The Plan To Remove Article 370 Was Set In Motion In 2015

The plan to remove Article 370 was set in motion in 2015, when the BJP partnered with the PDP to rule Jammu and Kashmir

- Namrata Biji Ahuja And Pratul Sharma

For the past three months, Home Minister Amit Shah has been reading reams of Parliamentary documents and meeting a stream of visitors at his office in Parliament House. Ever since Prime Minister Narendra Modi took office for the second time in May, Shah’s office has been the centre-stage of activity.

But of late, somewhat strangely, Shah has been a regular in Parliament after 5pm. He would wrap up his work in North Block and host meetings, often after sunset, in a small room inside the Parliament building that could hold a dozen people at a time.

Eventually, on the morning of August 5, Shah took the bull by the horns. He told Parliament that the government was revoking provisions of Article 370 of the Constitution, which granted special status to Jammu and Kashmir, and also bifurcating the state into two Union territories—Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh. The latter would not have a legislature.

The decision had been 72 years in the making. Shah had, at a meeting days before the announcement, apparently said, “We are not a government for five or ten years. We are the Indian government and we are responsible to the people of this country; not from today, but from 1947. We are answerable to them for all the rights and wrongs and we will correct them.”

In Parliament, he said that only a few families had gained from Article 370 and not the people of Jammu and Kashmir. He also blamed the article for the deaths in the state due to militancy—more than 45,000 since 1989—and said it was creating doubts over the state’s relations with India. “We are rectifying a historical blunder,” he said.