GOLDEN DAY
| Date :06-Aug-2019 |
FINALLY, the golden day has arrived when the Government has withdrawn Article 370 of the Constitution of India granting Special Status to Jammu and Kashmir. This was the day the nation was waiting for since the moment it was imposed more than sixty years ago. It was a temporary arrangement, and it had to be withdrawn in due course of time, the nation had been told. But the due course for the opportune moment to come took so many years only because some vested and anti-national interests indulged in deliberate misinterpretation of Article 370 for political reasons as an irrevocable arrangement.
All that argument, all those political shenanigans, all the falsehood have been set aside by the Government to take the all-important step to set in motion the process of complete integration of Kashmir with the national mainstream. From this point on, India’s current affairs will assume an entirely new and different dimension -- setting it free to rectify all the wrongs that were perpetrated by vested interests. Of course, this is an act of great courage and conviction on the part of the Centre to reverse the political stride that was dominating the national discourse for so many years. No matter the political tall talk, the Modi Government would not be able to muster appropriate courage to act on one of the old promises of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), observers had felt.
All those assessments now stand proved wrong as the Centre has acted straight and tough on the ruling party’s promise. By taking such a bold step, the Centre, thus, has sought to change the direction of public discourse in the country. By any and every standard, this decision needs to be welcomed wholeheartedly by every Indian, no matter his or her political inclination. For, the nation had realised long ago that Article 370 of the Constitution only kept Kashmir away from national mainstream. Scrapping it, thus, was the only way out of the political scramble that clouded straight and nationalistic thinking on the issue. For this act of courage and conviction, Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi and his team of close associates deserve a pat on the back.
The nation will remember the Prime Minister as a man who kept his word. In this nationalistic endeavour, one person who has worked with a tremendous sense of focus is Union Home Minister Mr. Amit Shah. Kashmir was always in his sight for close inspection, investigation and Intelligence. His speeches on Kashmir issue in Parliament showed his deep study as well as no-nonsense analysis of the factual condition. He often made Opposition speechless by his mastery of detail and most accurate assessment of the Kashmir situation.
His contribution to the Kashmir will be rated as signal and singular. There is little need to give details once again of how Article 370 separated Kashmir from the rest of India. There is little need to revive old memories of how Article 370 created an internal political chaos and havoc in the country. There is also no need to reiterate how damaging the arrangement was to national security and integrity. At this moment, there is a need to celebrate the development as something tremendously in favour of genuine national interest. There may still be a lot of political opposition to the idea of scrapping Article 370 -- in Parliament and also in the streets. But the Government does not seem ready to budge, not only in Kashmir where it recently made a massive military deployment, but also on other platforms. It has done a fine homework before taking the step so crucial to promoting and preserving national interest. All right-thinking people had wanted the controversial Article to be scrapped forthwith and start the process of true integration of Kashmir with the rest of India.
That path now stands cleared for moving further. Under the new arrangement, Jammu and Kashmir will become a Union Territory with a legislature of its own, and Ladakh as another Union Territory but without a legislature. Both these units will be integrated with the rest of the country through constitutional process with all the amendments et al from time to time. The entire picture, thus, is poised for a major change which the nation had been waiting for. For, from this point on, anti-national elements inside Kashmir and from across the border will realise that their days are numbered.