Politics is a domain of expediency. It is guided by calculations of short-term profit and loss. It happens, hence, that master strokes turn, over time, into cerebral strokes and smart moves into stalemates. History, we say, is the art of turning boisterous heroes into silent footnotes. So, these are early days yet to say how wise the abrogation of Article 370 and the J&K reorganization of the state into two Union Territories are. Surely, when Article 370 was created it would have been felt as a smart thing to do, as its revocation does today. Time plays games with peoples and dispensations. It connects, say, the admirable lad, Alexander, who mastered the extraordinarily intractable horse, Bucephalus with effortless ease, to the dissolute young man who drank himself to death at the zenith of his power.

The developments in J&K have some object lessons for lots of others, including religious minorities in this country. But there is no guarantee that such lessons will be heeded; else, no one would have said, “History repeats itself; but man never learns.” The present developments in that troubled, tormented region of the Indian Union were on the work-bench at least since the collapse of the Mehbooba Mukti-led PDP-BJP coalition government in June 2018. That monstrously anomalous government formation was then justified and sold to the rest of India as a step taken in the interests of Kashmiris. The same thing is now being said in defence of the de facto decimation of the state. J&K has the unique distinction of being the only state in the Union of India that has been vivisected in two, and the moieties demoted to the level of UTs.

As I sat listening to the speech of Amit Shah, the Home Minister, who piloted the bill in the Parliament – clearly establishing himself as the driving engine of the BJP- I was struck by the sledge-hammer emphasis he laid on the eagerness of his government to save the people of Kashmir from discrimination, as compared to the rest of India. Article 370 was, according to him, the only hindrance to the progressive provisions and legislations in the rest of the country not benefiting the SCs, STs and tribals of J&K. So, the state needed to be hammered out of shape in the interest of equality. Readers will also recall that the abolition of triple talaq with which I am in ready agreement, irrespective of the political calculations underlying it also was justified by invoking the principle of equality. The triple talaq provision discriminated against Muslim women. Discriminations are anathema to the present rulers. This injustice will not be tolerated. Even if other forms are…

I find it hard to brush aside in its totality the argument that Article 370 and 35A worked against the interests of the common man in J&K. The mere fact of the comparative backwardness of that state would disallow me to do that. All the same, I cannot buy the argument that these two provisions were solely responsible for this regrettable state. States like Bihar, UP, Rajasthan, MP have no such provisions. Why are they poor and under-developed? But political rhetoric is not meant to be statements of truth. They are meant to fill the ears with sound, not to flood the minds with light.

There is a message in this scenario that especially the religious minorities need to heed. Kashmir is a notice served on the country as a whole. That is why pan-Indian hysteria is showcased in the wake of this precipitous gamble. This event, which is being justified under the provisions of the Indian Constitution, puts the Constitution itself to the test. Consider just this one thing. It is necessary, if the spirit of the Constitution is respected, to ascertain the will of the people of J&K to revoke Article 370 and to re-organize the state. The idea that the Parliament can proceed as though the function of the state’s assembly is subsumed in it, just because the government has, as part of its calculated move, contrived its demise, is nothing short of playing a trick with the Constitution. It is an arbitrary notion that the will of the people of J&K is represented and exercised by the Parliament. It is a queer legislative fiction. The turning of the entire state into a vast temporary prison, shutting it out of communication with the rest of the country and incarcerating its political leaders, is not exactly the best scenario for convincing a neutral observer that the Parliament, under such circumstances, is indeed speaking and acting for the people of J&K. It is indeed a strange, extra-terrestrial sort of situation in which a people are represented by muffling them and banishing them behind iron curtains of curfews and lock-downs for their own sake! No, there is only one argument that is working in J&K; it is brute force.

Abolition of Article 370 was a political unthinkable till Monday the 5th of August. There is another provision deemed inviolable till now: Article 30 (1). To read what is going to happen to this provision, we have to wait for the outcome of the legal battle that is sure to begin soon on the Constitutional maintainability of the Bills just passed by the Parliament. Article 30 (1), unlike Article 370, enshrines a fundamental Right. Its abrogation involves, for that reason, a greater degree of difficulty. One thing at a time, is practical common sense. The government will take the next step, once the present enterprise is done and dusted.

It needs to be noted that what has emboldened the government to do away with Article 370 is the complete loss of good will the people of the Valley have suffered, partly due to prolonged propaganda, in the eyes of the rest of India; but largely due to the cussedness of the Muslim leadership. This should alert us to the responsible restraint and exemplary accountability that religious minorities need to exercise in availing the provisions of minority rights. Each time anything is done, or is allowed to happen, that tarnishes our public image, we are extending a helping hand to cutting down the tree of minority rights. As John the Baptist said, even now the axe is laid to the root of the tree. It will be cut down, if it does not produce good fruits. The same truth was re-validated by Jesus. The barren fig was cursed and it withered away. It is not a religious myth, but a historical reality. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

Perhaps the most disconcerting aspect of the present scenario is the utter disarray in the opposition ranks. In point of fact, today we do not know which party is in the opposition and which, not! The palpable ease with which these controversial bills were piloted and chaperoned through both houses of the Parliament tells its own tale. Modi and Shah appear to have exceeded their goal of creating a Congress-mukt Bharat. They are sailing in serene smoothness on the limpid waters of, what already is, an opposition-mukt Bharat. As the poet said, “Sleep my angel, the night is lost.”