Nationalism In India And Southwest Asia Chapter 14 Section 4: Fill & Download for Free

Jammu and Kashmir (/ˈdʒæmuː, ˈdʒʌmuː/ and /kæʃˈmɪər, ˈkæʃmɪər/ (listen)[11]) is a state in northern India, often denoted by its acronym, J&K. It is located mostly in the Himalayan mountains, and shares borders with the states of Himachal Pradesh and Punjab to the south. The Line of Control separates it from the Pakistani-administered territories of Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan in the west and north respectively, and a Line of Actual Control separates it from the Chinese-administered territory of Aksai Chin in the east. The state has special autonomy under Article 370 of the Constitution of India.[12][13]A part of the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, the region is the subject of a territorial conflict among India, Pakistan and China. The western districts of the former princely state known as Azad Kashmir and the northern territories known as Gilgit-Baltistan have been under Pakistani control since 1947.[note 2]The Aksai Chin region in the east, bordering Tibet, has been under Chinese control since 1962.Jammu and Kashmir consists of three regions: Jammu, the Kashmir Valley and Ladakh. Srinagar is the summer capital, and Jammu is the winter capital. Jammu and Kashmir is the only state in India with a Muslim-majority population.[19]The Kashmir valley is famous for its beautiful mountainous landscape, and Jammu's numerous shrines attract tens of thousands of Hindu pilgrims every year, while Ladakh is renowned for its remote mountain beauty and Buddhist culture.Contents1 History 1.1 Accession 1.2 Debate over accession2 Geography and climate3 Administrative divisions 3.1 Urban Local Bodies (ULB) List4 Demographics5 Politics and government 5.1 Separatist insurgency and militancy since 19896 Economy 6.1 Agriculture7 Tourism8 Culture9 Education10 Sports11 See also12 Notes13 References14 Further reading15 External linksHistoryAccessionMain articles: History of Kashmir, Jammu and Kashmir (princely state), and Kashmir conflictMaharaja of Kashmir, Hari Singh (1895–1961)The Instrument of Accession of Kashmir to India was accepted by Governor General Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma.Maharaja Hari Singh became the ruler of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir in 1925, and he was the reigning monarch at the conclusion of the British rule in the subcontinent in 1947. With the impending independence of India, the British announced that the British Paramountcy over the princely states would end, and the states were free to choose between the new Dominions of India and Pakistan or to remain independent. It was emphasized that independence was only a ‘theoretical possibility’ because, during the long rule of the British in India, the states had come to depend on British Indian government for a variety of their needs including their internal and external security.Jammu and Kashmir had a Muslim majority (77% Muslim by the previous census in 1941[20]). Following the logic of Partition, many people in Pakistan expected that Kashmir would join Pakistan. However, the predominant political movement in the Valley of Kashmir (Jammu and Kashmir National Conference) was secular and was allied with the Indian National Congress since the 1930s. So many in India too had expectations that Kashmir would join India.[21][22]The Maharaja was faced with indecision.[note 3]On 22 October 1947, rebellious citizens from the western districts of the State and Pushtoon tribesmen from the Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan invaded the State, backed by Pakistan.[23][24]The Maharaja initially fought back but appealed for assistance to India,[25][26]who agreed on the condition that the ruler accede to India.[27]Maharaja Hari Singh signed the Instrument of Accession on 26 October 1947 in return for military aid and assistance,[28]which was accepted by the Governor General the next day.[29][30]While the Government of India accepted the accession, it added the proviso that it would be submitted to a "reference to the people" after the state is cleared of the invaders, since "only the people, not the Maharaja, could decide where the people of J&K wanted to live." It was a provisional accession.[31][32][33][note 4]Once the Instrument of Accession was signed, Indian soldiers entered Kashmir with orders to evict the raiders. The resulting Indo-Pakistani War of 1947 lasted till the end of 1948. At the beginning of 1948, India took the matter to the United Nations Security Council. The Security Council passed a resolution asking Pakistan to withdraw its forces as well as the Pakistani nationals from the territory of Jammu and Kashmir, and India to withdraw the majority of its forces leaving only a sufficient number to maintain law and order, following which a plebiscite would be held. A ceasefire was agreed on 1 January 1949, supervised by UN observers.[34]A special United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan (UNCIP) was set up to negotiate the withdrawal arrangements as per the Security Council resolution. The UNCIP made three visits to the subcontinent between 1948 and 1949, trying to find a solution agreeable to both India and Pakistan.[35]It passed a resolution in August 1948 proposing a three-part process. It was accepted by India but effectively rejected by Pakistan.[note 5]In the end, no withdrawal was ever carried out, India insisting that Pakistan had to withdraw first, and Pakistan contending that there was no guarantee that India would withdraw afterward.[36]No agreement could be reached between the two countries on the process of demilitarization.[37]India and Pakistan fought two further wars in 1965 and 1971. Following the latter war, the countries reached the Simla Agreement, agreeing on a Line of Control between their respective regions and committing to a peaceful resolution of the dispute through bilateral negotiations.Debate over accessionThe primary argument for the continuing debate over the ownership of Kashmir is that India did not hold the promised plebiscite. In fact, neither side has adhered to the UN resolution of 13 August 1948; while India chose not to hold the plebiscite, Pakistan failed to withdraw its troops from Kashmir as was required under the resolution.India gives the following reasons for not holding the plebiscite:"WE, THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF JAMMU AND KASHMIR,having solemnly resolved, in pursuance of the accession of this State to India which took place on the twenty-sixth day of October 1947, to further define the existing relationship of the State with the Union of India as an integral part thereof, and to secure to ourselves-JUSTICE, social, economic and political;LIBERTY of thought, expression, belief, faith, and worship;EQUALITY of status and of opportunity; and to promote among us all;FRATERNITY assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity of the nation;IN OUR CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY this seventeenth day of November, 1956, do HEREBY ADOPT, ENACT AND GIVETO OURSELVES THIS CONSTITUTION."-Preamble of Constitution of Jammu & Kashmir.[38]United Nations Security Council Resolution 47 on Kashmir was passed by UNSC under chapter VI of UN Charter, which are non-binding and have no mandatory enforceability.[39][40] In March 2001, the then Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan during his visit to India and Pakistan, remarked that Kashmir resolutions are only advisory recommendations and comparing with those on East Timor and Iraq was like comparing apples and oranges, since those resolutions were passed under chapter VII, which make it enforceable by UNSC.[41][42][43][44][45][46] In 2003, then Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf announced that Pakistan was willing to back off from demand for UN resolutions for Kashmir if India accepted Kashmir as a disputed territory and agreed on that basis to sit with Pakistan to solve the problem.[47][48][49]Moreover, India alleges that Pakistan failed to fulfill the pre-conditions by withdrawing its troops from the Kashmir region as was required under the same UN resolution of 13 August 1948 which discussed the plebiscite.