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| Advani terms Article 370 discriminatory, divisive | | One Country, One Constitution | | RUSTAM
JAMMU, Sept 9: BJP veteran and former Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani needs to be patted for what he said about Article 370, under which the solitary State of Jammu & Kashmir enjoys the right to have a separate constitution and separate flag. He said the special status given to Jammu & Kashmir should be abolished immediately as it is discriminatory and against the notion of "one India". "Article 370 of the Constitution gives special status to Jammu & Kashmir due to which the integrity of the Indian State is challenged…There should be uniform and one Constitution for all citizens of a nation," he said on Saturday at Gorakhpur (UP). He was addressing a book release ceremony at the ancient Gorakhnath Temple. What Advani said was the negation of what another BJP veteran Atal Behari Vajpayee had said in Kashmir a couple of years before he became Prime Minister. Vajpayee had said "Article 370 will ever remain a permanent part of the Indian Constitution". This is one of the reasons that many Kashmiri leaders hold Vajpayee in high esteem.
Advani cannot be questioned for his views on Article 370. For, he has not said anything wrong. India is one country, one nation and one people and, hence, there should be only one Constitution. Article 370 is indeed discriminatory and divisive. It also creates doubts in the minds of the international community about the status of Jammu & Kashmir. In fact, it is this Article, which was incorporated at the behest of Jawaharlal-supported communal Kashmiri leadership, which has created the so-called Kashmir problem. It is this Article that has enabled the Kashmiri leadership to hold the State aloof from the national mainstream and deprive the people of Jammu & Kashmir of even those normal civil and political rights which are available to rest of the countrymen. It is this Article that has limited the jurisdiction of New Delhi over the State in matters concerning legislation. No Central law can be introduced in the State without the consent or concurrence of the State Government, which is Kashmiri dominated and patently Valley-centric. It is this Article that has deprived the refugees from West Pakistan of citizenship rights, including the right to vote, right to education, right to bank loan, right to obtain Government job and right to acquire property. It is this Article that has given unbridled executive and legislative powers to the Kashmiri leadership, which armed with this Article has been riding roughshod over Jammu Pradesh and Ladakh and depriving the people of these two regions of the State of their legitimate due share in the governance of the State. It is this Article that has emboldened the separatists and communal forces in the Valley to demand autonomy, self-rule, and even independence and merger with Pakistan. It is this Article that has helped the fanatics rid the Valley of almost all non-Muslims. The fact of the matter is that it is this Article that is the mother of all problems facing the people of the State and the nation as a whole.
Advani's latest formulation on Article 370 needs to be viewed in this context. Article 370 has to go lock, stock and barrel, as it is a deadly poison. But the task is not that easy. The BJP and similar other political groups have to educate the Indian lawmakers about the grave evils which followed on the application of Article 370. They have to convince the lawmakers that Article 370 is anti-people and anti-democratic. They can do it but the condition is that they have to launch a relentless campaign; they have to raise the issue in the Parliament again and again; they have to make the lawmakers revisit October 1949, when this Article was adopted. Remember, one Muslim member of the Constituent Assembly Maulana Hasrat Mohani had then said: "Grant of special status to Kashmir on the score of religion would enable it to assume independence afterwards".
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