When I was younger, I used to beg my parents every summer break to plan a long vacation somewhere quiet and serene, somewhere I could see the sunrises and sunsets from the comfort of my balcony, somewhere where I could stick my head out of the moving car and pretend that there’s a slow song playing in the background and I’m the heroine of a music video. And guess what my favorite place to spend the summer was; Kashmir. I know right, no surprises there.

I loved going to Kashmir. I didn’t care if we were going by train or by plane or partly by car and partly by train. It just didn’t matter to me how we reached there as long as we reached there. Every tiring moment of the journey was almost instantly forgotten when I inhaled the fresher, cleaner, sweeter air of Kashmir.

I had practically visited all the gardens the city had, done all the adventure sports they had to offer, trekked every hill that could be trekked and made snowman everywhere and anywhere I could find ice. But then we stopped going to Kashmir. The reason my dad used to give me was that we needed to go and explore different places too. But that’s only partly correct. A bigger part of why we stopped going to Kashmir every year was the increasing acts of violence in the city. Being the little girl I was, I did not understand why there were the people protesting on the streets of such a beautiful city or why were people throwing rocks at the police force that was supposed to be protecting them. There were many other things too that didn’t make any sense to my 13 year-old brain, like why was there an army officer stationed at every 100 or so meters or why our tourist vehicles would be stopped randomly for ‘questioning’ and ‘routine checking’. But they all make sense to me now, and today, I’m going to help you make sense of them (hopefully).

The State of Jammu and Kashmir is governed by a separate written constitution, other than the one which governs the rest entire country. Besides the constitution, the State of Jammu and Kashmir also has a separate flag, apart from the Tricolor. Why this unique and ‘special’ status to a state that is technically a part of India, like all other 28 States and 7 Union Territories. Well, as we all know, this is because of the Article 370 of our Constitution.

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Article 370 of the Indian Constitution gives the State of Jammu and Kashmir an autonomous status. And now to clear an important misconception, the Article 370 is applicable on both Jammu and Kashmir and not just on Kashmir. Onto an important question now, why does Jammu and Kashmir have this autonomous status? The answer to this would require a trip back to our 8th standard Indian History classes.

When we were finally given freedom from the two hundred year-old British Rule, as a parting gift, the British divided Bharat into India and Pakistan, for Hindus and Muslims respectively. The India so formed was just a collection of hundreds of princely states rules by their respective kings. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel or as more accurately called, the Iron Man of India was the single person who was responsible for the integration of these princely states into India as we know today.

Now this story I’m about to tell you has no credible witness or written record, but it was what the tour guide told us when we visited Hari Niwas Palace in Jammu, the palace of the last king of Jammu and Kashmir.

After the British left, leaving our country in total chaos partly from the India-Pakistan Partition and partly from the refusal of the rulers of the princely states to be united as a country, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel took the most risky yet bold and courageous step that any politician has ever taken. He requested the rulers of the princely states to come to Delhi to debate and discuss the future of their kingdoms and the country. But on the arrival of the rulers in Delhi, Sardar locked all of them up until they agreed to sign the documents which surrendered their land and kingdoms in the name of the Government of India. While their lands were being renounced, these documents let the rulers keep royal palaces and their royal treasure. Seeing no way out, literally, the rulers had to reluctantly sign the papers and give up their lands by the law.

Meanwhile, Maharaja Hari Singh, the ruler of Jammu and Kashmir accidently, and very unfortunately, missed his train to Delhi. But before he could board another train another time, he got to know how all the rulers had been coerced to give up their lands and titles. And therefore he never came to Delhi, the final result; Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel managed to integrate all 565 princely states in and as India, except Jammu and Kashmir.

But like I said, there is no one who can either confirm this as what happened or deny it as another folklore story and all the evidences are circumstantial too. But events that transpired after this do have factual evidences.

Jammu and Kashmir existed alone on its own for a while, separate both from India and Pakistan. But on the October 20th of 1947, Azad Kashmir Forces supported by the army of Pakistan attacked the state frontiers and began working its way in. The forces also had local support as the then population of Jammu and Kashmir consisted of 70% Muslims. Terrified of what might happen next, Maharaja Hari Singh approached the Indian Government for help. Utilizing this as the perfect opportunity, the Indian Government agreed to dispatch its forces to Kashmir but only on the condition that the State of Jammu and Kashmir would first accede to India.

On 26th of October, 1947 an Instrument of Accession was signed between the then Prime Minister of India, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and Maharaja Hari Singh and as promised, India sent its forces to fight back the troops of Azad Kashmir and the Pakistani Army, and hence, they were forced to cede back to what we currently know as the Line of Control or LoC. The part of Kashmir which remained in the possession of those troops is what we refer as the Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK).

