| Congress treading a dangerous path | | Ignoring Nehru, Shastri, Gandhi | | Neha
JAMMU, Dec 19: The Sonia Congress and her men and women have disowned Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri and Indira Gandhi for all practical purposes and adopted a policy that is calculated to help the communalists in Kashmir to separate Jammu and Kashmir from India and establish there an Islamabad-type Government to decimate and persecute the non-Muslim minorities. How else should one interpret the stand the Congress leaders, including Ghulam Nabi Azad, Harish Rawat, Manish Tiwari, Digvijay Singh, Rita Bahuguna Joshi, Sanjay Jha, Abdul Gani Vakil, to mention only a few, have been taking on the BJP Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi's suggestion that time has come to hold a debate on Article 370 to find if this has helped the state and its people or harmed them.
All the Congress leaders, who reacted to the suggestion of Modi on December 1 and continue to react even today, have accused the BJP Prime Ministerial candidate of playing a dangerous and divisive game and used all kinds of invectives ad epithets against him. They have said by demanding a debate on Article 370, Narendra Modi exposed his belief in communal and divisive politics and extended full support to Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and others of his ilk. By doing so, they clearly indicated their no-confidence in Late Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri and Indira Gandhi. Nehru and Gandhi had, of course, committed several blunders in Jammu and Kashmir and promoted politics of communalism and autonomy, but both had also taken several steps to integrate the state into India politically and constitutionally. Nehru, for example, introduced the pernicious Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir and Indira Gandhi brought back to power Sheikh Abdullah whom her father had got arrested on the charge of sedition in 1953. It was Nehru who had told the Parliament in 1963 that Article 370 will become unreal and ineffective for all practical purposes in due course of time. "Article 370 has eroded, the process of gradual erosion is going on; we should allow it to go on," he had said clearly suggesting that this Article was a temporary provision and the state will be fully brought under the ambit of the Indian Constitution in due course of time.
As for Indira Gandhi, she had introduced several central laws to the state and brought it under the jurisdiction of various central institutions, including the Election Commission, Comptroller and Auditor-General of India and Supreme Court of India. Not just this, it was during her regime that offices of Sadar-e-Riyasat and Wazir-e-Azam were abolished and the offices of Governor and Chief Minister introduced. Ghulam Mohammad Sadiq became the first Chief Minister of the state in 1965 and he was a Congress leader. Shastri too took several steps to integrate the state into India.
But gone are those days when there used to be Congress leaders who would want the central Government to take steps and erode the separatist and communal Article 370. Today's Congress is controlled by those whose attitude towards Jammu and Kashmir is similar to that of Kashmiri separatists and protagonists of autonomy and self-rule. It's no wonder the Congress is becoming unpopular not only in the state but across the nation. |
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