FRAGRANCE OF IDEAS
As soon as the election dates in Jammu & Kashmir were announced by the Election Commission of India, all major and minor political parties and players in J&K swung into action in a fast mode. The recently held elections for the Lok Sabha in Jammu & Kashmir exhibited a considerable improvement in the voter turnout in the UT of J&K since 1987. These were the first major elections held in J&K after the abrogation of Article 370 in August 2019. The overall voter percentage this time in the state touched 59 percent, all time high for the last 36 years, which was duly acknowledged and appreciated by one and all including the Chief Election Commissioner while announcing the dates of the state elections on 16th August 2024.
In case the results for the Lok Sabha in the UT of J&K, held in April-June this year, are converted into the Assembly constituencies, the National Conference (NC) and Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) emerge as the biggest stakeholders on the ground. Both the parties won two Lok Sabha seats each, out of a total of 5 seats, the fifth going to an independent candidate. The conversion of the results to Assembly constituencies stands as follows: NC 34, BJP 29, Congress 7, PDP 5, Apni Party 1 and Independents 14. In order to analyze the whole scenario, it needs to be kept in mind that the voting will be held for the 90 Assembly segments while 5 nominations to the Assembly will be made by the government as per the latest amendment to the J&K Reorganization Act of 2019.
While some parties have finalized their candidates for the earlier phases, the rest are also making efforts to do so sooner than later. Election Committees, Campaign Committees and Manifesto Committees have been formulated at the political parties’ level. Press briefings and statements by the key players have emerged at a faster speed. National Conference is the first political party to release its party manifesto for the elections. It has said that it would get Article 370 restored to the J&K state in case it gets elected and forms the government in the UT.
Here it needs to be noted that the leaders of the National Conference also made it public that the state Assembly, when constituted, would pass a resolution condemning the abrogation of Article 370 and would instead ask for the restoration of the said Article along with its other paraphernalia. They also said that ‘the action would tell the world that the people of Jammu and Kashmir weren’t with the abrogation of the Article and the bifurcation of the state’ as if the restoration is to be made by the ‘world’ they are referring to…!
Everyone knows that Article 370 was incorporated in the Constitution of India by the Constituent Assembly of India in 1949. The Constituent Assembly gave all its powers to amend the constitution to the parliament of India under the well explained provisions of the constitution. The government of India always maintained that the said Article was brought into the Constitution under ‘special circumstances’ and the Article would be done away with in due course of time. The first Prime Minister of independent India, Jawahar Lal Nehru, reiterated this ‘resolve’ a number of times in the parliament of India.
However, a consistent campaign against the Article was unleashed by a number of national political leaders in 1951 and Dr. Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, former cabinet minister in the Nehru government took a lead in this connection. He formed a new political party named Bhartiya Jan Sangh-BJS (the earlier incarnation of BJP) and made the abrogation of the Article 370 as a major cornerstone of its ideology. His argument was that the Article 370 was incorporated in the constitution by Nehru to appease Sheikh Abdullah and the Article was responsible for creating a wall of hatred.
It created a separatist sentiment among the people of the state and thus facilitated a special and undue treatment to the state and was thus the ultra vires of the constitutional scheme of things. By virtue of Article 370, the J&K state had a separate constitution, a separate flag and a separate emblem as well which was vehemently opposed by the nationalist leaders and parties throughout the nation. Under its provisions, the President’s promulgation followed by a constitutional order was created in 1954 that gave birth to Article 35A which created two sets of citizens in the J&K state as permanent citizens and non-permanent citizens.
The Articles divested people belonging to the Valmiki community, West Pakistan refugees living in the state and the women of the state marrying non-state subjects of their full rights as the citizens of the state. While it didn’t allow non-permanent citizens of the state to purchase land and immovable property in the state, the permanent citizens of the state were free to do the same in any part of India. The discrimination under the Article was so overwhelming that the class of non-permanent citizens was not allowed to vote or fight elections in the Assembly elections in the state and neither could they get any employment in the J&K government. They were not even eligible to get government scholarships or loans for any technical training in the state institutions. They were virtually reduced to the status of second and third class citizens in the state.
