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The first section of this chapter presents the President’s 47 Orders under Article 370, most of them based on the Ministry of Law in New Delhi and the law department of the government of Jammu and Kashmir. The second section presents the Supreme Court’s judgements on Article 370—Prem Nath Koul vs State of J&K (1959) and Sampat Prakash vs State of J&K (1968). The third section lists various documents on the Indira Gandhi–Sheikh Abdullah accord from 1974 to 1975 and describes G. A. Lone’s view on the application of Article 249 to the State.

This chapter deals with the restoration of the autonomy of Jammu & Kashmir. The first section presents the memorandum of the National Conference to the Prime Minister on 4 November 1995. The second section cites extracts from the report of the State Autonomy Committee in 1999. The third section cites extracts from the debate in the J&K Assembly on the Autonomy Report 2000 and its resolution thereon. The fourth section presents some extracts from Justice Saghir Ahmad’s report in 2009. The last section contains a proposal for the Draft Article 370.

This chapter presents Nehru’s notes on Constituent changes in Kashmir, dated 3 June 1952, on Jammu & Kashmir’s status in the Indian Union, on recording his plans for Kashmir’s integration and delegation; and Nehru’s statement in the Lok Sabha on 24 July 1952 about the Delhi Agreement. It presents Nehru’s various letters to Abdullah on 5 June 1952, to President Rajendra Prasad on 19 June, to Karan Singh on 26 July, to Abdullah on 29 July, to Sheikh Abdullah on 1 August and 7 August. It also cites the white paper of the Government of J&K on the Delhi Agreement entitled ‘India and Kashmir — Constitutional Aspect’ and Sheikh Abdullah’s statement on the Delhi Agreement in the State’s Constituent Assembly on 11 August 1952.

This chapter describes Nehru’s note for Abdullah on 14 August 1952; how Sheikh Abdullah asked the Constituent Assembly to endorse the Delhi Agreement and his reply to the Debate on 19 August 1952. It also presents the Drafting Committee’s report and the Assembly’s resolution on the Head of State; Nehru’s note for Sheikh Abdullah written at Sonamarg; President Rajendra Prasad’s note to the Prime Minister on Article 370; the bill to amend the State’s Constitution on 3 November 1952; and the motion of Mirza Muhammad Afzal Beg to move the Assembly for the adoption of the Bill on 10 November. The latter part of the chapter presents the Constitution Amendment Orders No. 39 and 42, and Order No. 44, as it applies to Jammu & Kashmir.

This chapter examines the apparent paradox of the collective identification of the Kashmiri refugee: that the very existence of the Kashmiri refugee as a politico-legal and sociocultural identity both underwrites and challenges the structural foundations of the postcolonial nation-state in South Asia. It first provides a historical background on the Princely State of Jammu and Kashmir before turning to the history and historicity of formation of the Kashmiri political subject. In particular, the chapter considers how a highly territorialized definition of political belonging emerged in the greater Kashmir region. It also explores how the historical patterns of displacement in the region between 1947 and 2001 gave rise to a dispersed population of people who became categorized as “refugees from the State of Jammu and Kashmir” living in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir. It argues that the territorial borders of the disputed Jammu and Kashmir State provide neither the empirical nor analytical language required to express the relationship between being Kashmiri and political activism.

Article 370 of the Constitution of India relating to the State of Jammu and Kashmir is now over sixty years old. The Constitution came into force on 26 January 1950 and with it, this unique provision. All other provisions were debated in the Constituent Assembly of India after deliberations in its Drafting Committee and, sometimes, in discussions in the Congress Parliamentary Party. This chapter notes that the redrafting of Article 370 and a review of the Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir are necessary. It holds that amendments must be based on agreement between all the major parties in Jammu and Kashmir. Given the political will, sincerity of purpose, and a spirit of compromise, it is not difficult to retrieve from the wreckage of Article 370 a constitutional settlement which satisfies the aspirations of the people of Jammu and Kashmir.

