Manish Tewari was speaking in Lok Sabha a day after the Narendra Modi-led NDA government made public its decision to effectively scrap Article 370
The erotic novel 50 Shades of Grey found an unlikely mention during the fiery debate on Article 370 in Lok Sabha on Tuesday when Congress leader Manish Tewari used the novel’s title to explain his party’s stand on the issue of scrapping the controversial law.
Manish Tewari was speaking in Lok Sabha a day after the Narendra Modi-led NDA government made public its decision to effectively scrap Article 370, which grants special status to Jammu & Kashmir, and to divide the state of Jammu and Kashmir into two Union Territories. Both those decisions were ratified by the Rajya Sabha on Monday.
On Monday, the debate over the two decisions reached Lok Sabha, where Manish Tewari rose and spoke out against the manner in which the government effected the two decisions.
At the end of his speech, Home Minister Amit Shah, who announced the two decisions, countered by asking Tewari to make his party’s stand on the issue crystal clear. “I just want a little bit of clarity from Manishji,” Amit Shah said. “He didn’t say whether the Congress supports the scrapping of Article 370 or not. Please make this clear.”
To this, Manish Tewari responded: “Angreezi ki ek kitaab hai… har cheez kaali ya safed nahi hoti… there are 50 shades of grey in between.” [There is a book in English… not everything is black or white… there are 50 shades of grey in between.]
Tewari was of course referring to 50 Shades of Grey in the 2011 erotic novel by EL James.
Tewari went on to suggest that the Congress party’s opposition was to the manner in which the Modi government pushed its decisions on Jammu and Kashmir through Parliament.
ADVERTISEMENT
What happened?
On Monday, Home Minister Amit Shah addressed Rajya Sabha to say that the government was moving to make Article 370 ineffective and to bifurcate the state of Jammu and Kashmir.
In order to nullify Article 370, the government got a Presidential order that used a clause of Article 370 itself to say that the article’s provisions would no longer be applicable. With this, the government did away with the need to introduce an amendment to formally revoke Article 370.
And to bifurcate Jammu and Kashmir, the government introduced a Bill. The Bill would divide Jammu and Kashmir into the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir and the Union Territory of Ladkah.
The UT of Jammu and Kashmir would have a legislature, like Delhi while Ladakh would not.
READ | Article 370: Congress divided over abrogation of special status to Jammu and Kashmir
READ | Adhir Ranjan embarrasses Congress, says Article 370 not an internal issue, Amit Shah hits back
READ | From Partition to history in a stroke, how Indian newspapers covered Centre’s move on Article 370
READ | Kashmir: How govt used Article 370 to kill Article 370
WATCH | Jammu & Kashmir split into two, this is what the J&K map will look like now
Leave a Reply