It needs to be noted here for the information of all concerned that the government/s right from 1954 brought a number of Presidential proclamations under the provisions of Article 370 that facilitated the extension of jurisdiction of Supreme Court of India, CAG, Finance Commission, Election Commission of India and various other institutions to Jammu and Kashmir state. By virtue of the same Constitutional Orders, the nomenclature of the “Wazeer-e-Azam” and the “Sadar-e-Riyasat” in the state were also changed to the Chief Minister and Governor respectively under the provisions of the Article 370.
Since the BJP had been pursuing the abrogation of Article 370 for the last more than six decades and had always incorporated it in its Election manifesto, it took the decision to realize the resolve when it was assured of an overwhelming majority on the issue in the parliament. It used the same provisions of the Article 370 to scrap/decommission the Article that were used earlier for the last six decades by various governments to dilute the impact of the Article. The historic route of Presidential proclamations followed by the Constitutional Orders with the approval of both the houses of parliament was taken on 5-6 August 2019 along with the bifurcation of the state into two Union Territories by the Modi government.
Both the houses of the parliament discussed the motions threadbare; and the representatives from the state also participated in the debate. When these motions were put to vote, surprisingly, they got more than 3/4th majority in the Lok Sabha and 2/3rd majority in the Rajya Sabha. With this, the Article 370 came to its operational end for ever and so came to an end the Article 35A, separate constitution, flag, emblem, legacy of separate Constituent Assembly and the so-called special status of the state. Article 370 provided a constitutional and administrative mechanism to separatism & secessionism in the state and forwarded an undue justification to terrorism and violence. It established a state within a state with communal overtones in a secular and democratic India. Unfortunately, most of the victims of the Article 370 were the poor minorities in a Muslim majority state of Jammu and Kashmir.
A powerful political class of the state challenged the abrogation of the Article 370, bifurcation of the state and the process of abrogation of the Article in the Supreme Court of India. The Apex Court constituted a constitution bench headed by the Chief Justice of India to hear the case and the hearings took place during the months of August-September 2023. After a thorough and prolonged debate, discussion and argumentation in the Court Room no. 1 of the Apex Court, which was available live on the public domain, the final judgment was delivered in December 2023. The Supreme Court upheld the constitutional validity of the action taken on 5th August 2019 by the parliament and thus dismissed the petition/s challenging the abrogation of the Article and the bifurcation of the state. However, the Apex Court directed the government of India to conduct the elections of the J&K Assembly by the end of September 2024.
Again, not yet convinced, a group of some politicians of Jammu and Kashmir and their sympathizers in Delhi went for a review petition in the Supreme Court of India which the court heard in a private chamber. They did this despite the earlier Apex Court’s clear-cut verdict that the Article 370 was a temporary and transitory provision in the constitution. After due review of the petition/s, the Apex Court summarily dismissed the petitions and did not consider these fit to be heard and debated formally in the Courtroom. With this, the issue of the abrogation of Article 370 got extinguished forever.
The Kashmir centric National Conference that was a party to the whole process of debate and discussion in the parliament on the issue followed by their challenging the action in the Supreme Court and then the review petition in the Apex Court has now chosen once again to hoodwink the public opinion by raking up the controversial and unnecessary issue. They and their cohorts know it very well that the said Article can’t be restored back in any case, yet they try to fool the people with their rhetoric having an eye upon their votes in the ensuing elections.
It is surely for the public to take a view on the issue during the elections as they are the best judges. The way their sentiments have been exploited and blackmailed all these decades by the politicians of various hues with the slogans like “Special status”, “Article 370”, “Azadi”, “Autonomy”, “sky is the limit” etc should be a reminder that the politicians this time also are at it again. The fact remains that Article 370 has been buried deep down the ground and to do an impossible is simply aimed at fooling the public…!
(The author is a senior BJP & KP leader, human rights defender, author and columnist and can be reached at [email protected])
