Amit Shah, Home Minister of Bharat, announced today (5th Aug) an order by the President Ram Nath Kovind to dissolve at once the State of Jammu and Kashmir into two Union Territories of (1) Ladakh and (2) Jammu and Kashmir and removed special status clauses.
Ladakh will be governed without legislature in a similar manner as Chandigarh while Jammu and Kashmir will be governed by Legislative Assembly of the State called Sardar-i-Riyasat in the manner as Delhi State.
These actions will attract new investment and talent in the area for the betterment of long suffering residents and make it a truly integral part of Bharat.
Let us hope that with this belated but bold presidential order (The Constitution Order, 2019 – C.O. 272) and following successful legislation, article 370, 35A, J&K constitution and flag will become irrelevant and buried as history’s foot notes.
History will judge the actions of Nehru and Maharaja Hari Singh under the guidance of Mountbatten on 26th October 1947 as a blunder of gigantic proportion.
We have not heard much discussion about the Modi Government’s historical action in June 2015 regarding 102 Bhartiya enclaves within Bangladesh and 71 Bangladeshi enclaves within Bharat.
The people in these enclaves were stateless for almost 70 years as they cannot get any passport or avail of any state benefit from either state.
Modi, along with Bangladesh Authority, took a bold decision to allow the residents to choose either country as their own and they were peacefully transferred to their chosen country and the entire process was completed by 30th November 2015 eliminating enclaves and with it, the suffering of residents.
This is what British Raj should have done in 1947 which would have avoided partition genocide.
After the Triple Talaq bill which liberated millions of women from marital injustice became law on 1st August, the Modi and Shah duo still has the two outstanding problems of Ayodhya and Uniform Code to work on.
Narsibhai Patel
New Malden
