By T N Ashok
Seven years have lapsed after the BJP led NDA government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi abrogated article 370 of the constitution withdrawing special status conferred on the state of Jammu & Kashmir soon after independence when the Maharaja acceded to the Union of India under the then Premier Jawaharlal Nehru.
It had been a debatable issue for 70 years when the Maharaja acceded to the Indian union seeking protection from marauding tribes in the hills aided and abetted by Pakistan’s army when JLN agreed and a compromise was agreed to as article 370 made a precondition for the accession.
The matter reached the UN for resolution and the world body ordered under a resolution for both countries to withdraw their forces to their original positions, India did but Pakistan did not — stayed put — creating the Pak Occupied Kashmir — a thorn in Indo Pak relations and the territory now sees a massive uprising from residents both Muslims and Hindus against the barbaric and oppressive rule of Pakistan army with no respect for sovereignty, human rights, proper representation of 12 MPs from that region, and electricity tariffs.
Against this background, on August 5, as Jammu and Kashmir marked the seventh anniversary of the abrogation of Article 370, the Valley once again wore its familiar split personality.
In Srinagar, the National Conference (NC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) mounted protest marches in every district, only to be boxed in by police barricades around their party headquarters at Lal Chowk. Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, quoting Robert Frost on social media — “miles to go before I sleep” — declared that “we haven’t forgotten, and we haven’t reconciled.”
Former PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti led a candlelight vigil the previous night. Meanwhile, the BJP and sections of civil society marked the day as one of integration and liberation from what they call decades of “Article 370 apartheid.” Life, notably, went on as normal — schools, banks and markets functioned — under one of the tightest security blankets the city has seen in years.
Seven years on, Kashmir remains a place where mourning and celebration occupy the same street, on the same day.
The Provision That Was Always “Temporary”. To understand why August 5, 2019 still divides opinion so sharply, one has to go back to October 1947. When the British left the subcontinent, princely states were given the choice to accede to India, Pakistan, or theoretically remain independent.
Maharaja Hari Singh, the Dogra ruler of Jammu and Kashmir, hesitated. His hand was forced when Pakistan, unable to secure accession through negotiation, backed an invasion by Pashtun tribal militias — reinforced covertly by Pakistani army regulars — in what was code-named Operation Gulmarg.
The raiders swept toward Srinagar, looting and killing as they advanced. A desperate Hari Singh signed the Instrument of Accession to India on October 26, 1947, in return for military assistance. Indian troops were airlifted to defend the Valley, and a war followed.
By the time a UN-brokered ceasefire took effect on January 1, 1949, Pakistan controlled roughly a third of the former princely state — territory India calls Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), encompassing what Islamabad terms “Azad Kashmir” and the northern areas of Gilgit-Baltistan.
The UN Security Council resolutions that followed called for a two-stage process: first, a full Pakistani withdrawal of its troops and irregulars from the territory it held; only then would a plebiscite be held to let Kashmiris decide their future.
Pakistan never withdrew. Without that precondition being met, the plebiscite envisaged under the UN framework could never legally proceed — a fact New Delhi has consistently cited, even as Islamabad has spent 79 years demanding the vote regardless.
That unresolved sequence — ceasefire without withdrawal, promise without plebiscite — has been the thorn at the heart of Indo-Pak relations since 1947, fuelling three further wars, the Kargil conflict, and decades of cross-border militancy.
It was against this backdrop of a contested, still-forming accession that Article 370 was inserted into the Indian Constitution in 1949, negotiated largely between Jawaharlal Nehru, Sheikh Abdullah and constitutional advisor N. Gopalaswami Ayyangar.
It gave Jammu and Kashmir its own constitution, its own flag, and autonomy over all matters except defence, foreign affairs and communications — explicitly framed in the Constitution’s own text as a “temporary” provision pending final resolution of the state’s status. Article 35A, added by presidential order in 1954, flowed from it: it empowered the state legislature to define “permanent residents” and reserved land ownership, government jobs and college admissions for them alone — a provision that, among other things, meant Kashmiri women who married outsiders lost inheritance rights for their children.
It was very similar to Mexico giving up Texas to the Union of States called the United States of America. Texas enjoys special privileges to protect the huge Mexican population especially in San Antonio with Texas being the only state allowed to fly its own flag under the Star Spangled Banner national flag. Texas can secede from the United States and declare itself independent if its state assembly decided so and the people of the state voted for it. That has never happened and will never happen, Mexico is not Pakistan, though controlled by Narco Kings.
Why Modi Moved, and Why Ladakh Was Split Off. The BJP had campaigned on scrapping Article 370 since the party’s earliest avatar, the Jana Sangh, calling it an obstacle to J&K’s full integration into India and a shield for separatism, dynastic politics and demographic exclusivity.
On August 5, 2019, Home Minister Amit Shah moved a resolution in Parliament — timed to a period of President’s Rule in the state, which meant no elected state assembly needed to concur — effectively hollowing out Article 370’s substantive provisions.
Simultaneously, Parliament passed the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, downgrading the state into two Union Territories: Jammu and Kashmir, with a legislature, and Ladakh, without one, administered directly by a Lieutenant Governor.
The government’s stated logic for the Ladakh split was that the Buddhist-majority, geographically distinct region had long felt neglected by Kashmir-centric politics and wanted direct central governance and Union Territory status of its own — Leh’s Buddhist leadership had petitioned for exactly this for years.
Ladakh’s own protest movement — led by figures like the engineer-activist Sonam Wangchuk demanding Sixth Schedule tribal protections and statehood safeguards — has since become a separate, occasionally volatile grievance, distinct from the Kashmir Valley’s Article 370 politics.
The government’s justification for the broader move rested on ending what it called a “temporary” anomaly that had outlived its purpose, integrating Kashmir fully into India’s constitutional mainstream, opening the region to outside investment and land ownership, and — its officials argue — reducing terrorism and stone-pelting through economic development.
Union Minister G. Kishan Reddy has previously described the move as J&K’s journey “from terrorist hotspot to tourist hotspot.”
Why the Abdullah’s and Mufti Still Protest. For the Kashmir-based mainstream parties — the NC, led by Farooq Abdullah and his son Omar, and the PDP under Mehbooba Mufti — the abrogation was not merely a policy reversal but a constitutional breach: it was pushed through without the consent of the state’s own elected representatives, at a moment when the state had none, and was accompanied by the detention of Farooq Abdullah, Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti themselves under preventive laws for months.
Their protest today is layered: opposition to the loss of special status itself, and a separate, sharper demand for the restoration of full statehood, which even after Omar Abdullah’s National Conference won the 2024 assembly election and formed the government, has not been restored — leaving Kashmir’s elected Chief Minister still formally subordinate to a Delhi-appointed Lieutenant Governor.
The Congress has run parallel “black day” campaigns demanding statehood under the banner “Hamari Riyasat, Hamara Haq.”
A Wound That Won’t Close. Seven years in, the anniversary itself has become a ritual of contested memory: black armbands and candlelight vigils in one part of the city, celebratory events in another, and a security grid heavy enough to ensure both happen without colliding.
What remains unresolved is not just Kashmir’s constitutional status but the older, deeper fracture from 1947 — an accession under fire, a war that froze rather than settled, and a plebiscite promise suspended forever on Pakistan’s unmet precondition.
Until that foundational dispute finds resolution, every August 5 in Srinagar will likely continue to be marked, as this one was, by two Kashmirs observing the same date for entirely opposite reasons. (IPA Service)