[50][51][52][53]India has consistently held that UN resolutions are now completely irrelevant and Kashmir dispute is a bilateral issue and it has to be resolved under 1972 Simla Agreement and 1999 Lahore Declaration.[54][55][56]The 1948–49 UN resolutions can no longer be applied, according to India, because of changes in the original territory, with some parts "having been handed over to China by Pakistan and demographic changes having been effected in Azad Kashmir and the Northern Areas."[citation needed]Another reason for the abandonment of the referendum is because demographic changes after 1947 have been effected in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, as generations of Pakistani individuals non-native to the region have been allowed to take residence in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.[50][57] Furthermore, India alleges that the demographics of the Kashmir Valley have been altered after separatist militants coerced 250,000 Kashmiri Hindus to leave the region.[58][59][60]India cites the 1951 elected Constituent assembly of Jammu and Kashmir, which voted in favour of confirming accession to India. Also, the 2014 assembly elections saw the highest voter turnout in the state in the last 25 years, prompting Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi to claim that it reflects the faith of the Kashmiri people in the democratic system of India and that they have given a "strong message to the world".[61][62]In response Pakistan holds that:A statement from the British Cabinet Mission in India in 1946 confirmed that Jammu and Kashmir, a princely state at the time of partition, was a sovereign territory, and Article 7 of the Indian Independence Act of 1947 dealing with lapse of suzerainty of the British Crown over the Indian states reaffirmed this fact, so the Kashmiri people had a vested right of self-determination from the time of independence.[63]The Kashmiri's right of self-determination was further secured by the progressive development of customary international law in relation to this collective freedom. General Assembly Resolution 1514 (1960) firmly recognized the right of colonial people to self-determination; and General Assembly Resolution 2625 (1970) subsequently affirmed the right of internal self-determination, of which the population of Kashmir has consistently been deprived.[63]The popular Kashmiri insurgency which erupted on 1989 demonstrates that the Kashmiri people no longer wish to remain within India. Pakistan suggests that this means that Kashmir either wants to be with Pakistan or independent.[64]According to the two-nation theory, which is one of the theories that is cited for the partition that created India and Pakistan, Kashmir should have been with Pakistan, because it has a Muslim majority.[citation needed]India has shown disregard to the resolutions of the UN Security Council and the United Nations Commission in India and Pakistan by failing to hold a plebiscite to determine the future allegiance of the state.[65]In 2007 there were reports of extrajudicial killings in Indian-administered Kashmir by Indian security forces while claiming they were caught up in encounters with militants. The encounters go largely uninvestigated by the authorities, and the perpetrators are spared criminal prosecution.[66][67] Human rights organisations have strongly condemned Indian troops for widespread abuses and murder of civilians while accusing these civilians of being militants.[68][69][70]Diplomatic relations between India and Pakistan soured for many other reasons[27]and eventually resulted in three further wars in Kashmir: the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, the Indo-Pakistan War of 1971 and the Kargil War in 1999. India has control of 45% of the area of the former Princely State of Jammu and Kashmir (Jammu, Kashmir Valley, Ladakh and Siachen Glacier); Pakistan controls 35% of the region (Gilgit–Baltistan and Azad Kashmir). China administers 20% (Aksai Chin and Trans-Karakoram Tract) of the state since 1962.[71]The Chenab formula was a compromise proposed in the 1960s, in which the Kashmir valley and other Muslim-dominated areas north of the Chenab river would go to Pakistan, and Jammu and other Hindu-dominated regions would go to India.[72]The eastern region of the erstwhile princely state has also been beset with a boundary dispute. In the late 19th- and early 20th centuries, although some boundary agreements were signed between Great Britain, Tibet, Afghanistan and Russia over the northern borders of Kashmir[citation needed], China never accepted these agreements, and the official Chinese position did not change with the communist revolution in 1949. By the mid-1950s the Chinese army had entered the northeast portion of Ladakh.[73]By 1956–57 they had completed a military road through the Aksai Chin area to provide better communication between Xinjiang and western Tibet. India's belated discovery of this road led to border clashes between the two countries that culminated in the Sino-Indian war of October 1962.[74]China has occupied Aksai Chin since 1962 and, in addition, an adjoining region, the Trans-Karakoram Tract was ceded by Pakistan to China in 1963.For intermittent periods between 1957, when the state approved its own Constitution,[75]and the death of Sheikh Abdullah in 1982, the state had alternating spells of stability and discontent. In the late 1980s, however, simmering discontent over the high-handed policies of the Union Government[76]and allegations of the rigging of the 1987 assembly elections[76]triggered a violent uprising which was backed by Pakistan.[77]Since then, the region has seen a prolonged, bloody conflict between separatists and the Indian Army, both of whom have been accused of widespread human rights abuses, including abductions, massacres, rapes and armed robbery.[78][79][80][81][82][83][84][85][86][87]The army has officially denied these allegations.[88]However, violence in the state has been on the decline since 2004 with the peace process between India and Pakistan.[89]Geography and climateMain article: Geography of Jammu and KashmirSaser Kangri touching sky at 25,171 ft in LadakhKashmir Vale with an average elevation of 5,249 ftPlains of Jammu with an average elevation of 1,300 ftJammu and Kashmir is home to several valleys such as the Kashmir Valley, Tawi Valley, Chenab Valley, Poonch Valley, Sind Valley and Lidder Valley. The main Kashmir Valley is 100 km (62 mi) wide and 15,520.3 km2(5,992.4 sq mi) in area. The Himalayas divide the Kashmir valley from Ladakh while the Pir Panjal range, which encloses the valley from the west and the south, separates it from the Great Plains of northern India. Along the northeastern flank of the Valley runs the main range of the Himalayas. This densely settled and beautiful valley has an average height of 1,850 metres (6,070 ft) above sea-level but the surrounding Pir Panjal range has an average elevation of 5,000 metres (16,000 ft).Because of Jammu and Kashmir's wide range of elevations, its biogeography is diverse. Northwestern thorn scrub forests and Himalayan subtropical pine forests are found in the low elevations of the far southwest. These give way to a broad band of western Himalayan broadleaf forests running from northwest-southeast across the Kashmir Valley. Rising into the mountains, the broadleaf forests grade into western Himalayan subalpine conifer forests. Above the tree line are found northwestern Himalayan alpine shrub and meadows. Much of the northeast of the state is covered by the Karakoram-West Tibetan Plateau alpine steppe. Around the highest elevations, there is no vegetation, simply rock and ice.The Jhelum River is the only major Himalayan river which flows through the Kashmir valley. The Indus, Tawi, Ravi and Chenab are the major rivers flowing through the state. Jammu and Kashmir is home to several Himalayan glaciers. With an average altitude of 5,753 metres (18,875 ft) above sea-level, the Siachen Glacier is 76 km (47 mi) long making it the longest Himalayan glacier.The climate of