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Updated August 11th, 2022 at 16:39 IST

OPINION: Three years and counting.

Article 370 survived 7 decades and 14 Prime Ministers, stayed put in our Constitution when over 100 of its other provisions were amended, writes Sushil Pandit

Reported by: Sushil Pandit
Article 370
Image: PTI | Image:self
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Article 370 of the Indian Constitution was neutered on the 5th of August, 2019. It is the third anniversary of that epochal political decision. 'What is so epochal about that decision?' you may ask. Well, for starters, the answer to that question is one simple question. Which other decision of this eight years old government do we celebrate every year? That may still not be a sufficient criterion for any decision to be called epochal, you may argue. So, here goes its background, in brief.

Rhetoric apart, Article 370 started off as a temporary provision, and very explicitly so, in our Constitution. In fact, the record of the proceedings bear the fact that the Constituent Assembly was vehemently opposed to it. On the persuasion of Sardar Patel and Gopalaswami Ayengar, the Assembly gave its consent, albeit reluctantly. Primarily, on the assurance that it was going to be a temporary provision, necessitated by the complications arising out of the invasion by Pakistan and its reference to the UN.

Yet, the “temporary and transient” Article 370 survived seven decades and 14 Prime Ministers to stay put in our Constitution. This is when over 100 of its other provisions were amended, including the preamble and also our fundamental rights. Instead of repealing, it was made more and more pernicious. All in the name of autonomy. Several more concessions were layered over the original ones.

With the surreptitious inclusion of the 35A in 1954, the subversion peaked. Discrimination against the non-Muslims of the State, and also the regions other than the Valley, grew rampant and institutionalised. Jammu & Kashmir was taken out of the jurisdiction of not only the Constitution of India but also our Parliament, our Supreme Court, our Election Commission and even our Comptroller & Auditor General. All because J&K was the only Muslim majority state of India. Never mind the fact that India is a secular democracy. And what does the Muslim majority J&K do with the ‘autonomy’? It confers on the Muslim majority “State Subjects of J&K” such rights and privileges that the Hindu majority Indians from the other states were denied even basic rights in J&K. And there was not even a pretence of fairness by applying reciprocity.

Over the decades, Article 370 became one of the more contentious if not the most contentious political issue ever since our independence. Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee sacrificed his life when he was arrested in J&K, and killed in custody. He had protested by defying one of its provisions that denied entry into J&K to the citizens from the rest of India without a valid permit. To the credit of Jana Sangh, the party Dr Mookerjee led as its founding president, repeal of Article 370 remained a solemn promise in their manifesto- every manifesto, election after election.

In 1980, when the erstwhile Jana Sangh leaders formed a new party- the BJP, picking up from the debris of a failed experiment called the Janata Party, they explicitly repudiated their Jana Sangh legacy. The founding President- Atal Bihari Vajpayee, said so emphatically in his presidential address to the inaugural national convention at Bombay (now Mumbai), in December 1980. The BJP even replaced the pictures of the leading lights of Jana Sangh- Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee and Pt. Deendayal Upadhyaya, with those of Mahatma Gandhi and Jai Prakash Narayan, to adorn their huge backdrop at the stage. Yet, what they didn’t give up was their commitment to repeal Article 370. Even in 1998, when they were forced to “keep the contentious issues aside” in their quest for building a coalition- NDA, the party kept the promise alive in their manifesto. The BJP assured that they would deliver on it the day they get a majority of their own. The manifesto for 2014 general elections reiterated it.

In 2014, the BJP not only won a historic mandate of its own steam but also led its alliance- NDA, to a comfortable majority. The BJP’s performance in J&K was even more spectacular. Garnering almost one-third of the total votes polled, more than both the regional parties put together, BJP won 3 out of 6 seats. Despite such a historic mandate, six months later in the elections to the J&K Assembly, the party chose ambiguity over commitment on the issue of Article 370. To avoid taking an honest position on the issue, they chose to dump their already printed manifesto. This was their first election ever that they fought without a manifesto. Instead, a tame ‘vision document’ was dished out. None of it helped prevent another rout in the Valley. BJP’s security deposit was forfeited on all the 34 seats it contested there. In addition, it dented the Party in Jammu albeit in pockets. The BJP polled almost one lakh votes fewer than what they had polled in Lok Sabha. Their vote-share fell from one-third to less than a quarter. Four assembly segments, where the BJP led with over 25,000 votes in the Lok Sabha polls held barely six months earlier, were lost. What added insult to the injury was that the party lost three of those four seats to the National Conference- a Valley-based party which was routed in the Valley itself. However, much worse awaited the BJP in 2015.

