No debate on Article 370

Prof Javed Mughal
I fail to gauge up the political acumen of those who talk of holding a debate on Article 370; who plan to abrogate it and those who are constantly fighting for retaining it. To the best of my knowledge, the political echelon of India knows well that this issue is quite an invincible one and can’t be handled so easily but even then they are intentionally flaring it up just to mislead the public and attract their attention towards their respective political ideologies. The point can’t be ignored that all these political groups did knock at the doors of the people for votes with an agenda of doing something substantial for them, not with the commitment to flare up the divisive and sensitive issues like 370 and so on. I listened to all- the BJP, the PDP, the INC, the NC and others across the state vomiting out promises and pronouncements for the public welfare during the election campaigns. But now at the sight of the dismal prospects of the Govt. formation, I feel that all they had said was nothing else but a mere eye-wash and no more than a magical trick to ensnare the masses and cash on their innocence during elections. Sometimes I get wonderstruck to think as to when we shall see our political leaders having proximity between their words and deeds and dwelling on the truth. In more than one thousand rallies during parliamentary elections, Mr. Modi vociferously admitted that he had entrenched into the elections only and only with a healthy ‘Development Agenda and no other consideration at all’.  During elections, the plans of the BJP were to make this country a digital India, to eradicate corruption, to retract all the black money from foreign banks, to exterminate red-tapism and officialism, to revive the long-absent work-culture, transparency, and punctuality, to provide security to the women folk of this country, to uplift the downtrodden sections of society, to initiate Swachh Bharat Abhyan, to give an ever and over desired good governance to the people and to curtail the inflation faced by more than 80% poor Indians. The matter to be shocked about is that all those salient features of the pre-election manifesto of the BJP are still lying unimplemented and the entire country is still grappling with the same deplorable ‘Yesterday’ with no better ‘today’ at all. All those commitments and pronouncements have been replaced by some unimportant issues like article 370, Uniform Civil Code, imposition and revocation of AFSPA from the valley and the division of powers among the leaders of both the parties-the BJP and the PDP. It is just a futile exercise to flex the muscles on these issues. Politically, legally and diplomatically unaware are those who try to meddle with Article 370 because the hardcore truth is that this article can’t be revoked so easily. Let me tell my So-called political leaders, unacquainted with the political history of this state, that many legal experts are of the view that abrogating the provision-370 would put the accession of the state to India in jeopardy because the nature of the accession of J&K into the Union of India is totally different from the merger of all other small and big states. According to one Constitutional expert Rajiv Dhavan, the Article 370 can’t be abrogated because the moment the government does away with it, the very basis of accession will be in peril. According to High Court chief justice Mr. BA Khan, agreeing with Rajiv Dhavan, if Article 370 is abrogated, then technically and legally the foundation of Jammu and Kashmir’s accession to India would cease to exist.  So when the removal of this provision is not even a distant possibility for the BJP, then why to waste time and energy on it and why to distract the public from the main points of consideration i.e. the pre-election agenda for all over progress of the country. Those who talk of abrogating 370 are misleading the people of India in general and the people of Jammu and Kashmir in particular. They are, as a matter of fact, intoxicating the people of one particular mind-set and preserving their vote bank for the next elections. Otherwise too this has been the master-strategy of the BJP in the recent elections.  Let me suggest my innocent Jammu based BJP leaders also that in case the provision-370 is abrogated, the Jammu region will suffer much more than Kashmir simply because the competition for survival will escalate enormously which will be unbearable for the people of Jammu than those of the Valley. The Valley happens to be more competitive than us in relation to the multi-dimensional exposure and they have certain other areas like tourism, fruit, handicraft and some other significant produces to depend on which we, the Jammuites, do not have. After the abrogation of this provision-370 when a plethora of ‘Hungary Intelligentsia’ from other states will rush into J&K for employment, we the jammuites will be beaten in its entirety but Kashmiris will, even then, manage the crisis for they are well versed to tackle such precarious situations. The fact is that we, the Jammuites, have always thrived on the left-over crumbs of Kashmir till yesterday and hence shall not be able to bear the sudden brunt of 370-abrogation. So without being emotional or prejudiced for nothing, we should not support the stance of getting 370 abrogated. Equally futile is to talk about the removal of AFSPA from the valley in view of the fact the AFSPA stands imposed not only in J&K State but in all the trouble-torn states of India and it is automatically lifted up from the areas where the peace and security is restored.
And those who are crying for getting the AFSPA removed from the disturbed areas of Jammu and Kashmir must come forward to tender an affidavit standing surety to the fact that no untoward circumstances and terrorism-like situations will be allowed to crop up in the state. The question arises that in case the AFSPA is removed from the state then what will happen to the innocent people if the terrorism re-germinates itself on the soil of Kashmir. The political chambers of Kashmir must think and rethink before pleading the removal of AFSPA from all the parts of the Valley. So, all these stances of both the BJP and the PDP to hamper the government formation are absolutely anti-public and bare disrespect to the peoples’ mandate and it can be reciprocated to by the people of Jammu and Kashmir to the great the great loss of these tricky parties in the next elections. What I have inferred from the dramatic postures of the BJP and the PDP is that they do not have any concern with the public interest, what, in fact, they want is to secure their own position in the next elections on one pretext or the other.

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