AWAITING THE SC JUDGEMENT ON ARTICLE 370

When the Republic and its Constitution are dynamic, how could 370 be fixed and eternal? If 370 was a temporary provision, its unchangeability seems a spurious argument

- MAKARANDR PARANJAPE

THE Supreme Court's hearings on the constitutional validity of the abrogation of Article 370 began on August 2. At that time, it was worrying to think of just how much was at stake. Was the future of India on the line? If the Constitutional Bench struck down the abrogation, what would happen to the Republic, not to mention Narendra Modi's government?

Kashmir has long been seen as India's Achilles' heel. A disputed territory, which our enemy across the border tried to invade soon after accession, with Pakistan capturing and still occupying one-third of the area: Kashmir's status unresolved in the United Nations; cross-border terrorism aided by local radical Islamists killing or driving out the last remnants of the Kashmiri Pandit Hindu minority in the 1990s; subsequent unrest, stone-pelting, and targeted violence continuing under ineffective local parties' and President's rule; attempts made to change the demographics of the Hindu-majority Jammu by settling indigenous nomadic tribal groups and foreign refugees such as the Muslim Rohingyas; these are some of the snapshots well entrenched in the consciousness not only of the political class but the ordinary citizens of the country.