Jammu and Kashmir varies greatly owing to its rugged topography. In the south around Jammu, the climate is typically monsoonal, though the region is sufficiently far west to average 40 to 50 mm (1.6 to 2 inches) of rain per month between January and March. In the hot season, Jammu city is very hot and can reach up to 40 °C (104 °F) whilst in July and August, very heavy though erratic rainfall occurs with monthly extremes of up to 650 millimeters (25.5 inches). In September, rainfall declines, and by October conditions are hot but extremely dry, with minimal rainfall and temperatures of around 29 °C (84 °F).Across from the Pir Panjal range, the South Asian monsoon is no longer a factor and most precipitation falls in the spring from southwest cloudbands. Because of its closeness to the Arabian Sea, Srinagar receives as much as 635 millimetres (25 in) of rain from this source, with the wettest months being March to May with around 85 millimetres (3.3 inches) per month. Across from the main Himalaya Range, even the southwest cloudbands break up and the climate of Ladakh and Zanskar is extremely dry and cold. Annual precipitation is only around 100 mm (4 inches) per year and humidity is very low. In this region, almost all above 3,000 metres (9,750 ft) above sea level, winters are extremely cold. In Zanskar, the average January temperature is −20 °C (−4 °F) with extremes as low as −40 °C (−40 °F). All the rivers freeze over and locals make river crossings during this period because their high levels from glacier melt in summer inhibits crossing. In summer in Ladakh and Zanskar, days are typically a warm 20 °C (68 °F), but with the low humidity and thin air nights can still be cold.DivisionArea km2Percentage AreaKashmir15,94815.73%Jammu26,29325.93%Ladakh59,14658.33%Jammu and Kashmir101,387 km2100%Administrative divisionsMain article: List of districts in Jammu and KashmirJammu and Kashmir consists of three divisions: Jammu, Kashmir Valley and Ladakh, and is further divided into 22 districts.[90]The Siachen Glacier, although under Indian military control, does not lie under the administration of the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Kishtwar, Ramban, Reasi, Samba, Bandipora, Ganderbal, Kulgam and Shopian are newly formed districts, and their areas are included with those of the districts from which they were formed.[90]DivisionNameHeadquartersArea (km²)Population2001 CensusPopulation2011 CensusJammuKathua DistrictKathua2,651550,084615,711Jammu DistrictJammu3,0971,343,7561,526,406Samba DistrictSamba904245,016318,611Udhampur DistrictUdhampur4,550475,068555,357Reasi DistrictReasi1,719268,441314,714Rajouri DistrictRajouri2,630483,284619,266Poonch DistrictPoonch1,674372,613476,820Doda DistrictDoda11,691320,256409,576Ramban DistrictRamban1,329180,830283,313Kishtwar DistrictKishtwar1,644190,843231,037Total for divisionJammu26,2934,430,1915,350,811Kashmir ValleyAnantnag DistrictAnantnag3,984734,5491,069,749Kulgam DistrictKulgam1,067437,885423,181Pulwama DistrictPulwama1,398441,275570,060Shopian DistrictShopian612.87211,332265,960Budgam DistrictBudgam1,371629,309755,331Srinagar DistrictSrinagar2,228990,5481,250,173Ganderbal DistrictGanderbal259211,899297,003Bandipora DistrictBandipora398316,436385,099Baramulla DistrictBaramulla4,588853,3441,015,503Kupwara DistrictKupwara2,379650,393875,564Total for divisionSrinagar15,9485,476,9706,907,622LadakhKargil DistrictKargil14,036119,307143,388Leh DistrictLeh45,110117,232147,104Total for divisionLeh59,146236,539290,492Total101,38710,143,70012,548,925Urban Local Bodies (ULB) ListMunicipal corporations: 2SrinagarJammuMunicipal councils: 6UdhampurKathuaPoonchAnantnagBaramullaSoporeMunicipal Committees: 70 – Akhnoor, Gho Manhasan, Bishnah, Arnia, RS Pura, Khour, Jourian, Samba, Vijaypur, Bari Brahmana, Ramgarh, Hiranagar, Basohli, Lakhenpur, Billawar, Parole, Rajouri, Sunderbani, Kalakote, Nowshera, Thanamandi, Kishtwar, Chenani, Ramnagar, Katra, Reasi, Doda, Thathri, Bhaderwah, Ramban, Batote, Banihal, Surankote, Achabal, Bijbehara, Kokernag, Mattan, Quazigund, Aishmuquam, Seer Hamdan, Verinag, Kulgam, Devsar, Yaripora, Frisal, Pulwama, Pampore, Tral, Khrew, Awantipora, Shopian, Ganderbal, Budgam, Khansahib, Magam, Beerwah, Chadoora, Charari Sharief, Kunzer, Pattan, Uri, Watergam, Bandipora, Sumbal, Hajin, Kupwara, Handwara, Langate, Leh, Kargil.[91]DemographicsVaishno Devi temple located in the state is one of the holiest Hindu temples dedicated to Shakti.Population increaseReligion in Jammu And Kashmir (2011)[94]Islam (68.31%)Hinduism (28.43%)Sikhism (1.87%)Buddhism (0.89%)Christianity (0.28%)Jainism (0.01%)Other or none (0.01%)Atheist (0.001%)Languages of Jammu and Kashmir (2011)[95]Kashmiri (53.27%)Hindi (20.83%)Dogri (20.04%)Punjabi (1.75%)Others (4.11%)The major ethnic groups living in Jammu and Kashmir include Kashmiris, Gujjars/Bakarwals, Paharis, Dogras and Ladakhis.[96]The Kashmiris live mostly in the main valley of Kashmir and Chenab valley of Jammu division with a minority living in the Pir Panjal region. The Pahari-speaking people mostly live in and around the Pir Panjal region with some in the northern Kashmir valley. The nomadic Gujjars and Bakerwals practice transhumance and mostly live in the Pirpanjal region. The Dogras are ethnically, linguistically and culturally related to the neighboring Punjabi people and mostly live in the Udhampur and Jammu districts of the state. The Ladakhis inhabit Ladakh region.Jammu and Kashmir is one of India's two administrative divisions (the other being the Union territory of Lakshadweep which is overwhelmingly Muslim) with a Muslim majority population. According to the 2011 census, Islam is practised by about 68.3% of the state population,[97]while 28.4% follow Hinduism and small minorities follow Sikhism (1.9%), Buddhism (0.9%) and Christianity (0.3%).[94]About 96.4% of the population of the Kashmir valley are Muslim followed by Hindus (2.45%) and Sikhs (0.98%) and others (0.17%)[98]Shias live in the district of Badgam, where they are a majority.[99]The Shia population is estimated to comprise 14% of the state's population.[100]In Jammu, Hindus constitute 62.55% of the population, Muslims 33.45% and Sikhs, 3.3%; In Ladakh (comprises Buddhists-dominated Leh and Shia Muslim-dominated Kargil), Muslims constitute about 46.4% of the population, the remaining being Buddhists (39.7%) and Hindus (12.1%).[98]The people of Ladakh are of Indo-Tibetan origin, while the southern area of Jammu includes many communities tracing their ancestry to the nearby Indian states of Haryana and Punjab, as well as the city of Delhi.According to political scientist Alexander Evans, approximately 99% of the total population of 160,000–170,000 of Kashmiri Brahmins, also called Kashmiri Pandits, (i.e. approximately 150,000 to 160,000) left the Kashmir Valley in 1990 as militancy engulfed the state.[101]According to an estimate by the Central Intelligence Agency, about 300,000 Kashmiri Pandits from the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir have been internally displaced due to the ongoing violence.[102]The pre-independence Census of 1941 recorded Muslims as constituting 72.41% of the population, and Hindus 25.01%. In the 1961 census, the first one to be conducted after the partition of the State, Muslims constituted 68.31% of the population and Hindus 28.45%. The proportion of Muslims fell to 64.19% by 1981 but recovered afterward, reaching 68.31% again by 2011.[103]Division% Area% PopulationPopulation% Muslim% Hindu% Sikh% Buddhist and otherKashmir15.73%54.93%6,888,47596.40%2.45%0.98%0.17%Jammu25.93%42.89%5,378,53833.45%62.55%3.30%0.70%Ladakh58.33%2.18%274,28946.40%12.11%0.82%39.67%Jammu and Kashmir100%100%12,541,30268.31%28.43%1.87%0.89%Statistics from the 2011 Census India: Population by religious community525,000 refugees from Indian-administered portions of the state (mainly the Jammu province) migrated to Pakistan and Azad Kashmir in 1947–48.[104][105]:125226,000 refugees from Pakistan-administered Kashmir migrated to India and Jammu and Kashmir in 1947–48.[104]An estimated 50,000-150,000 Kashmiri Muslims and 150,000–300,000 Kashmiri Pandits have been internally displaced due to the conflict.