India Revokes Article 370 in Kashmir
Article 370 of the Indian constitution, headed 'Temporary provisions with respect to the State of Jammu and Kashmir', gave India's only Muslim-majority state its own constitution and limited the reach of central legislation; the associated Article 35A reserved property ownership and state employment to permanent residents. Both dated from the 1947 accession, when the princely state's Hindu ruler joined India as its Muslim-majority population's future was disputed with Pakistan. On 5 August 2019, weeks after re-election, the government of Narendra Modi moved a presidential order and a reorganisation bill through parliament that revoked Article 370's operative effect and divided the state into two union territories administered from Delhi. The measures were prepared in secrecy and executed alongside a security operation: tens of thousands of additional troops deployed, the region's political leadership — including former chief ministers — detained, and telephone and internet services cut. The internet restriction lasted, in stages, more than eighteen months, the longest imposed in any democracy. Pakistan downgraded diplomatic relations and suspended bilateral trade. China objected to the treatment of Ladakh, where its own boundary claims are disputed, and Chinese and Indian troops fought a lethal hand-to-hand clash in the Galwan Valley in June 2020, the first deaths on that frontier in forty-five years. India's Supreme Court upheld the revocation in December 2023, and elections to a legislature with substantially reduced powers were held in 2024.
- Year: 2019 CE
- Category: Political
