 Jammu and Kashmir. I really don't know how much you are aware of our country, its history. When we got independence, it was not independence of just one country divided into two. Some 580 countries were created or restored, so to say. Restoration is a proper word. India was not one like today. You had many, many princely states. These princely states had signed a treaty with the British. Under that treaty, they had surrendered their sovereignty. They had accepted the British resident in their territories. They had agreed that they will not maintain their independent army. They will not enter into war or peace with anyone without the permission of the British. Independence Act of 1947 or 15th August of 1947 did not bring independence for all of us. There were already states in India where the local ruler was working in most matters. Except these matters which I told you, where the British permission was needed. So you had Nizam, you had Trevancore, you have so many Rajas and Maharajas. Indian Independence Act passed by the British Parliament restored the sovereignty of these states. So all these states were given an option. Either join India or join Pakistan or remain independent. Of course, due to the geography, most of these states did not have real freedom. Legal freedom was there but it was impossible for a small state of Rampur for instance to say that I will be independent. So they had to join India. Kashmir due to its geographical location said we are not going to join India, we are not going to join Pakistan. In the meanwhile, there was an attack from tribesmen or army people in plain clothes from Pakistan. And since they were aggressively reaching Srinagar, Raja Hari Singh asked our help. Help us to push back these Pakistani invaders. We said we won't. Why should we interfere? It is between you and them. We are a third party. If you want our help, you join us. That's how Raja Hari Singh signed our instrument of accession. In that instrument of accession, he said that in X, Y, Z matters, I accept whatever laws parliament makes. In other matters, I will have autonomy. We said okay. This instrument of accession, terms and conditions were subsequently reflected in Article 370, which was drafted after due deliberations and consultations between Srinagar and New Delhi and it became Article 370. Before I proceed further, let me make a very basic statement. Whenever any country drafts a constitution, it would like to have a unitary form of government. It is always better that we have a strong center, all powers are with the center, whatever law center passes, they should be implemented in the states. So federalism, which means that there is a coordination, cooperation between center and state, there are two kinds of government, there is autonomy with the states, is never a preferred choice of any frame or of the constitution in the world. Federalism is always out of compulsion. If you are a big country like United States, Canada, India, if you have too many diversities, you want to take all the people on board, you cannot have a unitary form of government. You have to have a federal form of government. You have to give units autonomy. Allow me to say this evening, countries which do not accept federalism get partitioned. When you do not concede autonomy, then those groups of people will have a sense of dissatisfaction and will go their own way. Had we accepted autonomy and the cabinet mission, the partition would have been avoided. If we try to impose our will on people who want autonomy, then of course they will go their own way. The best remedy to control secession is giving autonomy. Just like that myth and false narrative of lax and lax of illegal infiltrators crossing border in Assam, we created a false narrative that Kashmir is having great autonomy. This is absolutely absurd. Article 3 of Jammu and Kashmir's constitution itself, we have now scrapped this. It itself says Kashmir is and shall be an integral part of India. It was not a question of integration. Newspapers writing, political leadership telling illiterate masses. Kashmir has been fully integrated. It was already fully integrated. Their own constitution said it. You want to see how nations deal with questions, questions of autonomy. I can give you some examples. Look at Scotland. UK has a prime minister. Scotland has a first minister. Have you heard of any cries of treason when Scotland demanded secession through a referendum? A referendum was held in 2014. The union of Scotland and England was created by a treaty in 1707. They had shared a king since 1603, but each had their own parliament. 1997, British Prime Minister Tony Blair declared Scotland a proud historic nation. Sweden and Finland's accord on autonomy on island islands. 1991, they even have their provisional citizenship. A right to fly their own flag, to issue stamps and passports bearing the word Elend. And this Elend has a right to veto the laws passed by Finnish parliament. It never created any question there. I have been myself in South Tyrol, Bolzano, the accord between Italy and Austria in South Tyrol. It's a German majority region. With all the autonomy given to them, no threat to integrity of Italy. Quebec Act in Canada, 1774. Recognize French law and language and Catholic faith. Canada is secular. But for Quebec, they recognize the Catholic faith. No one raised question of uniform civil code in Canada. Article 3 of Indian Constitution says parliament can change the name of their states. It can change the boundaries of their state. It can create new states. It can bifurcate states. Right. But then it also says that before any such law is enacted by the parliament, the assembly of the state must express its opinion on that. When article 3 was extended to Jammu and Kashmir under 370, this condition was made more stringent and it was laid down. Any change in the boundaries of the state, names of the state, would not require mere expression of views of the state assembly. It will require concurrence. Look at our morality. When we imposed president's rule in Kashmir last year, we