[101][106]In Jammu and Kashmir, the principal spoken languages are Kashmiri, Urdu, Dogri, Hindi, Punjabi, Pahari, Balti, Ladakhi, Gojri, Shina and Pashto. However, Urdu written in the Persian script is the official language of the state. Hindustani is widely understood by peoples. Many speakers of these languages use Urdu or English as a second language.[107]Urdu occupies a central space in media, education, religious and political discourses, and the legislature of Jammu and Kashmir. The language is said to function as a symbol of identity among Muslims of South Asia.[108]Additionally, as the language is regarded as a "neutral" and non-native language of the multilingual region, its acceptance was broadly accepted by Kashmiri Muslims.[109]The use of Urdu as the official language of Jammu and Kashmir has also been criticised by Rajeshwari V. Pandharipande of the University of Illinois on the basis that the language is spoken as a native language by less than 1% of the population, and has rendered Kashmiri, spoken by 53% of the population, into a functional "minority language," effectively restricting its use to home and family.[110][111]The Kashmir Valley is dominated by ethnic Kashmiris, who have largely driven the campaign for secession from India. Non-Kashmiri Muslim ethnic groups (Paharis, Gujjars and Bakarwalas), who dominate areas along the Line of Control, have remained indifferent to the separatist campaign.[citation needed]Jammu province region has a 70:30 Hindu-Muslim ratio. Parts of the region were hit by militants, but violence has ebbed there, along with the Valley, after India and Pakistan started a peace process in 2004.[112]Dogras (67%) are the single largest group in the multi-ethnic region of Jammu living with Punjabis, Kashmiris, Paharis, Bakerwals and Gujjars. Statehood is demanded in Hindu-dominated districts. Ladakh is the largest region in the state with over 200,000 people. Its two districts are Leh (68% Buddhist) and Kargil (91% Muslim population). Union territory status has been the key demand of Leh Buddhists for many years.[112]Politics and governmentMain articles: Politics of Jammu and Kashmir, Government of Jammu and Kashmir, Jammu and Kashmir Legislature, and Constitution of Jammu and KashmirSee also: Elections in Jammu and Kashmir and Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly election, 2014Narendra Modi in SrinagarJammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly (Jun 2018)Jammu and Kashmir is the only state in India which enjoys special autonomy under Article 370 of the Constitution of India, according to which no law enacted by the Parliament of India, except for those in the field of defence, communication and foreign policy, will be extendable in Jammu and Kashmir unless it is ratified by the state legislature of Jammu and Kashmir. Subsequently, jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of India over Jammu and Kashmir has been extended.[113]Jammu and Kashmir is the only Indian state to have its own official state flag along with national flag[114]and constitution. Indians from other states cannot purchase land or property in the state.[115]Designed by the then ruling National Conference, the flag of Jammu and Kashmir features a plough on a red background symbolising labour; it replaced the Maharaja's state flag. The three stripes represent the three distinct administrative divisions of the state, namely Jammu, Valley of Kashmir, and Ladakh.[116]In 1990, an Armed Forces Act, which gives special powers to the Indian security forces, has been enforced in Jammu and Kashmir.[117]The decision to invoke this act was criticised by the Human Rights Watch.[118]Amnesty International has strongly condemned the implementation of this Act that grants virtual immunity to security forces from prosecution.[119]Minar Pimple, Senior Director of Global Operations at Amnesty International states.[120]Like all the states of India, Jammu and Kashmir has a multi-party democratic system of governance with a bicameral legislature. At the time of drafting the Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir, 100 seats were earmarked for direct elections from territorial constituencies. Of these, 25 seats were reserved for the areas of Jammu and Kashmir State that came under Pakistani occupation; this was reduced to 24 after the 12th amendment of the Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir:[121]"The territory of the State shall comprise all the territories which on the fifteenth day of August 1947, were under the sovereignty or suzerainty of the Ruler of the State" and Section 48 therein states that, "Notwithstanding anything contained in section 47, until the area of the State under the occupations of Pakistan ceases to so occupied and the people residing in that area elect their representatives (a) twenty-five seats in the Legislative Assembly shall remain vacant and shall not be taken into account for reckoning the total member-ship of the Assembly; and the said area shall be excluded in delimiting the territorial Constituencies Under Section 47".After a delimitation in 1988, the total number of seats increased to 111, of which 87 were within Indian-administered territory.[122]The Jammu & Kashmir Assembly is the only state in India to have a 6-year term, in contrast to the norm of a 5-year term followed in every other state's Assembly.[123]There was indication from the previous INC Government to bring parity with the other states,[124]but this does not seem to have received the required support to pass into law.Influential political parties include the Jammu & Kashmir National Conference (NC), the Indian National Congress (INC), the Jammu and Kashmir People's Democratic Party (PDP), the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and other smaller regional parties. After dominating Kashmir's politics for years, the National Conference's influence waned in 2002, when INC and PDP formed a political alliance and rose to power.[125]Under the power-sharing agreement, INC leader Ghulam Nabi Azad replaced PDP's Mufti Mohammad Sayeed as the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir in late 2005. However, in 2008, PDP withdrew its support from the government on the issue of temporary diversion of nearly 40 acres (16 ha) of land to the Sri Amarnath Shrine Board.[126]In the 2008 Kashmir Elections that were held from 17 November to 24 December, the National Conference party and the Congress party together won enough seats in the state assembly to form a ruling alliance.[127]In the 2014 election, the voter turnout was recorded at 65% – the highest in the history of the state. The results gave a fractured mandate to either parties – the PDP won 28 seats, BJP 25, NC 15 and INC 12. After 2 months of deliberations and president's rule, the BJP and the PDP announced an agreement for a coalition government, and PDP patron Mufti Mohammad Sayeed was sworn-in as CM for a second term, with Nirmal Singh of the BJP sworn-in as deputy CM. This also marked the first time in 35 years that the BJP was a coalition partner in the state government.The state has two autonomous councils in Ladakh, these are the LAHDC Leh and LAHDC Kargil.Separatist insurgency and militancy since 1989Destructed home of a Kashmiri HinduIn 1989, a widespread popular and armed insurgency[128][129]started in Kashmir. After the 1987 state legislative assembly election, some of the results were disputed. This resulted in the formation of militant wings and marked the beginning of the Mujahadeen insurgency, which continues to this day.[130]India contends that the insurgency was largely started by Afghan mujahadeen who entered the Kashmir valley following the end of the Soviet–Afghan War.[131]Yasin Malik, a leader of one faction of the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front, was one of the Kashmiris to organise militancy in Kashmir, along with Ashfaq Majid Wani and Farooq Ahmed Dar (alias Bitta Karate). Since 1995, Malik has renounced the use of violence and calls for strictly peaceful methods to resolve the dispute. Malik developed differences with one of the senior leaders, Farooq Siddiqui (alias Farooq Papa), for shunning demands for an independent Kashmir and trying to cut a deal with the Indian Prime Minister. This resulted in a split in which Bitta Karate, Salim Nanhaji, and other senior comrades joined Farooq Papa.