deceit’. Kashmir Pandits turned out, Sikhs massacred, worst hatred against Shia and Pahari Muslims, Buddhists looked upon a second-class citizens. Fundamentalist frenzy, bigotry ruled the roost amongst assertions of establishing a Nizam-e-Mustafa in J&K.
Possible, these fears and visionary procrastinations might have weighed heavier in the minds of Sardar and Babasaheb while they opposed ‘special status for J&K’. Decades later, Governor of J&K, Jagmohan’s Frozen Turbulence in Kashmir, recorded,
“Article 370 is nothing but a feeding ground for parasites at the heart of paradise. It skins the poor. It deceives them with its mirage. It lines the pockets of ‘power elites’. It fans the ego of new sultans. In essence it creates a land without justice, land full of crudities and contradictions. It props up politics of deception, duplicity and demagogy. It breeds microbes of subversion. It keeps alive unwholesome legacy of two-nation theory. It suffocates the very idea of India. It could be epicenter of an earthquake in Valley – an earthquake, the tremors of which, would be felt all over the country”.
Although mentioned as a ‘temporary provision’ it started with Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, first President of Bhartiya Jan Sangh, Pt Prem Nath Dogra and a saga of countless sacrifices and agitations to create an atmosphere for finally weeding out this ‘article of deception and deceit’ from the Constitution after almost seven decades.
Legal wrangles apart, Article 370 had been a potent weapon in the hands of vested interests for six long decades to block welfare and public friendly legislations from coming into force in J&K. The less-empowered Panchayats in J&K without the sting and sweep of 73rd amendment, absence of Nyaya Panchayat mechanism were a living example thereof. Students of J&K had nil access to ‘Right to Education’. Poor and downtrodden could not take benefit of ‘Right to Food’ in J&K. A lesser effective Right to Information Act, less efficacious anti-corruption and anti-terror laws, so on and so forth. All these had their legacy and roots in Article 370. Whatever suited the powers-that-be was all-welcome in J&K. And whatever suited the common man was opposed tooth and nail in J&K.
Today, J&K has breathed free. A host of public-friendly legislations have come into the state – may it be in field of ‘consumer Protection’ ‘Gram Nyayalyas‘, ‘Dowry Prohibition’, Free and compulsory education, better and fair land compensation, protecting whistle blowers, protecting wildlife and forests. And controversial and less effective laws – Resettlement Act, Transfer of Property Act, Sale of Goods Act, etc. – have virtually bid good bye to the State. The people of J&K can now bask and breed under new scheme of things, post 5th August, very carefully crafted by the powers-that-be at the National Capital.
Although jobs have been reserved exclusively for ‘domiciles’ of J&K. Reasonable protections in acquiring of land with a few exceptions are expected to be unrolled in future.
Now the lead question remains which has put everybody on the tenterhooks. When statehood shall be restored in J&K. Although Amit Shah has assured on the floor of Parliament on 5th August. But what time and occasion shall be a D-day for the people of J&K?
And last but not the least, there are some apprehensions and concerns put on the carpet by people, pressure groups and political parties regarding the new legal/constitutional relationship of the Centre with J&K. I hope they are also given a thoughtful, on-merits consideration by the Centre.
(The columnist was member of 11th J&K Legislative Assembly)
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