Sat Parkash Suri & Dr. Gurdev Singh  

Jammu and Kashmir State as it stood on the map of India at the time of partition was founded by Maharaja Gulab Singh by virtue of the Amritsar Treaty which was executed on 16th March 1846 between the representatives of the Governor General Lord Hardinge and Gulab Singh in person. Governor General Lord Hardinge acknowledged Gulab Singh as the independent sovereign ruler of Jammu and Kashmir State including the frontier areas of Ladakh, Gilgit and Baltistan which had been conquered by Gulab Singh’s most ambitious military General Zorawar Singh. These areas were linguistically and culturally different from one region to another region. Dogra dynasty produced four rulers during its hundred years rule and they were Maharaja Gulab Singh, Maharaja Ranbir Singh, Maharaja Pratap Singh and Maharaja Hari Singh who gave a face-lift to the State by ushering a plethora of reforms and economic measures which became a great facilitating factor for a leading role in political events during last ruler’s time. Modern education and exposure to social environment inculcated by his father Amar Singh to his son Hari Singh a firm and determined commitment to usher an era of social equality which he valued most in life. Maharaja Hari Singh initiated measures of gradual democratization of administration and made it a more broad based and liberal much earlier India got its independence. During his rulership, a well-shaped corpus of administration was in existence until Sheikh Abdullah was appointed and installed on the insistence of then Prime Minister Pt. Nehru as Chief Emergency Administrator soon immediate after State’s accession to Indian Union on 26th October 1947. Sheikh Abdullah shredded the norms of meritocracy established by Maharaja Hari Singh after years hard labour and efforts and Sheikh Abdullah acquired for himself a status of an independent despot even without consulting the Prime Minister of the state, Mehr Chand Mahajan or the Maharaja himself and undertook to overhaul the entire administration. He haphazardly dismissed, transferred and retired the government employees irrespective of any rank and file, replaced them by his favourites from the National Conference cadres. Sheikh Abdullah shattered all decorums and crossed all limits when newspaper agents were appointed top administrators and persons from cooperative societies were appointed as deputy commissioners. He degenerated the whole machinery of the sate administration from beginning to the end of his rule in August 1953. His rule was nothing more or less an anti-Hindu crusade as the Hindu minority had no place whatsoever in his set-up and he pushed the state administration into confusion and chaos.
The special status provision was incorporated in the statue book as ‘temporary’ but the general feeling among the Congress leaders and the public in general as both link this controversial provision with the accession of the state thus ignoring the fact that under law Jammu and Kashmir acceded to Indian Union on 26th October 1947 when the ruler of the state Maharaja Hari Singh himself personally signed the Instrument of Accession in Amar Mahal’s Durbar Hall in Jammu whereas this Article 370 was adopted in October 1949 after Maharaja Hari Singh had distanced himself from the state’s affairs and adopted a road to stoic isolation. It is ridiculous to say that this provision was a bridge between this state and rest of India. When the article was adopted amidst protests from the nationalists, the then Prime Minister Pt. Nehru assured that the temporary provision would wither away with the passage of time.
When Pt. Nehru asked Dr Bhim Rao Ambedkar, the principal architect of Indian constitution and the first Law Minister in Nehru’s Cabinet to draft Article 370, he point blank refused to do so. It was then drafted by Sir N.Gopala Swami Ayyangar former Prime Minister of Maharaja Hari Singh alongwith NC founder Sheikh Abdullah. Ayyangar was a minister in the then Prime Minister Nehru’s cabinet. According to this article except for defence, foreign affairs and communications, Indian Parliament needed the consent of the State’s Legislature to implement laws of the Indian Union in the state. This article was obnoxious and harmful for the country because it was an off-shoot of the tragic communal partition of the country in 1947 as many of the protagonists were infected by the virus of two nation theory and also ignorant about the facts of the history.
This article should have been declared null and void much longer as was done in case of article 238 of the Indian Constitution. If the Parliament could amend Article 238 or even amend article 31 of the Indian Constituion why not Article 370. Article 31 had guaranteed property right as fundamental right yet it was abrogated by pro-capitalist Janata Party Government headed by Morar Ji Desai. The special status caused acute resentment among the people of Jammu and Ladakh. They thought that this provision went in favour of the Kashmiri leadership to establish its hegemony over them. The people of Jammu and Ladakh nursed a long standing grievance that under the cover of Article 370 and the state constitution the decisions were so manipulated by the Kashmiri leaders that the power structure in the state eternally tilted in favour of Kashmir region only and thus paved way to precarious situation.
To voice opposition to the special provision, Dr. Shyama Prasad Mukherjee did not endorse the arrangement reached between Pt. Nehru and Sheikh Abdullah and termed the Article 370 as Balkanisation of India and condemned the three-nation theory of Sheikh Abdullah. Bharatiya Jan Sangh alongwith Hindu Mahasabha and Ram Rajya Parishad supported the massive agitation launched by the Jammu Praja Parishad to do away the pernicious constitutional provision “Ek desh mein do vidhan, do pradhan aur do nishan nahi challenge”.
On the historic day of 5th August 2019 a separate Bill – the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Bill 2019 – was introduced and unanimously passed to bifurcate the State into two separate union territories of Jammu and Kashmir (with legislature), and Ladakh (without legislature). Union Home Minister Amit Shah on 5th August 2019 announced that Article 370 which provided special status to Jammu and Kashmir, has been scrapped through legislation thus to usher an era of real democratic rights and privileges which had been denied by the few influential families of Kashmir region. The abrogation of Article 370 heralds an all-round inclusive development and prosperity of the newly created Jammu and Kashmir Union Territory and also Ladakh Union Territory.
In recognition of Narendera Modi’s sagacity, it is standing ovation to his commitment to fulfil the promise made in the Bhartiya Janta Party’s Manifesto. Thus he has brought the state at par with all other Indian states. He scripted history by taking this decision of abrogating Article 370 which no other
government had dared to do in the past.

DISCLAIMER:

The views expressed in the Article above are Author’s personal views and kashmiribhatta.in is not responsible for the opinions expressed in the above article.

Courtesy: The State Times: 2nd November, 2019