[132][133]Pakistan claims these insurgents are Jammu and Kashmir citizens and are rising up against the Indian army as part of an independence movement. Amnesty International has accused security forces in Indian-controlled Kashmir of exploiting an Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act that enables them to "hold prisoners without trial". The group argues that the law, which allows security forces to detain individuals for up to two years without presenting charges violates prisoners' human rights.[134][135]In 2011, the state humans right commission said it had evidence that 2,156 bodies had been buried in 40 graves over the last 20 years.[135]The authorities deny such accusations. The security forces say the unidentified dead are militants who may have originally come from outside India. They also say that many of the missing people have crossed into Pakistan-administered Kashmir to engage in militancy.[135]However, according to the state human rights commission, among the identified bodies 574 were those of "disappeared locals", and according to Amnesty International's annual human rights report (2012) it was sufficient for "belying the security forces' claim that they were militants".[136]Separatist violence in the region has been observed to decline.[137]However, following the unrest in 2008, which included more than 500,000 protesters at a rally on 18 August, secessionist movements gained a boost.[138][139]Further the 2016–17 Kashmir unrest culminated in the deaths of more than 90 civilians,[140]with over 15,000 civilians injured.[141]The 2009 edition of the Freedom in the World (report) by the US-based NGO Freedom House rated Jammu and Kashmir as "Partly Free",[142]while in comparison, the same report rated Pakistan-administered Kashmir as "Not Free."[143]However, in the same report the Political rights and Civil liberties scored 6 and 5 respectively for Azad Kashmir[143]while as for Jammu and Kashmir[142]the scores were 5 and 4 respectively.Six policemen, including a sub-inspector were killed in an ambush by militants in Anantnag, Jammu and Kashmir on 15 June 2017, by trespassing militants of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba. 116 illegal trespassing cases along the India-Pak border in Jammu and Kashmir were reported in 2015 and 2016, including 88 in 2016. A total of 59 Army personnel have lost their lives in counter-terror operations in J&K since 2016.[144]EconomyEconomy of Jammu and KashmirFarming in LadakhCurrencyIndian RupeeStatisticsGDP₹1.16 lakh crore (US$16 billion) (2018–19 est.)GDP rank21stGDP growth6.9% (2018–19 est.)[6]GDP by sectorAgriculture 22%Industry 25%Services 56% (2018-19)Public financesPublic debt45.6% of GDP (2018–19 est.)[6]Revenues₹711 billion (US$9.9 billion) (2018–19 est.)[6]Expenses₹803 billion (US$11 billion) (2018–19 est.)[6]All values, unless otherwise stated, are in US dollars.Tourism forms an integral part of the state's economy. Shown here is the Shalimar Gardens. Mughal emperor Jahangir inscribed Amir Khusrau's famous paradise on Earth verse in the gardens.[145][146][147]Jammu and Kashmir's economy is predominantly dependent on agriculture and allied activities.[148]The Kashmir Valley is known for its sericulture and cold-water fisheries. Wood from Kashmir is used to make high-quality cricket bats, popularly known as Kashmir Willow. Kashmiri saffron is very famous and brings the state a handsome amount of foreign exchange. Agricultural exports from Jammu and Kashmir include apples, barley, cherries, corn, millet, oranges, rice, peaches, pears, saffron, sorghum, vegetables, and wheat, while manufactured exports include handicrafts, rugs, and shawls.Horticulture plays a vital role in the economic development of the state. With an annual turnover of over ₹3 billion (US$42 million), apart from foreign exchange of over ₹800 million (US$11 million), this sector is the next biggest source of income in the state's economy.[149]The region of Kashmir is known for its horticulture industry[150]and is the wealthiest region in the state.[151]Horticultural produce from the state includes apples, apricots, cherries, pears, plums, almonds and walnuts.[149]The Doda district has deposits of high-grade sapphire.[152]Though small, the manufacturing and services sector is growing rapidly, especially in the Jammu division. In recent years, several consumer goods companies have opened manufacturing units in the region. The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) has identified several industrial sectors which can attract investment in the state, and accordingly, it is working with the union and the state government to set up industrial parks and special economic zones.[153]In the fiscal year 2005–06, exports from the state amounted to ₹11.5 billion (US$160 million).[154]However, industrial development in the state faces several major constraints including extreme mountainous landscape and power shortage.[155]The Jammu & Kashmir Bank, which is listed as a S&P CNX 500 conglomerate, is based in the state. It reported a net profit of ₹598 million (US$8.3 million) in 2008.[156]The Government of India has been keen to economically integrate Jammu and Kashmir with the rest of India. The state is one of the largest recipients of grants from New Delhi, totalling US$812 million per year.[157]It has a mere 4% incidence of poverty, one of the lowest in the country.[157]In an attempt to improve the infrastructure in the state, Indian Railways is constructing the ambitious Jammu–Baramulla line project at a cost of more than US$2.5 billion.[158]Trains run on the 130 km Baramula-Banihal section. The 17.5 km Qazigund-Banihal section through the 11 km long Pir Panjal Railway Tunnel was commissioned. Udhampur-Katra section of the track was commissioned early in July 2014. The Katra-Banihal section is under construction. The route crosses major earthquake zones and is subjected to extreme temperatures of cold and heat, as well as inhospitable terrain, making it an extremely challenging engineering project. It is expected to increase tourism and travel to Kashmir. Three other railway lines, the Bilaspur–Mandi–Leh railway, Srinagar-Kargil-Leh railway and the Jammu-Poonch railway have been proposed.YearState's Gross Domestic Product (in million INR)1980₹11,860,000 (US$170,000)1985₹22,560,000 (US$310,000)1990₹36,140,000 (US$500,000)1995₹80,970,000 (US$1.1 million)2000₹147,500 million (US$2.1 billion)2006₹539,850 million (US$7.5 billion)2016₹1,323 billion (US$18 billion)[159]2017₹1,065 billion (US$15 billion)2018₹1,166 billion (US$16 billion)AgricultureGiven below is a table of 2015 national output share of select agricultural crops and allied segments in Jammu and Kashmir based on 2011 prices[160]SegmentNational Share %Walnut94.1Cherry93.8Almond90.5Apple25.2Pear22.3Wool and hair10.1TourismMain article: Tourism in Jammu and KashmirSkiing is popular in Gulmarg, showing cable car in a snow-clad mountain.Before the insurgency intensified in 1989, tourism formed an important part of the Kashmiri economy. The tourism economy in the Kashmir valley was worst hit. However, the holy shrines of Jammu and the Buddhist monasteries of Ladakh continue to remain popular pilgrimage and tourism destinations. Every year, thousands of Hindu pilgrims visit holy shrines of Vaishno Devi and Amarnath, which has had significant impact on the state's economy.[161]It was estimated in 2007 that the Vaishno Devi yatra contributed ₹4.75 billion (US$66 million) to the local economy annually a few years ago.