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“If it is the intention to amend, the process of amendment is simpler. The process are provided in Article 370. I think it was beautifully conceived. The normal process of amendment is subject to stringent conditions. The process of amending, made available to article 370, are very simple,” stated Gulzarilal Nanda, Union Home Minister on 5th December 1964. 

Replying to a debate on a private member’s bill to abrogate article 370 in Lok Sabha, Mr. Nanda explained: “I do not think it is necessary to bring in an amending Bill for amending the Constitution - I do not think it is necessary, if ever it were, it will have to be a very different kind of thing”.

He added: “Article 370, whether you keep it or not, has been completely emptied of its contents. Nothing has been left in it. We can regulate, we can do it in one day, in ten days, ten months. That is entirely for us to consider”.

Mr. Nanda, who twice served as Interim Prime Minister, also explained the way to exorcise Satan of Disunity from the Indian Constitution. 

No one has had the courage to act on roadmap laid down by Mr. Nanda, a congressman to the core. It was left to Home Minister, Amit Shah, to do “a very different kind of thing”, to borrow late Nanda’s words.

Before explaining constitutional compliance of Mr. Shah’s initiatives to reform & enliven Kashmir, reckon the fact Mr. Nanda was merely articulating what Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s stand on Article 370. It was temporary and of transitional value as specified in the Constitution.

Mr. Nehru told Lower House of Parliament (Lok Sabha) on 24th July 1952:  “Article 370 was obviously of a transitional nature, and it allowed the President to make any additions to it, any variations to it, later on, the object being that if any change or addition was required, we need not have to go through the cumbrous process of amending our Constitution, but the President was given authority to amend it in the sense of adding a subject, part of a subject, whatever it was to the other subjects in regard to Kashmir”.

He also explained the background of Article 370. He also recalled why India did not ignore desperate appeals from Maharaja of Kashmir and popular Kashmiri politicians to save them from Pakistan raiders. (http://goo.gl/wT2ezy )

Like Mr Nanda, his cabinet colleague M.C. Chagla (Mohamed Ali Currim Chagla) cogently explained the rationale to dilute and ultimately discard Article 370 (https://goo.gl/4o5JLb )

Even nationalist politicians from the valley put Kashmir’s integration with rest of India above Article 370. It is here pertinent to recall Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad J&K Prime Minister’s stance.

Inaugurating a meeting of the All India Newspaper' Editors Conference at Srinagar on 25th September 1962, Mr. Mohammad stated “Irrespective of this provision (Article 370), we have deliberately and consistently and in actual practice followed the policy of coming as near to the rest of the country as blood is to the flesh.”

Explaining the financial relationship between the Centre and the State, he added:  “The existence of Article 370 has made no difference”. Mr. Mohammad, who was one of the founders of National Conference Party, did not toe late Sheikh Abdullah’s separatist line. 

Let us now revert to Mr. Nanda’s strategy which fits in well in the Presidential Order titled  ‘The Constitution (Application to Jammu and Kashmir) Order, 2019’ unveiled by Mr. Shah yesterday.

As put by Mr. Nanda, “The power to amend this Constitution is derived from Article 368. If the hon. member looks at that article, he will find that there is at the bottom a proviso which reads thus: the footnote reads as follows: ‘In its application to the State of Jammu and Kashmir, to art. 368, the following proviso shall be added:- Provided that no such amendment shall have affect in relation to the State of Jammu and Kashmir unless applied by order of the President under clause (1) of article 370’.”

He continued: “So, my hon.friend will have to take shelter under Article 370 itself in order to bring forward an amendment, and certain procedures have to be gone through”.

He added: “If it is imagined that by the repeal of article 370, al the provisions of the Constitution will automatically apply to Jammu & Kashmir, it is a very erroneous reading of the Constitution”.

In keeping with Mr. Nanda’s strategy, Modi Government notified Presidential Order dated 5th August 2019 under Article 370. The Order “supersedes the Constitution (Application to Jammu and Kashmir) Order, 1954 as amended from time to time”.

This factual position is contrary to myth created by a section of mainstream media and social media that Artcile 370 has been scrapped. On the contrary, it has been re-invoked.

Put simply, what Mr. Shah has done is has refilled part-emptied Article 370 with provisions for a new Deal for entire J&K. 

What Mr. Shah did with Prime Minister’s Narendra Modi’s support should have been done during Nehru’s time. Successive regimes, however, gave a long rope to Kashmiri Muslims to live & prosper like normal Indians. Many of them have settled in other States or at least do business from outside terrorism-marred Valley. They, however, don't want citizens from rest of India to settle them to ignite prosperity of J&K.

A section of Valley Muslims, aligned with Pakistan, started radicalized youth to hate everything and anything that is Indian over last three decades. Hence they resorted to genocide of Kashmiri Pandits & Sikhs. Separatists rationalized violence in the name of Islam & Independence. They aided Pakistan-trained terrorists. They engineered settlement of Rohingya muslims in Jammu region to alter its demography. For them, violence has became the religion. 

Valley politicians used the threat to resort to violence to blackmail Union Government for decades. No one has had the courage to stop this blackmail, which was backed by nuclear bombs-flaunting blackmailer to the world – Pakistan. 

India and humanity has had to wait for Mr. Modi to muster courage in his second term to put this blackmail to end. Critics of Mr. Modi’s J&K reforms have started spewing poison without realizing that Kashmir situation has turned from bad to worse due to laxity. 

Time has to put interests of United & Strong India over short-sighted, vested interests of different sections of the society across India.  

It is here pertinent to quote Mr. Chagla. Participating in a discussion on UN Security Council Resolution on India-Pakistan Ceasefire in Lok Sabha on 24th September 1965, Mr. Chagla stated “There is one lesson which I learnt and which I have been learning since I joined public life, and that I. this, that what ultimately matters is power, what ultimately matters is the strength of your country”. 

He continued: “We may have all the Idealism In the world, we may have all the Justice on our side, but If we are weak nobody is going to listen. If we want our influence to be felt in the councils of the world, we must be strong and must develop all strength and power that we have. Then we would be listened to with respect”.

Indian Government has a lot more to do for many years to make India the superpower. It should not hesitate in revoking 1947 partition through peaceful means. It should urge United Nations to strip Pakistan of its nuclear arsenal that it flaunts like a kid. 

US President Donald Trump would be doing great injustice to humanity if he lets terrorists or some other country such as Iran walk away this arsenal. 

Pakistan must realize that it has let down Muslims in Indian sub-continent by incessent hatred against India. It has repeatedly waged wars and promoted terrorism. It is here pertinent to again invoke Mr. Chagla’s wisdom. 

In a speech delivered at United Nations in 1964, he stated: “Kashmir is part of India, not as a result of conquest; nor is it a case of one race ruling over another; Kashmir has been part of India since time immemorial, and the people of Kashmir and the rest of India are racially and ethnically the same. Even religiously, although in that part of India Muslims might be in a large majority, this majority professes the same religion as 50 million Muslims in India”.

Mr. Chagla continued: “It is here that the basic difference between Pakistan and India arises. The bond that Pakistan finds with the people of Kashmir, and which makes Pakistan say that the people of Kashmir are their kith and kin, is not common nationality; it is not a common race; it is not common traditions or common history; but the bond of religion alone. We emphatically deny and repudiate a philosophy which equates nationality with religion”.