India - 370 = 2 Union Territories and 28 states

Amit Shah, who means business, has emerged as the Iron Man of India. He is a Chanakya who speaks for core Indian values and is in no mood to pardon any wrongdoer. His emergence on the scene has left BJP’s rivals speechless and stunned. He is being praised in every nook and corner of the country as a strong-willed man, who does not care for the consequences. If he has to take a strong decision, he will go ahead, irrespective of the repercussions. He is very astute. In this new era, Amit Shah leads the band of Bharat bhakts. Undoubtedly, if Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel had ever been asked who his chosen disciples were, his answer would have to be Narendra Modi and Amit Shah. Amit Shah is a patriot to the core who is also emerging as a leader of big standing and a sharp and tough administrator.

—Tarun Vijay, BJP leader, former editor, Panchjanya

Ninety per cent of the people in Jammu and Kashmir have not benefited from Article 370. The government needs to ensure two things. One, people get a positive message about the advantages of abrogating this Article. Two, it needs to showcase development on the ground. Over the years, J&K has become a hotbed of corruption and Article 370 protected the well-fed elite, politicians and the bureaucrats. They are surely going to be hit and will obviously protest against losing the enormous privileges they have enjoyed. It is difficult to imagine that until the arrival of Governor Satya Pal Malik on the scene, there was no formal anti-corruption bureau in the state! Article 370 ensured that the state had no CBI or anything else. No institutions that worked in the rest of the country, applied to J&K, thanks to this special status.

—Kulbir Krishan, former top home ministry official

The Kashmiri Pandit community is thrilled and we owe it to the Narendra Modi government. There is genuine happiness today for all of us. The fact that I can buy property in the state, even if theoretically, is a very good feeling. That my children can go and live there and see the land of their ancestors is very positive. We may not actually go back, but at least we have the option to do so. Sure, as long as we lived there we had no future, as Pandits were discriminated against. So in a way, we are lucky to have left the state when we did. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise. But the Kashmiri Pandit community is progressive. Despite everything, no grudges are held. We have moved on. But again, we owe it to this BJP government for scrapping Article 370.

—Renu Kaul Verma, managing director, Vitasta publishing house

BR Ambedkar, father of the Indian Constitution, was asked to draft Article 370 and he refused point-blank. He told Sheikh Abdullah that such an Article would create an independent Islamic state in India, which he refused to have anything to do with. He called it ‘treachery’ against India. The President refused to sign it. Ultimately, it was left to Gopalaswami Ayyangar, member of the Drafting Committee of the Constitution and Rajya Sabha leader, to do the honours. Ambedkar was right, historically speaking. All those in Jammu and Ladakh became second-rate citizens; the only thing that has mattered is the Kashmir Valley. As for Nehru, he kept saying the Article was temporary. When the draft was put up before the Congress Working Committee, the party rose in revolt. Nehru had to plead before Patel, citing international commitments, to clear the draft. Against his better judgment, Patel relented. Then everyone in Congress fell in line. The rest is history.

—Madhu Kishwar, academic and writer

Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee was the first martyr in Kashmir after Independence. He was a visionary in the truest sense. He was the first to realise that a nation could not have two Constitutions and two prime ministers. It was inapplicable and a blot on the country that such an arrangement would be accepted. He realised that the Indian Republic would be incomplete if Article 370 was allowed to continue. Mookerjee was visionary enough to see that if India accepted such an agreement, it would tantamount to compromising on the country’s security. It was for this reason he went on a satyagraha. Till date, no one knows how he died. The local Sheikh Abdullah government and their cohorts in New Delhi ensured that. The decision of Jawaharlal Nehru not to order an inquiry into the unexplained death of this great leader haunts people of this country even today. At a time when everyone was praising Kashmir’s integration into the Indian Union and Article 370, Mookerjee saw the inherent dangers. That is why he was the first man to raise his voice against this anti-national act.

—Rakesh Sinha, Rajya Sabha MP, BJP