[162]The contribution should be significantly greater now as the numbers of Indian visitors have increased considerably. Foreign tourists have been slower to return. The British government still advises against all travel to Jammu and Kashmir with the exception of the cities of Jammu and Srinagar, travel between these two cities on the Jammu-Srinagar highway, and the region of Ladakh,[163]while Canada excludes the entire region excepting Leh.Besides Kashmir, several areas in the Jammu region have a lot of tourist potential as well. Bahu Fort in Jammu city is the major attraction for the tourists visiting that city. Bage-e-Bahu is another tourist destination. The local aquarium, established by the fisheries department, is visited by many. Tourists from across India visit Jammu in a pilgrimage to Mata Vaishno Devi. Mata Vaishno Devi is located in the Trikuta Hills, about 40 to 45 km from Jammu City. Approximately 10 million Pilgrims visit this holy place every year.Tourism in the Kashmir valley has rebounded in recent years, and in 2009, the state became one of the top tourist destinations of India.[164]Gulmarg, one of the most popular ski resort destinations in India, is also home to the world's highest green golf course.[165]The state's recent decrease in violence has boosted the economy and tourism.[166]It was reported that more than a million tourists visited Kashmir in 2011.[167][168][169]CultureMain article: Culture of KashmirSee also: Kashmiriyat and Kashmiri cinemaSumda SculptureMother and Child, Kashmir, Charles W. Bartlett.Ladakh is famous for its unique Indo-Tibetan culture. Chanting in Sanskrit and Tibetan language forms an integral part of Ladakh's Buddhist lifestyle. Annual masked dance festivals, weaving and archery are an important part of traditional life in Ladakh. Ladakhi food has much in common with Tibetan food, the most prominent foods being thukpa, noodle soup; and tsampa, known in Ladakhi as Ngampe, roasted barley flour. Typical garb includes gonchas of velvet, elaborately embroidered waistcoats and boots, and gonads or hats. People adorned with gold and silver ornaments and turquoise headgears throng the streets during Ladakhi festivals.The Dumhal is a famous dance in the Kashmir Valley, performed by men of the Wattal region. The women perform the Rouff, another traditional folk dance. Kashmir has been noted for its fine arts for centuries, including poetry and handicrafts. Shikaras, traditional small wooden boats, and houseboats are a common feature in lakes and rivers across the Valley.Due to the special status the State enjoys in the Indian Union, people from outside the state cannot purchase land in the state. As a consequence, houseboats became popular among those who were unable to purchase land in the Valley and have now become an integral part of the Kashmiri lifestyle.[citation needed]Kehwa, traditional green tea with spices and almond, is consumed all through the day in the chilly winter climate of Kashmir. Most of the buildings in the Valley and Ladakh are made from softwood and are influenced by Indian, Tibetan, and Islamic architecture.Jammu's Dogra culture and tradition is very similar to that of neighboring Punjab and Himachal Pradesh. Traditional Punjabi festivals such as Lohri and Vaisakhi are celebrated with great zeal and enthusiasm throughout the region, along with Accession Day, an annual holiday which commemorates the accession of Jammu & Kashmir to the Dominion of India.[170]After Dogras, Gujjars form the second-largest ethnic group in Jammu. Known for their semi-nomadic lifestyle, Gujjars are also found in large numbers in the Kashmir Valley. Similar to Gujjars, Gaddis are primarily herdsmen who hail from the Chamba region in Himachal Pradesh. Gaddis is generally associated with emotive music played on the flute. The Bakkarwalas found both in Jammu and the Kashmir valley is wholly nomadic pastoral people who move along the Himalayan slopes in search of pastures for their huge flocks of goats and sheep.The Shri Pratap Singh Museum in Srinagar is the main repository of Kashmiri elite culture and royal heritage. The Meeras Mahal in Noor Bagh, near Sopore, founded by Atiqa Bano, holds the material and artistic heritage of the common folk.[171]EducationMain articles: List of institutions of higher education in Jammu and Kashmir and List of engineering colleges in Jammu and KashmirIn 1970, the state government of Jammu and Kashmir established its own education board and university. Education in the state is divided into primary, middle, high secondary, college and university level. Jammu and Kashmir follows the 10+2 pattern for education of children. This is handled by Jammu and Kashmir State Board of School Education (abbreviated as JKBOSE). Private and public schools are recognized by the board to impart education to students. Board examinations are conducted for students in class VIII, X and XII. In addition, there are Kendriya Vidyalayas (run by the Government of India) and Indian Army schools that impart secondary school education. These schools follow the Central Board of Secondary Education pattern.Notable higher education or research institutes in Jammu and Kashmir include the Indian Institute of Technology Jammu, Indian Institute of Management Jammu, National Institute of Technology, Srinagar, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Jammu, Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences, Srinagar, Government College of Engineering and Technology, Jammu, Government Medical College, Srinagar, All India Institute of Medical Science Awantipora , Acharya Shri Chandra college of medical sciences, Jammu and Government Medical College, Jammu, University-level education is provided by University of Kashmir, University of Jammu, Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology, Srinagar, Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology, Jammu, Islamic University of Science & Technology, Baba Ghulam Shah Badhshah University, Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University, Institution of Technicians and Engineers (Kashmir), Islamia College of Science and Commerce, Srinagar, Central University of Kashmir located at Ganderbal and Central University of Jammu located at Raya Suchani in the Samba district of Jammu.SportsSee also: Sports in Jammu and Kashmir, Real Kashmir F.C., and Jammu and Kashmir cricket teamRoyal Springs Golf Course SrinagarSports like cricket, football are famous along with sports like golf, skiing, water sports and adventure sports. Srinagar is home to the Sher-i-Kashmir Stadium, a stadium where international cricket matches have been played.[172]The first international match was played in 1983 in which West Indies defeated India and the last international match was played in 1986 in which Australia defeated India by six wickets. Since then no international match has taken place in the stadium due to the prevailing security situation.Maulana Azad Stadium is a stadium in Jammu and is one of the home venues for the Jammu and Kashmir cricket team. The stadium has hosted home games for Jammu and Kashmir in domestic tournaments since 1966. It has also hosted one One Day International in 1988 between India and New Zealand, which was abandoned due to rain without a ball being bowled. The stadium has played host to one women's test match where India lost to West Indies and one Women's One Day International where India beat New Zealand in 1985.Srinagar has an outdoor stadium namely Bakshi Stadium for hosting football matches.[173]It is named after Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad.The city has a golf course named Royal Springs Golf Course, Srinagar located on the banks of Dal lake, which is considered as one of the best golf courses of India.[174]Ladakh Marathon is held at Leh, is the marathon recognised by Association of International Marathons and Distance Races.[175]Being held at height of 11,500 feet, it is known as the highest marathon in the world.[176]In 2015, Ladakh Marathon was rated among "top ten nicest marathon" in the world.

