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1. The foremost political fallout of the Supreme Court verdict today, finally burying the Jammu and Kashmir-related Art 370, is that while it gives a big boost to the BJP, the Kashmir-based mainstream parties, notably National Conference (NC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), are virtually robbed of their over half a century old political narrative.

Especially, that part of it which had survived Sheikh Abdullah’s undemocratic dismissal from power in 1953. The Sheikh, right through his five-decade long political leadership, virtually symbolised the politico-ideological crux of the accession of India’s only Muslim-majority state against the run of events on the subcontinent in 1947.
Post-1953, an illusory ‘internal autonomy’, interpreted as J&K’s “special constitutional status” under Article 370 was all that was left for mainstream parties to sell on their home ground—Kashmir Valley. Their ideological edifice was raised over this common basic premise even as parties and faces in power kept on changing at regular intervals between 1953 and 2018.
Immediately, however, it’s the BJP that stands to harvest substantial political dividends. More so, in its relative strong-hold of Jammu where lately its influence appeared to be shrinking after its unilateral pull-out of the coalition government headed by PDP’s Mehbooba Mufti five years ago, leading to President’s rule and the abrogation of Article 370 on August 5, 2019. It was the erstwhile Jana Sangh founder Syama Prasad Mookerji who in early 1950’s had propelled the slogan ‘ek vidhan, ek Pradhan, ek nishan’ while seeking abrogation of the state’s special status under Art 370.
The losers in today’s apex court verdict can draw some comfort from the judicial direction, that even as separation of Ladakh as a different Union Territory has been upheld, the court has ordered that J&K’s statehood be restored “as soon as possible” and that the long pending assembly polls be held by September 2024.
Over the past five years, J&K has virtually got depoliticised, whether it was by design or otherwise. Direct administrative rule from top to bottom has sidelined the political elements. Even so, some make-believe representative motions were gone through from time to time. Like the civic elections and district development boards polls. By and large, whatever political entities are floating around remain untested on the popular ground. Uncertainty about assembly elections, together with restoration of statehood, was breeding political indifference at the ground level.
Now that the SC has set the time limit for assembly elections and also desired early restoration of the statehood of J&K things are expected to move faster and purposefully.
Within the political arena there are besides the ‘tested’ regional parties a few newly floated groups not-so-secretly blessed by “New Delhi” whose strength is yet to be tested in elections. Their thinly disguised pro-power tilt could work both ways—depending on how the NC and the PDP fare in the competition now that they have been robbed of their familiar ‘home ground’, as it were. NC and PDP dominated the scene in the Muslim-majority Valley mainly on their “autonomy”-linked identity.
The Supreme Court judgement has punctured the “illusion” that Art 370 bestowed some sort of special status upon erstwhile J&K state. It held that the Maharaja Hari Singh-ruled border state was constitutionally on par with other states of the Indian Union and that legally there was nothing like any exception within the federal structure. “J&K was left with no sovereignty” after the 1947 accession. Nor was its constituent assembly of any consequence after it had gone out of existence in 1956.
The court knocked down the argument that the President of India was bound by the decision of the J&K constituent assembly (1951-56) and that its decisions were sacrosanct. The entire edifice of the pro-Art 370 petitioners was based on the premise that since the J&K constituent assembly had left Art 370 untouched President had no authority to ‘tamper with its sovereignty’. Ironically, most of the people in the Valley shared this view and favoured it emotionally as well as politically.
One of the main arguments advanced by the petitioners was that after the state constituent assembly had ended its term there was ‘no authority’ left to touch, much less abrogate Art 370 relating to J&K. Retrospectively, that appears to have been a political myth carried far too long. The Supreme Court held that there was no bar/limit on the powers of the President under whose orders amendments were being carried out from time to time, mainly to extend union jurisdiction over J&K.
It will take quite some time for the deeper import and impact of today’s court judgement to sink in emotionally. For the last 75 years people, especially in the Valley, were brought up on different emotional diet whose grain ran counter to the philosophy underlying the apex court judgement.
This issue has regional as well as sectarian overtones. The BJP is bound to squeeze every possible advantage out of the fallout of the judgement on the ground to clinch its undisguised desire for power in the Muslim-majority border state. Perhaps it would be no exaggeration to say that this particular development is politically at par with the inauguration of the Ram Temple at Ayodhaya early next year.
Irony is that the Congress too had been wanting to get rid of Art 370 particularly right from the day (Aug 9, 1953) when Nehru summarily dismissed Sheikh Abdullah and set in motion the process of denuding J&K of its “excess fat”. Only that they lacked the political courage to go that way. Otherwise, they have too have been merciless in “softening” the Kashmiri leadership towards this particular objective of full integration of the J&K state with the Indian Union, as they hollowed out Article 370.
All that was left for the BJP to do was to give that last push and dismantle the hollowed edifice, but accompanied by a loud thud for a real grand impact. And here it is now, the Supreme Court verdict, with a big bang.   
(Mohammed Sayeed Malik is a senior journalist and was media adviser to Sheikh Abdullah)