When the discovery finally dawned, it was deserving of a contemporary 'Eureka!' For days on end after the J&K Autonomy Report came into the limelight last June, everyone who counts wrote on it without clarifying what the Report's demand for the "pre-1953" status meant and why that precise demand was made.

Literally thousands of words were written on J&K's autonomy call; scores of interviews and several panel discussions were conducted. But the "pre-1953" issue remained an unexplored mystery, indicating, incidentally, the standard of our media's professionalism.

And then suddenly, 'Eureka!' It came full 45 days after the J&K Assembly's autonomy resolution of June 26, 2000. Writing in The Hindu of August 9, the veteran journalist, Pran Chopra, revealed that what the J&K State's Autonomy Report demands unilaterally is that, "The Union government should withdraw such extensions of its jurisdiction over the State which Parliament legislated after the arrest of Sheikh Abdullah" (on August 9, 1953). Pray why? According to Chopra, the autonomy report's argument is that "with the Sheikh in prison the State's government and Legislature had lost the mandate of the people."

rest of the article is at http://www.rediff.com/news/2000/sep/05arvind.htm

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