Article 370 scrapping gets brief textbook mention

NEW DELHI: The landmark nullification of the provisions of Article 370 finds just a perfunctory one sentence mention in the revised Class XII political science textbook for the academic year 2020-21 while a reference to the UN “plebiscite” resolution has also been added with a conclusion that it could not be implemented.
The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) mentions the Article 370 development in a fleeting manner in the text Politics in India Since Independence, under the chapter ‘Regional Aspirations’, where the section on Jammu and Kashmir runs from pages 151-158.
The sentence on page 158 reads: “On 5 August 2019, Article 370 was abolished by the Jammu & Kashmir Reorganisation Act 2019 and the state was constituted into two Union Territories, viz., Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh.”

NCERT has interestingly introduced a detailed reference to the UN Resolution, dated April 21 1948, which India had strongly opposed and which is seen to have fallen into disuse. This passage discusses the resolution’s three-step process to resolve the issue: “However, as Pakistan continued to control a sizeable part of the state, the issue was taken to the Union Nations Organisation, which in its resolution dated 21 April 1948 recommended... Firstly, Pakistan had to withdraw its entire nationalities, who entered into Kashmir. Secondly, India needed to progressively reduce its forces so as to maintain law and order. Thirdly, a plebiscite was to be conducted in a free and impartial manner. However, no progress could be achieved under this resolution.” (page 154).
The chapter deals in detail with issues concerning the post-1947 history of J& K like roots of the problem, external and internal disputes, politics since 1948, insurgency and after, events of 2002 and beyond. This long section also retains two half-page photos of front-page newspaper stories — ‘Kashmir Accedes to India’ and ‘Sheikh Abdullah Arrested’. But the section doesn’t offer any of the government’s reasoning on nullification of Article 370. An irreverent reference to Jawaharlal Nehru has also been deleted. On page 156, a passage had earlier noted, ‘So, Nehru kept his friend (Sheikh Abdullah) in jail for such a long period! How did they feel about it?’