Srinagar August 11: (KNS) The status quo lobby is once again raising the bogey of Article 370 being the bridge between Delhi and Srinagar which kept the accession alive. Some claim that 370 was given to them for acceding to India and some claim that it was meant to protect the Kashmiri identity. Nothing can be farther from truth than this narrative spun from the idea of exclusivity that kept Kashmir aloof from rest of the nation preventing its complete integration with India, asserted Brig Veteran Anil Gupta, Spokesperson of Bharatiya Janata Party, in a statemnt to KNS, 370 was never a bridge but a wall that isolated J&K from rest of the nation. Divisive Article 370 was responsible for the discriminatory Article 35A which made the wall further impregnable thus paving way for a ‘nation within a nation’. While the Instrument of Accession signed by the then ruler Maharaja Hari Singh was full and final, the mainstream politicians in Kashmir kept questioning the state’s merger with the Republic of India claiming special status granted to the then state by Article 370. Their intent became very clear when Jammu region was allotted 30 seats as compared to Kashmir’s 45 seats in the Constituent Assembly. Subsequently, the nomination papers filed by the members of Praja Parishad, a political party representing the voice of the people of Jammu and demanding state’s complete integration with India, were rejected on flimsy grounds and National Conference led by Sheikh Abdullah winning all 75 seats uncontested. This was the first major misuse of 370, the subsequent list of which is endless and was responsible for creating distrust between Kashmir and other two regions of the state stated Brig Gupta.
The Constitution of J&K formulated by the hand chosen faithful of Sheikh Abdullah added Sections 6,7, 8 which further alienated the people of Jammu since it divided the citizens of India into permanent and non- permanent residents with the later denied basic fundamental rights available to all Indian citizens in rest of the country. This fire walled the state’s complete integration with the country. The nationalist voices in the country led by Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee launched the struggle for abrogation of these Articles which finally saw the light of the day on 05 August 2019. It was only after the demolition of the wall created by these two articles that one could proudly claim that all barriers preventing the full integration were dismantled asserted Brig Gupta.
The ill effects of 370 and its misuse by the mainstream Kashmiri politicians has been very eloquently exposed by none other than the Chief Secretary who minced no words while talking of rampant institutionalised corruption. The reaction of the political parties was on expected lines but no amount of justification by them can absolve them of their indulgence and patronising corruption. The alibi that the three decades of terrorism was responsible for lack of financial control is like adding salt to the wounds because the huge amount of funds that poured in for development and countering terrorism demanded greater fiscal prudence and tighter financial control stated Brig Gupta.
Now that the administration has identified those who were responsible for the present mess, it is incumbent on it to take strictest possible action against them. While the net is being tightened on the small fish, many big fish who ruled the state are still roaming free and polluting the environment which administration desires to clean. The disease is also rampant among the top echelons of administration. Brig Gupta demanded immediate action against those involved in various scams during the NC-Congress regime of 2008-14, JKCA scam, Roshni Scam and other land grabbers to show that the administration is willing to walk the talk.(KNS)