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| PM Modi and HM Amit Shah create history, Articles 35A and 370 gone | | |
Prof Hari Om
No one had ever imagined that it could happen, but it happened in a most dramatic manner. PM Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah did it and fulfilled the 66-year-old most cherished dream of SP Mookerjee: One constitution, one flag and one prime minister. The case in point is not two historic bills and two resolutions moved on August 5 and 6 in the Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha by Home Minister Amit Shah. The revolutionary resolutions revocated pernicious and separatist Articles 35A and 370 and the two bills bifurcated the State of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh into two Union Territories (Jammu Kashmir and Ladakh) and provided 10% reservation for the economically weaker sections in what would now be called Union Territories of Jammu Kashmir and Ladakh. The Reservation Bill was lateron withdrawn following adoption of the resolutions which abolished Articles 35A and 370.
The reorganization bill, which was adopted by the Rajya Sabha with a huge majority on Monday, also provided for delimitation of parliamentary constituencies and assembly constituencies in the newly-created UT of Jammu & Kashmir. It also said that while the Union Territory of Ladakh will not have an elected assembly, the Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir will have an elected assemblyon the lines of Delhi and Puducherry. Articles 35A and 370 had created a separate Republic of Jammu & Kashmir with the Indian Republic, promoted separatism and communalism of the worst form and created unjust, invidious and humiliating distinctions between the state's males and female subjects and between the subjects of the state and the citizens of the rest of the country in terms of citizenship rights, including the right to own immovable property anywhere in the state. It was to make the Nehru Government undo these wrongs and integrate Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh fully into India that SP Mookerjee, Lion of Bengal, had sacrificed his precious life in Kashmir on June 23, 1953. Ever since then, people of Jammu and Ladakh had been treading the path shown by Mookerjee and suffered in the process for the cause of the nation. August 5 and 6 2019, will go down in the history of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh as epoch-making days. On August 5, the Rajya Sabha adopted the landmark resolutions and the bills and on August 6, the Lok Sabha adopted them with a thumping majority. In the Lok Sabha, 370 members rejected outright Article 370. Only 70 members supported it. August 5 and 6 will also go down in the history of the nation as days when the Indian State under the skillful and effective leadership of PM Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah established by their deed and words that India is really a genuine state, and not a banana republic where secessionists and two dynasties ruled the roost for 7 decades and the integrationists in Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh suffered huge socio-culture and politico-economic losses. But more than that, August 5 and 6 would go down in the history of India as days when the Government of India conducted a 100% successful surgical strike against the votaries of greater autonomy (semi-independence), self-rule (quasi-independence), Indo-Pakistan joint control and dual currency and Pakistani agents based in Kashmir. They had left no stone unturned to subvert the Indian State both from within and outside with a view to getting it segregatedfrom India and made the followers of one particular region believe that they were a race apart and that they were entitled not only to loot and plunder the state and fleece the Indian nation but also to exploit Jammu and Ladakh considering them as the Kashmir's two colonies where the life of the people was not one of the political and economic aspirations but of mere toil and penury. If what the Narendra Modi Government did to integrate the state fully into India was historic, the part played by the AIADMK, Akali Dal, YSR Congress, BJD, AAP(surprisingly) and BSP was not less significant, their support to the historic bills and resolutions was just inspiring. It all showed that almost the whole nation was united against those who would always term the state as a disputed territory and oppose the Indian Constitution, barring the separatist Articles 35A and 370 and the Indian taxpayers' money. Yes, the Congress, the DMK, the SP, the JDU, the TMC, the NC and the PDP, the Left and MDMK opposed the landmark bills but it was not altogether unexpected. They opposed it because their concept of India and of India is highly flawed.
The bills moved by the Narendra Modi Government, which were passed even in the Rajya Sabha where the BJP is not in majority, have electrified the national scene with integrationists celebrating the day as a day of thanksgiving. The people of Jammu and Ladakh, women of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh and refugees from West Pakistan living in Jammu since their migration in 1947 have taken the move of the Narendra Modi Government to mean the return of hope and joy. They have also taken the move to mean that their long night of discontent and despair is drawing to its close and a new day of rational hopes and just aspirations is about to dawn. They are right. Now, Jammu and Kashmir would be called Union Territory and it will be governed directly by New Delhi, notwithstanding the fact that there would be a Chief Minister. The reason: They would now be governed by the Indian Constitution, and not by the separate Constitution of Jammu & Kashmir. The refugees from Pakistan, the members of the Valmiki Samaj and Gorkhas, who till date were denied citizenship in Jammu because of Articles 35A and 370, will now be full-fledged residents of the state. For, now Article 35A has become non-existent. Article 35A had given the veto power to Kashmiri leadership in the sense that the Kashmir-dominated and Valley-centric government alone had the power to grant or not top grant citizenship to an individual or a group of individuals. Now, children of the daughters of Jammu & Kashmir married outside the state to non-Jammu & Kashmir residents will have the right to inherit their mothers' properties located in the state. Their spouses would now also exercise the rights in the Union Territories of Jammu Kashmir and Ladakh they enjoy in the states they hail from. All in all, it can be said that PM Narendra Modi and HM Amit Shah have created a history of sorts. However, they would do well to do two more things: Separate Jammu from Kashmir and grant of statehood to Jammu and create Homeland for 7 lakh internally-displaced Kashmiri Hindus. People of Jammu have been demanding separation from Kashmir since 1947 and internally-displaced Kashmiri Hindus demanding separate homeland since 1991. Creation of separate Jammu State and Homeland for the internally-displaced Kashmiri Hindus will mean a last nail in the coffin of Kashmir Jihad. |
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