The state-creation process in the Manifest Destiny period was built on the “admission of states” process in the U.S. Constitution: Article IV, section 3, clause 1:“New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.”The next section, 4, of Article IV mandates in its clause 1 that“The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government.”The typical process was that the federal government set boundary-lines upon territorial lands - which it would often adjust - and established an appointed territorial governor and appointed territorial courts, and the beginning of an elected territorial legislature. Congress then waited as more and more settlers arrived into the new territory.Eventually the population of the territory reached a minimum number (Congress would set this, and adjust it) and the territorial governor reported the population number to Congress.The elected members of the territorial legislature, or a special convention of the people of the territory, would then ask Congress for permission to write a constitution and, once written and adopted, apply to be a state. Typically a special convention would be elected to write the constitution.After the territorial constitutional convention adopted a constitution, that convention would send it to Congress and Congress would consider whether the constitution guaranteed a “republican form of government.”The “free state” or “slave state” issue would come up in the proposed constitution: the constitution would either ban slavery, or approve it. I won’t get into more detail about that, because it would divert this answer into a history of slavery and the lead-up to the Civil War.Congress has, as a matter of policy, declared that each new state shall be admitted “on an equal footing” with the existing states. This does deserve a brief legal note, in the civil War context.In the lead-up to the Civil War, 5 seceding states had been independent prior to joining (Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Texas) but the rest, 6, had been federal territories never independent (Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Louisiana, and Arkansas). It has not been examined whether Congress, by its policy of “equal footing,” had the power to authorize the people on a land that had never been independent to “secede” and take the land out of federal sovereignty, when the theory of secession was that a previously-independent state had a right, founded on its independent status, to revoke its decision to join and to return to independence. Tennessee alone recognized this legal problem, and founded its departure from the Union on the right of a people to revolution, and not on a “secession” right that was founded on a previous status of independence.Since the federals denied any reserved “secession” right even in the 5 previously-independent states, no legal case arose as to whether the 5 previously-territorial states that relied on “secession” (Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas) had, in fact, and inadvertently, thrown themselves back into territorial status, by purporting to “secede.”America’s lengthy experience in government creation is a subject I examined in detail between 2009 and 2014, among many other subjects, and America’s expertise in developing, framing, and putting-into-operation so many democratic, republican governments is a major reason why I titled my work “America the Great” when I posted it to amazon kindle in 2014.This appears as Chapter 7, titled “America, Maker of Governments.”A great defect of that chapter, indeed of the entire book, is that it meanders into different subjects; an editor was needed. But the research is sound, and so too the writing in making the points. It comes in handy for me when specific questions such as this one come up on Quora.In order for America to reach the 57 governments it has today – the 50 states, the District of Columbia, the federal government, and 5 organized territories – Americans had to form more than 100 governments during 400 years - 113 governments, to be precise. (And by this I do not mean the word “government” in the British sense of a change in Prime Minister, but in the establishment of the framework of institutions.)No people in the world has ever tried to accomplish this. The 1700s-1900s empires of Britain, France, and Spain did not establish governments, but administrative regions under the complete command of the central government, except in a few case at the very end of the decolonialization process.Creating states that have democratic governments under republican written constitutions is something that Americans know better than any other people in the world.The first two governments made by Americans were for the Jamestown and for the Plymouth colonies, the latter comprised in the Mayflower Pact. These were but governments for little settlements, begun in 1607 and 1620.Passing over the details of turbulent colonial histories (such as that New Jersey was for a time divided into West Jersey and East Jersey, and that Delaware was not de jure a separate colony, but was de facto), we then made 13 more governments, comprising each of the well-established thirteen colonies.At the time of the Revolution, each colony remade itself as an independent State, so here were 13 more governments made, replacing the colonial governments; and we made a Continental government, via the Articles of Confederation, to unite the 13. Some of the former colonies, now states, transferred to the sovereignty of the confederated union vast unsettled lands formerly a part of their original colonial claims. In 1787, under the Articles of Confederation, we formed a federal territorial government over the “Northwest Territory.”Thus, prior to the adoption of our present Constitution, we had already made 30 governments over a period of some 180 years: Jamestown, Plymouth, 13 colonies, 13 states, a union government under the Articles of Confederation, and the government of the Northwest Territories.Our current federal Constitution was thus the 31st government we Americans had made; and the wisdom reflected in its framing derived from the experience gained in forming and operating the preceding 30 governments over the preceding 180 years.The people in Vermont, having formed their own government, sorted out their differences with New York and New Hampshire, and on Vermont’s application, the federal congress for the first time reviewed and accepted the application of a new state to join the Union (1791); our total of governments formed now climbed to 32. Kentucky (1792) and Tennessee (1796) followed, each formed out of territory that had been part of the thirteen original states - although Tennessee first passed into territorial status, until it had sufficient population to apply, as a territory, for admission. 34 governments.In 1800, the federal government formed a second territorial government, Indiana Territory, for what had been part of the Northwest Territory.In 1801, the federal government formed a government for the District of Columbia, the national capital city.In 1803, the state of Ohio joined the Union, formed from part of the Northwest Territory.In 1804, following the Louisiana Purchase, we formed another federal territorial government, Orleans Territory (essentially what became the state of Louisiana), while the rest of the vast region was allocated to the Indiana Territorial government.In 1805, we established a new territorial government, Louisiana Territory, over the portion of the Purchase that had been allocated to Indiana Territory.Orleans (what we know today as the State of Louisiana) was the first territorial authorization that was entirely on land that had never been part of the colonial-era United States – as had been Vermont, and Kentucky, and Tennessee, and Ohio (Ohio being part of the Northwest Territory, which had been a colonial possession). It was the first territorial authorization for a people that were predominantly not Anglo – the people were predominantly French.Congress then entertained the idea that the people of Orleans ought to be authorized to apply for admission as a new state of the Union - which began the process that this question asks about: the process of creating states during the time of Manifest Destiny.On January 14, 1811, Massachusetts congressman Josiah Quincy stood up on the floor of the House and announced that it was unconstitutional, it was outside the power of the federal House and Senate and President, to authorize the creation of any state outside the lands of the original colonies. Representative Quincy said that if the House and Senate did it anyway, it would change the status and power of