suspended this provision expression of views. Look at our planning. It did not happen overnight on 5th of August. Lok Sabha elections are held in Kashmir. Number of times you have seen you will have Lok Sabha election, you will also have assembly elections. This time also in Tamil Nadu, you had Lok Sabha elections and you have few assembly by elections. If conditions were conducive to hold Lok Sabha elections, how come you didn't hold the assembly elections? Because we didn't want assembly to be there. Had assembly been there on 5th of August, this matter would have been referred to them. Of course you can ignore the opinion. We are told by great constitutional lawyers now. You have to understand constitutional law is all about politics. Constitutions are only ostensibly about rights and limitations. Indeed they are all about power. It's a game of naked power. We say when there is a precedent rule in a state, the powers of the state assembly will be exercised by the parliament. Therefore under article 3, instead of state assembly, parliament will express the view. Expression of opinion by the assembly is not power. It is freedom of speech because parliament can ignore that opinion. Because that opinion does not change anything. When Telangana was created in 2014, the bill was referred to Andhra Pradesh assembly. The bill was rejected by Andhra Pradesh assembly. 9000 amendments were suggested to the centre's bill of creating Telangana. The centre completely, and if I can say not morally but legally, was within its right to ignore all this. And the state of Telangana was created. When in 1956 we had reorganization of the states, the states were given a right to express their opinion. Even a first year law student knows there is something called legislative privileges. So parliament and state assemblies have a privilege of freedom of speech and expression. A right which is superior to citizens' right of free speech. How can parliament express the opinion? It is not entitled to express that opinion because expression of opinion is not power. Parliament can exercise power. When parliament exercises power, what kind of power? If you look at article 356, 357, if there is a precedent rule, a state cannot come to a standstill. Somebody has to approve salary bill. You cannot draw money from the treasury if there is no legislative approval and assembly is not there. Precedent rule is there. Somebody has to approve the budget. Therefore parliament during precedent rule has to act as a night watchman. That's it. Do the routine business. Give financial approvals. Can you in exercise of that power, when assembly is not in existence, bring my existence to an end? Government of India needs six weeks to justify its stand in the Supreme Court. And therefore Supreme Court will hear this matter on 14th November. 31st October is the date on which this state will disappear. It will become a union territory. Rules of business of our parliament say you will circulate legislative business few days in advance so that members can have an opportunity to look at the legislative proposal. What kind of bill you are bringing in? 5th of August, 11.30. You suddenly circulate the bill. You say you have to pass it today. Then it was passed. Next day it was passed. In the other house also, this is going Indra Gandhi way. You see so much of criticism of Nehru but hardly any of Indra. Because some people idealize in Indra. They want to emulate Indra. Passed by Rajya Sabha next day. Since it was an election matter, it required ratification of half of the states. Introduced in half of the assembly's third day. Passed by them. Fourth day signed by the president. Exactly same thing happened with 370. I will stop here but to say two more things. In my opinion, 370 was not a special autonomy the way it was used. Wrongly used. By the center, it was no more the special autonomy of Kashmir. It was a special right of center. Since we want to play to illiterate emotional voters. Since we have been making some narrative. We said something very great has happened. I have written even though Kashmiris are feeling very bad. Even though it is wrong to keep them under curfew and detention. And courts not hearing habeas corpus petitions. Absolutely wrong negation of rule of law. Yet they have not got something very very big. And similarly I will tell center has not got something very very substantial. We were probably had more power under 370 than we have today. I give you one or two examples. If you want to amend the constitution. You want to get support of two third majority in the house. For some amendments just like I told you 39th amendment in ragandhi period. You need ratification of half of state. So no change in constitution is possible unless you do this cumbersome amending exercise. You could under 370 amend any provision of the constitution just by a presidential order. It was your power. You can change any provision of the constitution just by presidential order. As many as 45 such presidential orders were made. And the more you look into those orders. The more you get convinced that this whole exercise was unnecessary. And maybe just like an RC we will realize that this narrative will fail. I give you one or two examples. If you want to curtail my freedom of speech and expression. I live in Hyderabad. You can do it only through reasonable restrictions. And who will test the reasonableness of the restriction codes. There is a judicial review. If you deny me freedom of speech and expression. There are grounds on which you can deny me. Those grounds are mentioned in article 19 clause 2. So unless I do something against the sovereignty and integrity of India. Something against the friendly relations with foreign state. Something against the public order. Something obscene. Something which is defamatory. Something which is contempt of court. You can't be curtailing my freedom of speech. But in Jammu and Kashmir the same article 19 clause 2. Restrictions on freedom of speech and expression. We modified. Abundant constitution for them. And what did we say? Freedom of