Early Times Report
Jammu, Sept 16: Article 370 of the Indian Constitution is the mother of all ills and time has come to remove it from the Indian statute book in the larger national interest and in the interest people of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh, said senior BJP leader and former political advisor to J&K BJP president Prof Hari Om in a written statement, which was issued here today. If India is to survive as one nation, Article 370 has to go lock, stock and barrel, he said, adding that its abrogation is a national requirement.
Former political advisor to J&K BJP president rubbished the assertion of the patently communal and fundamentally Kashmir-centric PDP, the NC, the Congress and Left parties that "Article 370 is a bridge between J&K and New Delhi and if Article 370 is abrogated, J&K will automatically secede" from India. "Article 370 was adopted in October 1949, two years after J&K acceded to India as per the constitutional law on the subject and it was a purely 'temporary' provision. It has nothing to do with the accession issue. Article 370 was the outcome of the perverted politics which both Jawaharlal Nehru and Sheikh Abdullah practiced for years in a most brazen manner," said Prof Hari Om.
"Article 370 has to be revoked to eliminate fissiparous activities in the valley, stop communal apartheid, integrate J&K fully with India, promote secularism and democracy in the state, enable people of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh to exercise all the rights which are available to rest of the Indians, end Kashmiri hegemony and domination over the state's political, administrative, financial and social institutions and tell the international community that J&K is as integral to India as other states of the Union," said Prof Hari Om.
Article 370 has simply promoted separatism and sectarianism in the Kashmir Valley, virtually converted Kashmir into a one-religion region, heightened tensions between the regions and the communities, enabled a handful of Kashmiri leaders and their henchmen in Jammu to exploit the state's separate status to their own advantage and render people of the state unreal and ineffective and it has led the Kashmiri Muslims to believe that they were a race apart.
Prof Hari Om appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to recall what he said in Jammu on December 1, 2013 about Article 370 while addressing the historic "Lalkar Rally" and ask his Home and Law Ministers to start discussion on this obnoxious Article to find if it has benefited the people of J&K and nation or it has harmed them. |
