Kashmir: accession, Article 370 and after

Jammu and Kashmir's history since 1947 is the most contested chapter of post-independence India, and it must be told with care, separating established facts from disputed claims. The state, ruled by Maharaja Hari Singh, initially sought independence. After tribal invaders backed by Pakistan attacked in October 1947, the Maharaja signed the Instrument of Accession on 26 October 1947, ceding defence, external affairs and communications to India, and Indian troops were airlifted to Srinagar. The first India-Pakistan war followed, ending with a ceasefire in 1949 and a divided territory, with Pakistan controlling areas in the west and north.

Article 370 of the Constitution, added in October 1949 as a temporary provision in Part XXI, gave the state a special position: most constitutional provisions applied to Jammu and Kashmir only as extended by presidential order, and the state had its own constitution and flag. A 1954 presidential order added Article 35A, which allowed the state legislature to define permanent residents and their special rights. Over the decades, most constitutional provisions were extended to the state by presidential orders, and the special position eroded in practice, while the political dispute — over accession, autonomy and self-determination — remained unresolved and fuelled wars in 1965 and 1999 and an armed insurgency from 1989.

In August 2019 the arrangement ended. On 5 August 2019 a presidential order (C.O. 272) applied the whole Constitution to Jammu and Kashmir, and on 6 August a further order (C.O. 273) declared Article 370 inoperative; Parliament simultaneously passed the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019, dividing the state into two union territories — Jammu and Kashmir, with a legislature, and Ladakh, without one. The changes were accompanied by a security lockdown, detention of political leaders and a communications shutdown, which the government defended as necessary for order and critics condemned as a suspension of democratic rights.

The Supreme Court examined the changes in a batch of petitions and, on 11 December 2023, a five-judge bench unanimously upheld the abrogation, holding that Article 370 was a temporary provision and that the President's power survived the dissolution of the state's Constituent Assembly in 1957, while directing the restoration of statehood and assembly elections by September 2024. Assembly elections were held in September-October 2024 and an elected government took office, while Jammu and Kashmir remains a union territory. The legal question is settled for now; the political questions — about autonomy, representation and reconciliation — remain open, and the region's future will be decided by how they are answered.