speech and expression can be curtailed. Through restrictions which appropriate government considers necessary. No reasonableness. No judicial review. If you want to impose precedent rule in any state. You cannot take that precedent rule to more than one year. Unless there is national emergency. Or unless the election commission certifies that the situation is so bad. That elections cannot be held. In Kashmir you can continue to have precedent rule for 5 years. If you want to impose national emergency. National emergency can also be imposed in one city in one state. Say we want to impose national emergency in Tamil Nadu. Article 352 says you can impose national emergency in Tamil Nadu. Only if there is an external aggression or armed rebellion. That's it. But in Kashmir I can impose national emergency. Because I changed 352 in its application to Jammu and Kashmir. If there is quote unquote internal disturbance. I reduce the bar. On almost every constitutional provision. We had reduced the bar. We say it was temporary. It was temporary for a reason. When we drafted 370 by that time. Kashmir's Constraint Assembly has not met. The final say was given to them. Exercising that say. They drafted their constitution. Keeping in view 370. 90% of our constitution had already been extended to Jammu and Kashmir. For 10% their own constitution was there. But it had identical provisions with our constitution. We have lost our special power as a center. And we were conscious of this fact. That's why we converted state into a union territory. So that we can continue to exercise that kind of control. Now my last point. Hasty decisions are never right. Kashmir as part of India is listed there. In article 1 not directly. Through 370. That is why 370 has not been scrapped. It is there. But we have taken soul out of it. We could do this aggressive surgery on Kashmir. Through 370. On 5th of August the presidential order also used 370. So 370 was de-operationalized through 370 only. Territories of all Indian states are mentioned in article 1. Kamil Nadu consists of this. Punjab consists of this. Haryana consists of this. On Jammu and Kashmir, entry number 15. It says just one line. Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. We use word Indian here. Because when we are adopting our constitution on 26th of November 1949. By that time one third of Kashmir is not with us. It is with Pakistan. It is Park Akopait Kashmir. In my constitution I cannot include something which is not under my physical occupation. My claim to Park Akopait Kashmir therefore is not mentioned in my constitution because it cannot be mentioned in my constitution. Where was that claim mentioned? That claim was mentioned in the Jammu and Kashmir's constitution. Article 4. That the territory of the state means the territory which was under Raja Hari Singh on 15th August 1947. Therefore entire Park Akopait Kashmir I included in my territory under article 4 of Jammu and Kashmir constitution which we scrapped on 5th of August. We have given up our claim to Park Akopait Kashmir because we wanted to play to certain optics. We wanted to satisfy certain sections of our voters. This is not possible. For every inch of Kashmir India has a claim and must have a claim. We undermine that claim in haste. My last point. Article 1 declares India what? India that is Bharat shall be Union of States. It does not say India that is Bharat shall be Union of Union Territories. The principle of law is what can be done in respect of X can also be done in respect of Y. Can we convert all Indian states into Union territories? We never did. We should never do. The real constitutional issue is this. Centre has to simply impose precedent rule. 356. Ambedkar has said article 356 shall remain a dead letter. Look at our hypocrisy. There is no constitution in the world. I say it with full sincerity. In the world which had this kind of a provision where centre can dismiss a democratically elected government except one country. Pakistan. Because both India and Pakistan borrowed it from Government of India Act 1935. We protested so much against this section 93 of the Government of India Act that Britishers suspended 93. Some law which in my freedom struggle we protested against the British. No, don't do it. You will dismiss our governments. When we ourselves drafted the constitution we included that very article and Ambedkar assured the nation no, no, no, it will remain a dead letter. We have seen successive governments has abused and misused their power under 3756. Beta Congress government, BJP government. BJP governments invocation of 356 both in Uttarakhand and Arunachal Pradesh was stuck down by the Supreme Court. Congress governments Indira Gandhi was a unique leader. She not only dismissed opposition government she also dismissed her own governments. She was a dictator for excellence. What centre has to do now? Impose 356 in our state suspend article 3 which says expression of the views by the state assembly and convert state into a union territory. If all states becomes union territories what can be done to one can be done to all this is the principle in law if x can be done y can also be done then we are not a federation. That's why no state was ever converted into a union territory. A union territory can be elevated to a state. It was a state of Jammu and Kashmir. It were people of Jammu and Kashmir who had joined us on certain conditions. We have violated those terms of Solomon Pact. In international law we say the principle is Pactas and Sarvanda. Plighted words are to be respected. Who will trust us? We have proved ourselves to be people who don't keep our promises. It is not only a great danger to federalism it's a great danger to constitutionalism. The whole idea of constitutionalism is the idea of limitations of powers. Is the idea of respecting the autonomy of others. Kashmir was not an issue of integration. Their integration was complete and final as their own constitution said that they are and shall be an integral part of India. It was a question of autonomy. Thank you very much.