Article 370 May Finally Deliver Justice to Those Who Need It the Most
The Redrawn Map (Courtesy: India Today) In 1947, the violence singing Hindus in the newly created West Pakistan had forced a whole bunch of them across the border with the then independent state of Jammu and Kashmir. The forces of then Maharaja Hari Singh halted their progress, and had started to deliberate on the potential rehabilitation, given cultural affinities, when the invasion of the Pakistani army irregulars happened, leading to an imbroglio on their status that was never resolved completely. They got the right to vote for the Lok Sabha elections, but under the then extant Article 370 and the Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir, they had no resident status in the state. Their only crime perhaps was to choose to be Indians. Cut to the 1950s, with the renewed status of the Wazir-e-Azam of Jammu and Kashmir of Sheikh Abdullah, and Valmikis were called into the state to be sanitation workers. Incidentally, the idea must have spawned from how Pakistan even today only hir...