At a time when there is a strong feeling in Jammu that Article 35 A has done Unjustice to the residents of Jammu and Kashmir and Article 370 has widened the gap with the main stream nation away from the attention a section of BJP sympathisers are steadily pushing the party’s less-noticed promise of altering Article 35A of the Constitution. The issue is in focus with a Kashmiri woman, Charu Wali Khan, recently filing a petition seeking changes in the constitutional provision as she wanted succession rights though she is settled outside the State according to reports published in national dailies. The article which empowers the J&K Government to define “permanent residents” of the State enables to provide special rights and privileges that permanent residents can enjoy but has been criticised by BJP as a provision that encourages alienation, deepens the concept of a separate identity and creates a political gap between J and K and the rest of India. As a nation we have to raise legitimate questions targeting the people at the helm of affairs. And Sunday’s effort by Jammu Citizens’ Forum, an amalgam of civil society was the right earnest one which needs to be taken to next higher level where more and more people are involved to make it a peoples’ programme. History may have done blunders but there is always a margin where these error can be rectified. In that context Article 370 and Article 35A have not done good to the people of the State except in some cases where political patronage was in abundance but in general it has been a non-productive and efforts should be to rewrite the wrong. Unfortunately the myopic political ambitions over shadowed the larger benefits and people also took it as a matter of fact. There is a need to think on logical lines. The people of Jammu region have to realise the loss they carry with these two provisons of the Constitution and it has been over seven decades no political party took the cudgels to highlight the drawbacks and neither there was any effort to correct the wrong and narrow down the social divide created.