This chapter presents a letter dated 17 May 1949 by N. Gopalaswami Ayyangar to Vallabhbhai Patel enclosing Jawaharlal Nehru’s draft letter to Sheikh Abdullah for his approval; a draft of Article 306(A) as proposed by the Government of Jammu and Kashmir; and various correspondences on the redraft of Article 306(A). The remaining documents include Ayyangar’s detailed exposition of Article 370 in the Constituent Assembly on 17 October 1949; Sheikh Abdullah’s letter to N. Gopalaswami Ayyangar complaining of unilateral alteration of the Article and Ayyangar’s reply; Patel’s letter to Nehru justifying the alteration; the proclamation by Yuvaraj Karan Singh accepting the new constitution as drafted by the Constituent Assembly; temporary provisions with respect to the state of Jammu and Kashmir; the President of India’s First Order under Article 370 applying the Constitution to Jammu and Kashmir on 26 January 1950; and the special provisions regarding Jammu & Kashmir.

This chapter describes the resolution of the All J&K National Conference on convening a Constituent Assembly for the state; Sheikh Abdullah’s letter to Ayyangar on 16 January 1951 and Ayyangar’s comments; and Union Home Minister C. Rajagopalachari’s comments on the letter in his letter to Ayyangar; Bakshi Ghulam Mohammed in the Constituent Assembly of Kashmir. It also presents the proclamation dated 1 May 1951 convening Jammu & Kashmir’s Constituent Assembly; Sheikh Abdullah’s speech to the Constituent Assembly on 5 November 1951; the appointment of an Advisory Committee on Fundamental Rights and citizenship; the appointment of a Basic Principles Committee; the election of Jammu & Kashmir’s representatives to both Houses of Parliament on 25 March 1952; the resolution on the state’s flag; the interim report of the Basic Principles Committee; and the adoption of the report by the Constituent Assembly.

This chapter examines the national contexts in which Kashmiri refugees emerged as rights-bearing political subjects in the postcolonial period. In the years immediately following World War II, forced displacement emerged as a global phenomenon. In South Asia, about 10 million people were accommodated in refugee camps and refugee resettlement villages during the Partition of colonial India. This chapter first provides an overview of the link between humanitarian internationalism and refugee regimes in the post-war period before discussing the legal and administrative management of displacement and resettlement that framed people's material conditions and political identities while also making refugee return a social fact that influenced the formation of the Kashmiri refugee family. It then considers how, within the South Asian refugee regime, Kashmiri refugees in Azad Jammu and Kashmir used their status of “difference” from Partition refugees and the “temporary” nature of their resettlement to enforce limits on the coercive power of the Pakistani state.

This chapter describes how the expressions ‘Sadar-i-Riyasat’ and ‘Prime Minister’ were replaced with the terms ‘Governor’ and ‘Chief Minister’. The first section of this chapter presents the Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir (Sixth Amendment) Act of 1965. The second section presents the Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir as amended. It details the Governor as the head of state, the terms of his office, the qualifications needed, and the conditions of office.

The chapter locates the 2009 Parliamentary elections in the context of the changes taking place in the politics of the state in the first decade of this century. It is important to understand the implications of the expansion of the democratic sphere for separatist politics as well as the implications of the separatist movement on democratic politics. The chapter also seeks to analyse the intra-state complexities, particularly the inter-regional tensions and assertions and their implications for the power politics of the state. Since the 2009 Parliamentary elections took place in the state against a backdrop of massive mobilization and turbulence in both Jammu and Kashmir in 2008, it specifically focuses on the Amarnath Agitation and its implications for the democratic and separatist politics of the state. It also makes detailed references to the 2008 Assembly elections which preceded the Parliamentary elections and seeks to compare the political response in these two elections.

Omar Abdullah hails from arguably Kashmir’s most prominent political family. The Abdullahs have been at the forefront of Kashmir politics ever since Maharaja Hari Singh signed the accession of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir to India in October 1947. Omar Abdullah’s political career has seen many highs and lows. He was the chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir at the age of 38, he served as a minister in the BJP led government in New Delhi, and in 2019–20 he spent almost eight months in detention in Kashmir. As a Kashmiri politician from the valley, Omar has learned to walk multiple tightropes, including a Kashmiri and Indian identity.

