by Arun Jaitely
The seven-decade history of the State of Jammu & Kashmir confronts changing India with several questions. Was the Nehruvian course, which the State had embarked, a historical blunder or was it the correct course to follow? Most Indians today believe that it is the former. Does our policy today have to be guided by that erroneous vision or an out of box thinking which is in consonance with ground reality?
The Article 35A misadventure
Article 35A was surreptitiously included by a Presidential Notification in the Constitution in 1954. It was neither a part of the original Constitution framed by the Constituent Assembly nor did it come as a Constitutional Amendment under Article 368 of the Constitution which requires approval by two-thirds majority of both Houses of Parliament. It came as a Presidential Notification and is a surreptitious executive insertion in the Constitution.
