Arun Jaitley
The two mainstream parties in the Kashmir are increasingly losing their identity. The separatists and the terrorists want a part of the State to segregate from India. India will never accept this. It has already given a loud and clear message both to the separatists/ terrorists and Pakistan that Azadi is not a distant possibility. It is an impossibility.
Statements of the two parties that the constitutional link between the State and the country is based on solemn assurance of Article 35A. If there is no Article 35A, it will break the link. Some have even gone further and argued that two constitutional provisions constitute the revocable link which has to be maintained.
The argument is completely unacceptable. Article 35A was not there in 1947 when the Instrument of Accession was signed in the month of October. In 1950, when the Constitution came into force, it was not there. It was only surreptitiously inserted in 1954. How can it be the essential Constitutional link? The challenge is being heard by the Supreme Court. Why intimidate the Court which is hearing the matter. History is never reversed by Court judgements. The argument of revocability is as absurd as a suggestion that if the Indian Independence Act was revoked by the British Parliament, we will lose our Independence.
The National Conference President’s statement today that we will demand the revival of the post of Wazir-e-Azam and Sadar-e-Riyasat is only intended to create a separatists psyche. Little do these demandeurs realise how much they are hurting the country as also their own people. The new India will never allow any Government to commit such blunders.