The RSS: Icons of the Indian Right

by Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay

Syama Prasad Mookerjee was a member of the Nehru Cabinet when on 17 October 1949, the Constituent Assembly had adopted the resolution to provide special status to the state of Jammu & Kashmir. When N. Gopalaswami Ayyangar, a ministerial colleague and member of the drafting committee, in a reply to a query from Maulana Hasrat Mohani, the Urdu poet and member of the House, had stated that Article 370 in the Constitution was being inserted ‘due to the special conditions of Kashmir. That particular State is not yet ripe for this kind of integration. It is the hope of everybody here that in due course even Jammu and Kashmir will become ripe for the same sort of integration as has taken place in the case of other States,’ Syama Prasad Mookerjee had acquiesced to the formulation.