Supreme Court’s Final Hearing On Abrogation Of Article 370 Has Special Significance For 2024

By Sushil Kutty

Nearly five years after the abrogation of Article 370 and Article 35 spoken of in the past tense, the Centre is once again hoping to get electoral dividends out of the abrogation. At least that is the feeling one gets. For the majority, the abrogation of Article 370 was a non-event, an election gimmick and over the next couple of years proof that trusting the Modi regime was a fool’s errand.

Now, the Supreme Court is set to hear a batch of petitions on the abrogation of Article 370 and the fear of revoking the abrogation is a disturbing thought for those who took abrogation as medicine. For the vast majority of people from outside the Valley, the Hindutva supporters of the BJP in particular, there is nothing left in Article 370. Whether it stays removed or is returned in whatever form doesn’t matter.

The general consensus is the Modi government took the country for a ride on August 5, 2019. Article 370 was and ’35’ taken away with the caveat that “outsiders” can buy land in J&K only if they had been residents in the Union Territory for 15 years. That effectively sounded the death knell of the abrogation of Article 370. Who was the Narendra Modi government fooling?

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is right. There is something about certain categories of people that sets them apart. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah can be trusted only like the proverbial fox – i.e., the duo cannot be trusted! They speak with forked tongues and their promises are like the banging of empty vessels.

The abrogation of Article 370 was one of the three empty promises in the BJP election manifesto. The other two being Ram Mandir and UCC. Now, the bogey continues to be told that “two done and one more to go”. The lie lives on in the minds of millions of BJP supporters but millions more are catching on to the hoax played on them.

The Ram Mandir became reality because of a Supreme Court ruling and would have happened even if Modi had lost the 2014 elections. Today, all that the electorate, aam aadmi, remembers is Prime Minister Narendra Modi sitting cross-legged with a foundation stone, hogging the limelight and taking the credit!

Fact is, the BJP’s hoaxes are a conman’s delight! Ram Mandir was appropriated without batting an eyelid. Article 370 was the best execution of a sleight of electoral promise. And now the charade played around that “the government shall implement the UCC” contained in the Preamble and in Article 44.

Again, who are Modi & Shah fooling? The rest of the Modi government do not figure because they do the bidding of the Prime Minister alone and nobody else. Already, talk is swirling that the Modi regime has a hidden ace up its sleeve and the UCC will not be anywhere close to uniform. In fact, a lot of the geography of the country will be exempt from the UCC. Also certain categories of the populace, like for example the tribal!

The northeast might also be left out of the UCC’s ambit. Winning elections is all that counts for the BJP, as exemplified by the Manipur experiment, along with being the world’s largest single political party. The grandeur of the BJP headquarters in New Delhi tells this tale of vanity. Prime Minister Narendra Modi gets his kicks from dotting the countryside with plaques with his name on them.

But it is the empty promises that linger in the mind. Narendra Modi is the only Prime Minister of India who siphons off taxpayer money to serve the electoral objectives of the party he represents. All his ‘labarthi’ schemes cater to the BJP’s electoral goals. Keeping people poor and tied to BJP largesse is BJP strategy. Add to them election manifesto promises such as abrogation of Article 370 and implementing UCC and the picture is complete.

A bench of the Chief Justice of India will take up for hearing the batch of petitions on the abrogation of Article 370 and there will be day to day hearings from August 3 on. Reversing the abrogation could be possible. You never can tell about this central government. Besides, what more is left in the J&K issue that the BJP can squeeze for electoral advantage? (IPA Service)

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