India Revokes Article 370 in Kashmir
India revoked the special status of Jammu and Kashmir on 5 August 2019 by a procedure that took a single day. Article 370 had been in the constitution since 1949 as the term on which the princely state acceded in 1947: India would handle defence, foreign affairs and communications, and everything else would require the state's concurrence. An accompanying provision, article 35A, let the state define permanent residents and reserve land and government jobs to them. The revocation was done by presidential order using the article's own machinery, substituting the governor — an appointee of the central government — for the state assembly whose concurrence the text required, with the assembly itself dissolved and the state under central rule. The state was then split into two union territories governed directly from Delhi. The measures taken beforehand indicate what was expected. Tens of thousands of additional troops were moved in, tourists and pilgrims were ordered out, and on the night of 4 August the telephone and internet networks were cut and the political leadership of the valley, including three former chief ministers, was detained. The communications blackout was the longest ever imposed in a democracy. The Supreme Court upheld the revocation in December 2023 and directed that elections be held and statehood restored. Elections were held in 2024. Pakistan downgraded relations and took the matter to the Security Council, which discussed it informally for the first time since 1965. The territory is claimed in whole by India and Pakistan and in part by China, has been fought over in three wars, and holds one of the highest concentrations of troops anywhere in the world. Nothing about its status has been settled by any of it.
- Year: 2019 CE
- Category: Political