Despite a humongous mandate and some telling lessons along the way, BJP demonstrated a far bigger appetite for humiliation post elections. In the Agenda of Alliance (AoA) it signed on with the PDP to form a coalition, the BJP committed in writing- to talk to Hurriyat as a stakeholder; to repeal AFSPA; to resume talks with Pakistan; and to defend Article 370; besides a whole lot more. The unsavoury record of those governments, led by Muftis, was such that it forced the Prime Minister to allude to them during the 2019 campaign as an avoidable blunder (MahaMilaavat).

The significance of Article 370 for India’s enemies became evident in their reaction to its neutering. On August 7, 2019, barely two days later, Pakistan summoned our High Commissioner and expelled him. Never had India expelled Pakistan’s envoy despite severe provocations like Mumbai-bombings, Kandahar hijacking, Kargil-Intrusions, attack on our Parliament, attack on Mumbai, Pulwama carnage and many more. On August 13, China took the matter to the Security Council P5, and by December 2019, twice again. Each time in vain. The world, by and large, stood behind India and Imran Khan lamented about it, publicly. For India, globally, the going was never as good.

Across India among their supporters, all the misgivings over the conduct of BJP/RSS on Article 370 were forgiven. Now that the Jihad was put on notice, unambiguously. And that too in J&K- the zone of very high attrition. Jihad always treated J&K as the low-hanging fruit. With Article 370, its de jure sanctuary was destroyed. Kashmir’s so-called political mainstream, notorious for hobnobbing with Jihad, was kept under preventive detention. They were indicted on the floor of parliament for their ruthless plunder and destruction of Jammu and Kashmir.

But the de facto stranglehold of J&K that Jihad built under the patronage of Article 370, remained to be dismantled. Now, the bureaucracy, judiciary, police, academia, media, businesses and the larger civil society needed to be sanitised. Malcontents needed to be prosecuted and punished. Hindu Genocide was waiting to be acknowledged, finally. Victims and survivors began anticipating the delivery of their long-denied justice. The regional distortions in the share of resources and power had to be corrected. It was expected, and very justifiably so, that the follow-up measures will soon materialise.

It's been three years. What materialised instead, in the initial months itself, was an unmistakable retreat. India claimed from the roof-tops that J&K was our internal matter, and the world at large seemed to agree with us. Yet, a clumsy effort at seeking the approval of a few freelance Members of European Parliament (MEPs) through a conducted tour of Kashmir Valley, surfaced. This self-goal undermined the credibility of such a claim. Compounding India’s embarrassment, the European Parliament promptly disowned that misadventure. As if once was not enough, two more such tours were organised, this time of the foreign envoys based in New Delhi.

Even as these approval-seeking tours were underway, another ‘masterstroke’ propped up. On February 8, 2020, Altaf Bukhari, a finance minister under Mehbooba Mufti, launched a new political party in Kashmir called Apni Party. This looked like a ragtag grouping of turncoats, discards and wannabes from the other ‘mainstream’ parties. In less than a week, he was in Delhi with a delegation of 24 worthies to meet the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister not only met all of them, spent a couple of hours with them but also had pictures clicked and splashed all over the media blessing the new venture. And guess who they call on next, after their meet with the PM - the Home Minister, for another couple of hours of chit-chat and happy pictures. Never mind the fact that Altaf Bukhari is under agencies' scanner and known for funding politicians of all hues and persuasions, Hurriyat included. He not only has ED cases pending, RDX and lethal illegal arms were seized from his car.

