An Outlet: Part 7

5 August, 2019.

Today was a historical day for my country.

First, take a look at today's Worldwide Trends on Twitter cause almost the entire list relates to me in one way or the other/ events that I know about.

Ofcourse today's biggest news is the Presidential Order of making the Article 370 - something that existed, in one way or the other, ever since India got it's independence in 1947 - defunct.

I had always known that the Constitution of India didn't apply to the (then) state of Jammu and Kashmir, even though it was very much a part of the country. J and K had it's own Constitution, flag, anthem, legislation and the Indian Govt only had a say in a handful of areas including defence. Even the Supreme Court couldn't take decisions on disputes arising there.

But I didn't know that this "special status" that J and K enjoyed, came from the Article 370 and what the history behind it was. I had always known that Kashmir especially was a highly disputed area of India and thought this was why they needed a Constitution of their own.

After reading up about the whole incident, this is what I've come to know.

Around the time the British were preparing to hand over their ruling powers to the people of India and Pakistan, the king of Kashmir agreed to become a part of India only if certain conditions were fulfilled. These conditions were accepted and thereafter included in the Constitution of India under Article 370 in 1951.

"The article provided Jammu and Kashmir with special status, allowing it it's own state constitution. The Union of India could legislate/act only in defence, foreign affairs and communications." - TOI

J and K was the only state to hold such a position.

Thereafter Article 35 A was accepted by in 1954, under (ex) Prime Minister Indira Gandhi (from Congress)'s Government.

"The article defines who is a permanent resident of J&K and lays down laws restricting property purchase and ownership to such permanent residents" - TOI

According to news, apart from the Indo-Pak tension over Kashmir, the residents of the state suffered as there were only a handful of families who owned majority of the land and could afford to live a "comfortable life".

Despite being a part of India, in a way it wasn't.

Today's Presidential ruling essentially puts an end to both the Articles and makes all provisions of the Constitution, be it legislative, executive or judiciary, effectively applicable to J&K.

In addition to that, the state of Jammu and Kashmir has been divided into two Union Territories, UT of J and K and UT of Ladakh.

This is the first time India has witnessed something like this. Being such a controversial and daring move, a lot of Indians celebrated today. They say India has become truly one today.

As for me, sure, as a citizien of India, I'm really happy that there is no distinction anymore. But I just hope this doesn't create more trouble for the general public of Jammu and Kashmir, who have already been sufferring a lot. Pakistan occupied Kashmir still exists and this move might create even more Indo-Pak tension but I hope the people aren't the victims of this political warfare of sorts.

Cause they really don't need more of it. In fact, I remember someone telling me that when they visited Kashmir, the locals there requested them to spread the word that the place is not as unsafe as the media calls it. In fact, their tourism has been affected real bad because of it.

The entire time I was watching the news, I was wondering why the Government would make a move now if they could so do long back. 

The answer to that also has a policital game angle involved. Aka the Congress vs. BJP saga.

Now even though Article 370 was incorporated into the Constitution of India when it was drafted, India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru (Congress) had stated that these conditions were only temporary in nature. The Article stated that The Govt of India could make changes to the Constitution of J and K only if it was approved by the Government of J and K.

Even though there were many ammendments made, Congress never intended to completely get rid of the 2 Articles. As mentioned in a previous chapter, Congress had been winning the elections until 2014, when BJP formed the Government. BJP always intented to eliminate the two Articles and it was in fact mentioned as one of their agendas during the election rallies. This year, BJP won the elections with a whopping majority number of seats, which essentially made it possible for them to pass any bill or order relatively easily.

Ideally, the Govt of J and K aka the Governor was supposed to be involved in taking this highly important decision. However, due to it's political instability, J and K had no elected Governor since 20 June, 2019. BJP took advantage of both of these situations and announced the historic ruling out of nowhere. It was a highly secretive move and only a select few individuals knew about it. The opposition didn't have time to prepare for a debate. All communications in J and K were cut off and the previous leaders of the state were put under house arrest.

Arguably not the fairest way but this is how Jammu and Kashmir were brought under the Constitution of India for the first time since India gained independence.

Now that we're on the topic of big things/decisions happening in the country, two other things happened in the past two weeks. The Triple Talaq bill was passed in the Rajya Sabha while ISRO successfully launched its lunar expedition space craft Chandrayan 2.

Coming to the KPop part of today's trending topics. TWICE's Jihyo and Kang Daniel were tending because they admitted to being in a relationship. To be honest, it is quite an unusual/surprising pairing but hey, who am I to judge. As far as I can see, the reactions are more on the positive side. Definitely much better then when BLACKPINK Jennie and EXO Kai's relationship was revealed. That was a big surprise too.

In another KPop news, Seventeen came back with their HIT sound (Hehe). I may not like some parts of the song but the chorus and the dance hits HARD! I love it.

Post dinner, I spoke to one of my college friends (who had left after the first year) after a really long time. It felt nice to hear that she thought of me and decided to catch up with me. This girl loves dancing and ever since she left my college, she took up dancing very seriously. I have seen a lot of her dance vids on Instagram and the girl has seriously improved. We spoke a lot about her dancing and a bit my college and future plans and such. Woah, random calls really do make me happy.