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| Pernicious Article 370 | | J&K will not secede, Mr Abdullah | |
Neha
JAMMU, May 15: The election process got completed in Jammu and Kashmir on May 7. The same day, National Conference working president and Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah gave an interview to the correspondent of a leading English language national daily and the subject was Article 370 and implications of its abrogation. There was absolutely nothing that was new in the interview that he gave. It was just a reiteration of his old irritating and untenable stand. It is a different story that his interviewer, who was obviously blissfully ignorant about the history of Article 370 and the hostile attitude of the people Jammu province and Ladakh region, internally displaced Kashmiri Hindus, refugees from West Pakistan, SCs, OBCs, STs and daughters of J&K towards this Article, didn't counter his pernicious and misleading formulations. Remember, an overwhelming majority of population in J&K is bitterly opposed to Article 370 on the ground that it has only empowered the Kashmiri ruling elite to exercise unbridled legislative and executive power, subvert the institutions, promote fissiparous tendencies in the Valley, jeopardise the national interest as well as the general civil, political and economic rights of the people and further the Pakistani anti-India cause in J&K.
Any way, what did Omar Abdullah tell his interviewer? He, inter-alia, told: "A Narendra Modi-led Government (at the centre) could end up severing J&K from the rest of the country…Repealing the provision (read Article 370) means that the constitutional bridge between J&K and the Indian Union will be destroyed". His whole formulation was as flawed and seditious as it was misleading and highly condemnable. Article 370 has nothing to do with the accession of the state to India. J&K was acceded to India on October 26, 1947 and the decision was taken by none other Maharaja Hari Singh, who alone had the power under the Indian Independence Act of 1947 to decide the State's political future. Accession was unconditional, final and irrevocable. As for Article 306-A (Article 370), it was adopted by the Indian Constituent Assembly as a purely temporary provision on October 17, 1949, almost two years after the state's accession to India in terms of constitutional law on the subject. Article 370 could be amended or repealed by the Indian Parliament, which is the highest and supreme legislative body in the country. After all, Article 370 is a part of the Indian Constitution and it is not infallible. But more than that, Article 370 itself empowers the Union President to amend it or repeal it. The only condition is that the Union Cabinet has to send a proposal to this effect to the Union President.
It's time we called the Omar Abdullah's bluff. J&K has to be completely integrated into India to defeat the politics of communalism and separatism as being indulged in by the sectarian Kashmiri leadership, end discrimination with Jammu and Ladakh and empower all the social groups in the State. |
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