Veteran Congress leader P. Chidambaram on Sunday said the Congress would continue to fight till the status of State was restored to Jammu and Kashmir. “The struggle has only begun now and we will fight till the end,” he said at a meeting organised by the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee in Chennai to condemn the “snatching of rights of Kashmir”.
He also slammed the focus on Article 370. “Does only Article 370 bestow special provisions? What about Article 371 for Maharashtra and Gujarat,” he asked listing out the sub-Sections under the Article that provides special provisions to Nagaland, Assam, Manipur, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, Hyderabad and Karnataka.
“Under the special provisions for Nagaland, without their concurrence, Parliament cannot pass laws regarding the religious, cultural practices of the Nagaland people, civil, criminal procedures, and laws passed by Indian Parliament will not apply to them and without the concurrence of the Nagaland Assembly, no one can buy or sell land. So are the special provisions applicable only for Kashmir,” he asked. Mizoram too had similar provisions.
“You have one rule for Jammu and Kashmir and another rule for Nagaland and Mizoram? They are not giving any answers to this and are acting as if they can’t hear these questions,” the former Union Minister said.
“Those who don’t know the history of Jammu and Kashmir, how the independent government joined India, and under what circumstances were certain assurances given under the Constitution, and how it has been followed for the last 72 years, are the ones who are gloating about annexing Kashmir with India,” he said.
According to him, when then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru decided to send the Army to protect Srinagar from the Pashtun attack, he wanted to get the concurrence of Home Minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. “The BJP does not know history. They claim Nehru and Patel were at loggerheads, which was not the case,” he said.
The Congress leader alleged it was because Jammu and Kashmir was a Muslim-majority State that the Centre had resorted to this action.
He mocked the ruling AIADMK saying if the BJP tried to make Tamil Nadu a Union Territory, “the AIADMK will accept it. If you ask them to show respect, they fall at the feet. They will accept it.”