This chapter provides the historical background to Jammu and Kashmir from the establishment of the kingdom of Jammu and Kashmir in the mid-nineteenth century to the inception of the ‘Kashmir question’ in 1947 and finally to the conflict which began in 1989–90. The chapter then discusses the Kashmiri Pandits who have their own history of the region. There is controversy with regards to the causes of the Pandit exodus, with blame laid at both Kashmiri nationalists and the Indian state. The account of the Pandit exodus is thus subject to confusion and denial. This chapter attempts to reconstruct a narrative of the exodus through newspaper archives and interviews and conversations with the Pandits themselves. The emergent narrative, while partial reveals the fissures with regards to location of the Pandits in Kashmiri and Indian politics and also raises questions regarding accounts of violence in South Asia at large.

Studies of forced migration involve a number of concerns—categories and definitions of forced migration, approaches to forced migrants from different disciplinary positions, and the history and political context of situations of forced migration and displacement. This chapter will set the tone of the book by introducing the case of the Kashmiri Pandits situating them in the fields of forced migration studies, the disciplines of anthropology and sociology and the larger literature on Kashmir. While there are different categories of forced migrants, the category of the refugee has often taken centre stage in scholarship, policy, and popular culture. This chapter seeks to situate the Kashmiri Pandits as a contribution to studies of internal displacement, a category that is well known but yet to be as extensively studied as refugees.

This chapter presents the Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir. The text includes the preamble, preliminary, definitions, the relationship of the state with the Union of India, the territory of the state, the extent of its executive and legislative power, permanent residents, construction of references to state subjects in existing laws, the Sadar–i–Riyasat as the head of state, election and recognition, term and conditions of office, the Council of Ministers, provision relating to Pakistan occupied territory, the breakdown of constitutional machinery, the flag and official language of the state, and the amendment of the Constitution. A brief second section of this chapter defines the state subject.

This chapter presents extracts from the British Cabinet Mission’s statement on 16 May 1946; the Cabinet Mission’s memorandum on Indian states, treaties, and paramountcy; the Indian Independence Act of 1947; the Government of India Act, 1935, as adapted on 15 August 1947 by the India Order; and the white paper on Jammu and Kashmir, Government of India. The chapter also details the instrument of accession of the state of Jammu and Kashmir that was signed by Maharaja Hari Singh on 26 October 1947; Maharaja’s letter to the Governor-General of India, Lord Mountbatten, and the Governor-General’s letter in reply; Maharaja’s Emergency Administration Order on October 30, 1947 appointing Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah as the head of the administration; Maharaja’s proclamation on 5 March 1948 appointing a popular interim government; and the proclamation entrusting Yuvaraj Karan Singh with all the Maharaja’s powers on 9 June 1949.

This chapter traces the roots of the boundary dispute between India and China. Britain acquired in its boundary problem with China, when in 1846, it added to its sprawling Empire the State of Jammu & Kashmir, which it had created anew. When India became independent on 15 August 1947, it acquired a latent boundary dispute with China in the east — the McMahon Line. A western and more complex dimension was added on the accession of the State of Jammu & Kashmir to India on 26 October 1947. The crucial question is—to what boundaries was India entitled in law when it became independent on 15 August 1947 and China, likewise, was entitled on 1 October 1949 when the People's Republic of China was established?

Article 370 of the Indian Constitution was intended to guarantee Kashmir's autonomy. The Constitution was amended four times to extend the president's rule imposed in Punjab on 11 May 1987. This was also the result achieved for the state of Jammu and Kashmir from 1990 to 1996, by issuing executive orders under Article 370. On 26 June 1990, the state Assembly adopted a resolution accepting the report of the State Autonomy Committee (the Report) and calling on the leaders of the Union as well as Jammu and Kashmir to implement the same. On 26 October 1947, the ruler of Jammu and Kashmir acceded to India by an Instrument of Accession with respect to only three areas: defence, communications, and foreign affairs. These three areas are among the six special provisions embodied in Article 370 for Jammu and Kashmir.