Then, on February 12, a former head of RAW is dispatched to meet Farooq Abdullah held in preventive detention, at his mansion on Gupkar Road. In a matter of days, the senior Abdullah is a free man, soon followed by the junior Abdullah. In a matter of weeks, everybody held in preventive detention after being accused of serious charges on the floor of Parliament is set free. And here we thought that they all would be charged and made to face the consequences of their crimes.

Before the end of March, in the middle of an unprecedented nationwide lockdown, the Home Ministry of India quietly slipped through a Gazetted Notification declaring that only those who have lived in J&K for the past 15 years, continuously, qualify as its ‘domiciled’ inhabitants. And added that only such domiciles will have a monopoly on all the jobs. For most of the Hindus, violently expelled over 30 years ago, it was a bolt from the blue. Nobody had ever heard of such a demand from any quarter. Who were they trying to please, by restoring privileges taken away barely eight months ago? After several weeks of anxious calls and pleadings, a crumb was thrown at us. We too could seek to become domiciles, by proving to the bureaucracy on an online portal through a plethora of documents and substantiations of our ancestry. But what about the rest of Indians who were barred from J&K under Art370 and were told its neutering would restore their rights? They are back to where they were, almost!

On June 24, 2021, most of those ‘mainstream’ stalwarts who were accused of serious crimes and put in preventive detention were invited to the PM’s house to counsel him on how to restore normalcy in J&K.

On the issue of addressing the political inequity in J&K, a delimitation exercise was announced with great fanfare. Every well-wisher of this government, even the BJP leaders of Jammu and their panna-pramukhs, urged them not to base it on the 2011 census data. The 2011 census was rampantly rigged to tilt the scales in favour of the Valley. Besides, the 2021 census was underway. Why not use the latest data which is likely to be authentic, all of us argued. We could only infer that the purpose was not to alter the status quo beyond some cosmetic touches. So, another box was ticked to crow about, without giving Jammu its real due.

We, the expelled Hindus from Kashmir, would have laughed at these shenanigans had they not been at the expense of the Hindus in general and us in particular. Even as these hairbrained decisions rained, we reiterated, repeatedly, that the litmus test of this government is in reclaiming Kashmir, for the Hindus to go back and stay there, without the threat of another exodus, ever again.

As if to tick another box, another PR overdrive was unleashed. This time to conjure up a virtual normalcy. On the Independence Day in 2021, scores of Shikaras on the Dal Lake were decked up with Tricolours and a video clip was shot and made viral across India. And so was a Janamashtami Shobha-Yatra from the Lal-Chowk in Srinagar, a few weeks later. As if to prove a certain minister right, that all was well. The minister had asked us KPs to go back to Kashmir just as thousands of labourers could walk hundreds of kilometres during the lockdown, to go back to their homes.

It took the Jihad just one week of targeted killings to smash such illusions of make-believe security. Even those who stayed put in Kashmir when everybody else was leaving, were forced to review their options. How does anyone get it across that mere event management, photo ops and grabbing headlines is a poor substitute to defeating jihad, as ruthless and relentless as it is?

But why are they doing all this, people often ask me. I don’t have the answers. Only conjectures. Remember the TV-clips of December 15, 2019, showing the riot police in Delhi, chasing after the anti-CAA stone-pelters and arsonists who torched a few brand-new DTC buses ferrying commuters? The police were shown caning them, grabbing them by the scruff of their necks and dragging them to the chiller. That seemed to have filled the leader with a lot more remorse than Ashoka the Great, after the Kalinga War. The resultant paralysis, that crippled the Capital throughout the Shaheen Bagh circus, persists even today. The CAA has remained frozen ever since. Thank Gods for that. Because, at least it isn’t subjected to two steps back after half a step forward, as is in the case of the Article 370. Not to talk of a deafening silence, on the post-poll atrocities in Bengal and ‘sar-tan-se-juda’ mayhem across India.


Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts, analysis, assumptions and perspective appearing in the article do not reflect the views of Republic TV/ Republic World/ ARG Outlier Media Pvt. Ltd.

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Published August 10th, 2022 at 20:55 IST

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