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| BJP betrays nation, says Art 35-A can't be declared null and void | | A mandate that is hurting India | | Early Times Report
Jammu, Dec 5: The Indian electorate voted the BJP to power in May 2014 hoping that it would undo the past wrongs committed by the parties like the Congress and bridge the gulf they created between J&K and New Delhi. The electorate in Jammu and Ladakh also didn't lag behind. In fact, the electorate of these two regions gave more votes to the BJP in terms of percentage. The people of Jammu also gave a massive mandate to the BJP in the 2014 assembly elections - 25 seats out of 37. They voted the BJP for the same reason. The BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi had created an impression that a vote for him would be a vote for the country's territorial unity and the state's complete merger with India. The BJP's vision document for J&K also suggested some such thing, notwithstanding the fact that there was no reference to Article 370 and Article 35-A in the Vision Document. The electorate in Jammu voted for the BJP taking into consideration the stand that the BJP used to take before the assembly elections.
It is now more than clear that the BJP leadership never meant what it said during the elections campaign across the nation, including J&K. The BJP simply misled and hoodwinked the Indian electorate, including the Jammu electorate, and got the people's mandate only to ditch the nation, make separate status of J&K a permanent feature of the Indian Constitution, jeopardize the interests of refugees from Pakistan and children of the daughters of the state married outside the state to non-state-subjects and further widen the already rather wide gulf between the so-called state subjects and all other Indian nationals.
How else would one describe the stand the BJP took on Article 35-A in the Supreme Court of India on December 3? Before the Supreme Court, the J&K Government of which the BJP is a part took the line the NC used to take to hold the state aloof from the national mainstream. It told the Supreme Court that "J&K had not acceded to either India or Pakistan but owing to tribal invasions the Maharaja signed instrument of accession with certain conditions that were accepted by Governor General of India" and that "the immediate object of the accession, unlike other princely states, therefore was to make possible and legitimize deployment of troops to the state."
"Though the instrument conceded powers to Union of India to make laws on defence, external affairs and communication in J&K, yet the attending circumstances of the signing of the instrument and its acceptance sufficiently indicate contemporaneously that a constitutional framework was conceived wherein J&K, unlike other states, was to enjoy a special constitutional position," the PDP-BJP Government's response further said.
The PDP-BJP Government also cited clauses 4 and 7 of the instrument of accession and the communication whereby Lord Mountbatten, the nominated Governor General of India. Its response said: that Indian Dominion didn't take J&K's accession in the manner it took accessions by other princely states. "It was made sufficiently clear that state was to stand on a different pedestal and to be given different and distinct status as regards constitutional powers after the accession," the J&K Government told the apex court in defence of Article 35-A of the Indian Constitution, which was made part of Appendix I of the Indian Constitution in a hush hush manner and without taking the Indian Parliament into confidence.
Significantly, the Union Government didn't file its response despite the fact that December 3 was the last date for filing its objections or otherwise, thus creating serious doubts in the minds of the people about its intentions.
It is important to note that Article 35-A says that a person will be treated as a Permanent Resident of J&K only in accordance with the law which was already in force in the State before May 14, 1954. To be more exact, it says a person who does not qualify as a Permanent Resident of the State under law as was applicable before May 14, 1954 cannot now become Permanent Resident of the State. The Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir also protects this Article, which further provides that the Permanent Residents of J&K will enjoy "Special Rights and Privileges in the matter of (1) employment under the state, ( 2) acquisition of immovable property in the state, (3) settlement in the state, and (4) scholarship and aid as the state government may provide".
It is pertinent to mention here that a RSS think-tank "We the Citizens" has knocked at the doors of the Supreme Court and sought the removal of Article 35-A from the Indian statute book which debars a non-state subject from purchasing land or immovable property, seeking a government job or voting in the assembly elections or local-bodies' elections in Jammu and Kashmir.
That the PDP-BJP Government has defended Article 35-A should make the people of Jammu province and Ladakh region, nay the entire nation, sit up and bemoan the wrong they committed by voting for the BJP. Indeed, the mandate that gave to the BJP has hurt the nation and helped only the enemies of India. Indeed, the danger to India is not from separatists like Geelani and the parties like the NC. The real danger to India is from the pseudo-nationalist parties like the BJP whose leader Narandra Modi is holding secret meetings with Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and not taking the nation into confidence for reasons best known to him.
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