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WITH THE abrogation of Article 370 being one of the oldest ideological projects of the RSS, its validation by the Supreme Court is a major political success for the Narendra Modi-led BJP government, just ahead of the Ram temple inauguration next month.
The Bharatiya Jana Sangh, the BJP’s predecessor, always viewed the special status of Kashmir as a living sign of separatism. Jana Sangh founder Syama Prasad Mookerji gave the slogan ‘Ek desh mein do nishan, do vidhan aur do pradhan nahin ho sakte (there cannot be two flags, two constitutions and two Prime Ministers in one country)’.
This slogan was repeatedly deployed not just by the Jana Sangh but also by the Praja Parishad – whose leader was Prem Nath Dogra, a former Swayamsewak – that had a significant influence among the Dogra Hindus of Jammu.
Veteran BJP leader L K Advani would say in his public speeches that full integration of Kashmir was necessary, as India had not accepted the two-nation theory, wherein religious majorities should decide political status.
It was also one of the weapons the BJP wielded against former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, seen as the main force behind the belief that Muslim-majority Kashmir required special constitutional provisions to keep it with India in the aftermath of Partition.
Article 370 and later
Article 370 gave Parliament powers only on defence, foreign affairs and communication in the case of Kashmir. Beyond these three heads, Indian laws did not apply to J&K.
In July 1952, the Nehru government and the Jammu and Kashmir government, headed by Sheikh Abdullah of the National Conference signed the Delhi Agreement, wherein the state accepted the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court in matters of Centre-state disputes and on fundamental rights, and accepted its appellate jurisdiction in all civil and criminal cases.
It also accepted the supremacy of the Indian flag, though the state’s flag would remain in use. It further accepted the President’s power to declare a state of Emergency in the state under Article 352 in the event of internal disturbances, subject to the concurrence of the state.
Contrary to the Congress’ claims now, Nehru always handled the Kashmir issue as a personal matter and never took the sane advice of his colleagues positively. (Express File Photo)
Advani as well as the late BJP leader Arun Jaitley claimed that it was “pressure from the Jana Sangh” that was behind these early gains as well towards the integration of Kashmir into India.
However, the Praja Parishad rejected the Delhi Agreement and, by October 1952, was planning an agitation if the J&K Constituent Assembly decided to elect its head of state. It launched an agitation when the Assembly, by now the Legislative Assembly, elected Karan Singh as head of the state (‘Sadr-e-Riyasat’) in November 1952. Dogra and other leaders of the Praja Parishad were again arrested.
At its first annual session in Kanpur in December 1952, the Jana Sangh demanded a round-table conference involving representatives of the Praja Parishad, the government of J&K, and Union government leaders, failing which it warned of an all-India agitation for J&K’s full integration into India.
Syama Prasad Mookerjee steps in
Accompanied by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Mookerjee visited Jammu in May 1953 without a permit, which was a symbolic protest against the special status of Kashmir. They went by train to Pathankot in Punjab and then crossed the Ravi by road into J&K on May 11, 1953. The police arrested him.
In his recent biography of Vajpayee, Abhishek Choudhary writes that Mookerji told Vajpayee to return to Delhi and spread the word that he had entered J&K without a permit, if only as a prisoner. Mookerji was kept in a cottage about eight miles from Srinagar, where he suddenly suffered a massive heart attack and died on June 23.
Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee. (File photo)
Over the years, Advani recalled in his speeches that when a journalist in Rajasthan informed him that Mookerji was no more, the Jana Sangh plunged into deep mourning. This gave the Jana Sangh someone it could project as a martyr for the cause of integrating Kashmir. In allied RSS organisations, there is a popular slogan: “Jahaan hue balidaan Mookerji, woh Kashmir hamara hai (where Mookerji was martyred, that Kashmir is ours).”
The Nehru factor
The first PM has always been the object of the BJP’s attack. Even in the recently concluded debate on two Bills offering OBC reservation in J&K and increasing the number of seats in the Union territory to set aside nominated seats for displaced Kashmiris, mainly Pandits, and people displaced from PoK, Union Home Minister Amit Shah blamed Nehru for ordering a ceasefire before Indian troops had captured the whole of Kashmir in 1948.
Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur said in the Lok Sabha that during UPA days, stone-pelting on security forces was rampant, and that this had stopped after the abrogation of Article 370.
In 2022, the BJP celebrated the fact that the Tricolour was hoisted at Lal Chowk in Srinagar on Republic Day after 30 years. Before this, it was hoisted at the same place by then BJP president Murli Manohar Joshi in 1992. Accompanying Joshi was present Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Anurag Thakur had, as Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha chief, taken out a Tiranga Yatra from Kolkata to Kashmir in 2011.
Political success
In its earlier stints in power, when it ruled with the help of allies, the BJP had kept its core ideological projects on the backburner. However, the dominance of the party after the rise of Narendra Modi has allowed it to go ahead with the Sangh’s agendas, with Article 370 being the latest example.
Earlier, its campaign for a Ram temple at Ayodhya culminated with the Supreme Court deciding the title suit in favour of the temple side in 2019.
Significantly, each such project has been brought to fruition using institutional mechanisms. If Article 370 was abrogated by a Presidential order, the Ram Janmabhoomi dispute was resolved via a judicial process. Once instant triple talaq was outlawed by the Supreme Court, the Modi government got the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act passed in 2019. The law declares instant triple talaq a criminal offence punishable with three years of imprisonment.
What remains
The only core agenda of the BJP that remains now is a Uniform Civil Code, which is already part of the Directive Principles of State Policy. Earlier this year, the Law Commission embarked on a consultative process to seek views of all stakeholders, including the public, on a common civil code, and ended up receiving more than 50-lakh suggestions.
A uniform civil code, should the government choose to pilot a draft legislation to implement it, will introduce a common set of laws across religious communities in matters such as marriage, divorce, inheritance and adoption.
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