J K News Today Commentary
A major paradox that Kashmiri separatist are propagating nowadays is that there was either no history before Article 35 A of the Indian constitution was challenged in the Supreme Court or the history is traced back to early twentieth century when Dogra rulers fortified the land and job rights for the state subjects or permanent residents of the State .
But there is a lesson for them even in this interpretation of theirs . The rule invoked and implemented by Maharaja Hari Singh in 1927 which now goes by the maxim “ Kashmir for Kashmiris” at the behest of the Kashmiri Pandits , is being propagated by them as a historical truth. There is no denying the fact that this happened and later it became the part of the Indian constitution in the form of Article 35 A which they are declaring as their “ inherent right.”
The historical journey from 1927 to 1954 has another historical truth that shows that how the Article that they are determined to fight for at all costs became part of the Indian constitution because it was same Maharaja Hari Singh who acceded the state to India in 1947 .
It is due to the accession that the inherent rights of the permanent residents of the State could be incorporated in the Indian constitution . That is again a historical truth , which is worth recalling . The select history also has the dots that get connected one after another.
The Indian constitution has honoured this Article till date. The separatists are seeking to link the Article 35 A to what they call the “ disputed nature” of the State because of the U N resolutions of 1948-49 that envisaged plebiscite for the people of the state to choose the nation of their future. Separatists are reading that , but skipping the another clause that wanted Pakistan to fulfill the condition to vacate the whole of the territory that it controlled through tribal aggression backed by Pakistani army in 1947-1948 .
Anyways, those resolutions were described as “ obsolete” by Kofi Anan , during his tenure as Secretary General of the United Nations . The history needs to be read in sequence and consequence not through the selected pages .
It is good that their memory rests on May 1954 when a Presidential Order incorporated 35 A into the Indian constitution to safeguard the unique identity of the permanent residents of the state with regard to land and jobs . That is where the Indian constitution tells them that what they can get through this constitution is not available anywhere else.