This issue was then taken to the United Nations for hearing, which then resoluted that a fair and impartial decision be made by conducting a plebiscite but owing to a whole lot of political drama, the plebiscite was never held. On 17th October 1949, the Indian Constituent Assembly adopted the Article 370 as a part of the Indian Constitution, granting the State of Jammu and Kashmir its special and autonomous status.

However, it is worth mentioning that the then Law Minister and the Chief Drafter of our constitution, Babasaheb Ambedkar was completely against the idea of granting Jammu and Kashmir a special status. He said,” You wish India should protect your borders, she should build roads on your area, she should supply you food grains, and Kashmir should get equal status in India. But the Government of India should have only limited powers and Indian people should have no rights in Kashmir. To give consent to this proposal, would be a treacherous thing against the interest of India and I, as the Law Minister of India, will never do it.”

Owing to Babasaheb’s clear dissent, Pandit Nehru then bought in N. Gopalaswami Ayyangar, an ex-Prime Minister of Kashmir to draft the articles and clauses for the constitution of Jammu and Kashmir. N. Gopalaswami was not only a minister without portfolio in the first Union Cabinet of India, but he was also a former Diwan to Maharaja Hari Singh. It was hugely speculated that being a Kashmiri Pandit himself, Jawaharlal Nehru was extremely biased towards the creation of a separate constitution for Jammu and Kashmir.

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The Article 370 was drafted under the Part XXI of the Indian Constitution: Temporary, Transitional and Special Provisions. The original draft stated,” The Government of the State means the person for the time being recognized by the President as the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir acting on the advice of the Council of Ministers for the time being in office under the Maharaja’s Proclamation dated Fifth day of March, 1948.”

In 1952, the Delhi Agreement was entered into by the Government of India and the State of Jammu and Kashmir. November 15th 1952, witnessed a change in the article, which now said,” The Government of the State means the person for the time being recognized by the President on the recommendation of the Legislative Assembly of the State as the Sadr-i-Riyasat of Jammu and Kashmir, acting on the advice of the Council of Ministers of the State for the time being in office.”

Furthermore, in 1954, the President of India issued a Constitutional Order applicable only to the State of Jammu and Kashmir after the Constituent Assembly of the state approved its accession to India. The major contents of this order, among others were as follows:

The State of Jammu and Kashmir has its own Constitution and is administered accordingly.

The name, area or boundary of the state cannot be changed by the Union without the consent of the State Legislature.

Directive Principles of State Policy and Fundamental Duties as not applicable to the state of Jammu and Kashmir.

National or Financial Emergency cannot be declared in the state by the President of India without the concurrence of state government.

Indian Parliament holds the jurisdiction of making laws on important matters concerning prevention of terrorist acts, questioning or disrupting the sovereignty and integrity of India.

Special rights will be granted to the ‘permanent residents’ of the state regarding public employment, acquisition of immovable property and government scholarships.

No outsider can buy any property in Jammu and Kashmir.

There is special leave jurisdiction of Supreme Court i.e. no provision to appeal to Supreme Court against the High Court verdict.

Any international treaty or agreement can only be made with the consent of the state legislature.

Unlike other State Legislative Assemblies, the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative has a six-year term.

And now the most important of all questions, should the Article 370 be abolished? Is it possible? And how can it be done?

Well, the rules for the same are specified under the Clause 3 of the Article 370. The clause clearly states,” The President may, by public notification, declare that this article shall cease to be operative but only on the recommendation of the Constituent Assembly of the State.” In simpler terms, this article will be inoperative only if a fresh Constituent Assembly for the state of Jammu and Kashmir is formed, and such assembly should put forward the proposal for such abrogation. Moreover, even the Parliament has the power to make amends in the constitution and alter this provision. But the debate on this matter is based on two points:

First, the Parliament cannot amend or alter the basic structure of the constitution, according to a Supreme Court Ruling. However, the debacle is also on the fact that is the Article 370 covered under the basic structure of the constitution or not.

And secondly, the abrogation of the Article 370 may jeopardize the very accession of Jammu and Kashmir to India. Jammu and Kashmir High Court Chief Justice, B. A. Khan also said,” If Article 370 was abrogated, then technically and legally the foundation of Jammu and Kashmir’s accession to India will cease to exist.”

In the end, all I can think about is if Maharaja Hari Singh had any idea that how the most insignificant occurrence, like him missing a train would avalanche into something like this; a huge national controversy and a room for so much politics being carried on from a whole lot of seventy years and who knows, for how many more to come.