NEW DELHI: Soon after the inauguration of the second Modi government, a senior functionary received an innocuous query about the type of paper used for presidential orders.

This was much before speculation started swirling about the government’s plans for J&K, and so he could not have seen it as a prelude to the landmark decision to do away with the “special status” for J&K which had been kept a tightly guarded secret. While the Modi government had made up its mind to get rid of Article 35A, the actual plan remained a secret even to senior members of the government.

The idea of reducing Article 370 to a lifeless form had been discussed among senior members towards the closing phase of the first Modi government, especially in the light of advocacy of that route by Jagmohan, former Union minister who had an eventful tenure as J&K governor, in the revised version of his book “My Frozen Turbulence”.

With Amit Shah as his home minister, Modi quickly took off from where he had left, entrusting the task to national security advisor A K Doval , an old Kashmir hand, and a select set of bureaucrats including home secretary Rajeev Gauba and chief secretary of J&K, B V R Subramanyam.

Working under Shah’s direct superintendence, the group collaborated with Army chief General Bipin Rawat and heads of paramilitary forces to put up thousands of additional boots on the ground to cope with possible law and order challenges. The renewed threat from Pakistan, which saw the anxiety of US to pull its troops out of Afghanistan as an opening to revive its efforts to disrupt peace, came in handy as it helped camouflage the real purpose of the deployment of troops.

While reworking the rules for J&K was kept under wraps even from key ministries, the only possible giveaway may have been the query over the paper that may be needed to end the special status enjoyed by the state.

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