the original states in a fundamental way. Representative Quincy also said that because this change would diminish the stature of the states so greatly that the people of the states would find it so unacceptable that they would withdraw from the federal government.We find Rep. Quincy’s words at pages 327 to 334 of the January 1811 Abridgement of the Debates of Congress, on google books in the 1858 reprint compilation, volume IV, published by Appleton. I give probably more of his speech than most readers will want, but which needs to be included in a complete answer:“The friends of this bill [to enable the people of Orleans Territory to form a state government] seem to consider it as the exercise of a common power; as an ordinary affair; a mere municipal regulation which they expect to see pass without other questions than those concerning details. But, sir, the principle of this bill materially affects the liberties and rights of the whole people of the United States. To me, it appears that it would justify a revolution in this country; and that, in no great length of time, may produce it. …“It is to preserve, to guard the constitution of my country, that I denounce this attempt. …“The bill, which is now proposed to be passed, has assumed this principle for its basis – that the three branches of this National Government, without recurrence to the conventions of the people in the States, or to the legislatures of the States, are authorized to admit new partners to a share of the political power, in countries out of the original limits of the United States. Now, this assumed principle I maintain to be altogether without any sanction in the constitution. I declare it to be a manifest and atrocious usurpation of power; of a nature, dissolving, according to undeniable principles of moral law, the obligations of our national compact ….“[T]he introduction of a new associate in political power implies, necessarily, a new division of power, and consequent diminution of the relative proportion of the former proprietors of it ….“Sir, the question concerns the proportion of power, reserved by this constitution, to every State in the Union. Have the three branches of this Government a right, at will, to weaken and outweigh the influence, respectively secured to each State, in this compact, by introducing, at pleasure, new partners, situate beyond the old limits of the United States? The question has not relation merely to New Orleans.“The great objection is to the principle of the bill. If this bill be admitted, the whole space of [the] Louisiana [Purchase], greater, it is said, than the entire extent of the old United States, will be a mighty theatre, in which this Government assumes the right of exercising this unparalleled power. And it will be; there is no concealment, it is intended to be exercised. …“There are ways in which this [admission of Orleans Territory as a State] may constitutionally be effected – by an amendment of the constitution, or by reference to conventions of the people in the States. …“But this would not answer all the projects to which the principle of this bill, when once admitted, leads, and is intended to be applied. The whole extent of [the] Louisiana [Purchase] is to be cut up into independent States, to counterbalance and to paralyze whatever there is of influence in other quarters of the Union. …“Do you suppose the people of the Northern and Atlantic States will, or ought to, look on with patience and see Representatives and Senators from the Red River and Missouri pouring themselves upon this and the other floor [meaning: taking seats on the floor of the House and on the floor of the Senate; Quincy insultingly describes them as “pouring” themselves, like a flood of dumb matter, not walking as thinking and reasoning human beings], managing the concerns of a seaboard fifteen hundred miles at least from their residence, and having a preponderancy in councils, into which, constitutionally, they could never have been admitted? I have no hesitation upon this point. They neither will see it, nor ought to see it, with content. …“New States are intended to be formed beyond the Mississippi. There is no limit to men’s imaginations, on this subject, short of California and Columbia river. …“The bill, if it passes, is a death-blow to the constitution. It may, afterwards, linger; but lingering, its fate will, at no very distant period, be consummated.”Representative Quincy’s dire prediction did not sway the House. We learn on page 335 that the next day, January 15, 1811, the House passed the bill enabling the people of Orleans Territory to form the State of Louisiana, 77 in favor, 36 against. We find the roll-call of the votes in the Journal of the House of Representatives of the United States, at the First Session of the Eleventh Congress, volume VII, published in 1826, at pages 483-485; my own 3rd great-grandfather Joseph Pearson, Federalist from North Carolina, voted “no” along with Quincy.The Senate also rejected Quincy’s concerns, receiving the House bill and approving it with minor amendments. We find at pages 537, 540-541, 547, and 549-550, that the House on February 9 and February 13 agreed to Senate amendments, passing the bill on a final vote of 69 to 45. Congress presented the act to President Madison on February 19, and Madison signed the act on February 20 (Journal pages 563-564).The people of the United States found it completely acceptable that the House and Senate and President admitted new states constructed upon former foreign lands, as being within constitutional authority.Contrary to Rep. Quincy, the people of the United States found it completely acceptable to “see Representatives and Senators from the Red River and Missouri pouring themselves upon this and the other floor, managing the concerns of a seaboard fifteen hundred miles at least from their residence, and having a preponderancy in councils.”The former “ownership” status of a territory meant absolutely nothing to the American people; whether formerly part of the colonies, in part former-colony and former-foreign, or entirely former-foreign, made no difference.The fact that it did not bother the American people shows us that the American people themselves were developing a greater attitude that they were federal as well as state citizens.Quincy’s observations that admission of new states, not on lands that had been colonial, would dilute and change the power of the existing states, was plainly true. The relative power of the states that had been part of the colonial lands would necessarily become diluted, because opening the vast western lands to eventual statehood necessarily would increase the total number of states far beyond the total number that could be made out of the remaining “un-statified” part of the Northwest Territory.Under Quincy’s vision that the United States was limited to the lands of the “old” colonial lands, the United States would soon reach its maximum number of states. Under the principle of the Orleans Territory authorization act, there was no limit to the amount of and that the United States might one day encompass and thus no limit to the number of States.This indicates that the people in general had less emotional attachment to the power of the states than did the elected officials.Elected officials focused on the states because it was only via the states that they obtained prestigious offices.But private citizens could move, leaving one state for another, or for the territories; and if to the territories, they would expect in due course to re-acquire their right to vote for federal officials, by making the territories into states. The truth of this observation is proven by the fact, noted above, that the first elected governor of the State of Mississippi, David Holmes, had in earlier life been a resident of Virginia, and not only a resident of Virginia, but an elected Virginia Representative to the U.S. House, serving twelve years, 1797 to 1809. The same was true of Louisiana’s first state governor, William Charles Cole Claiborne. He too, like Holmes, was originally a Virginian; like Holmes, he served in Congress as a Representative – from Tennessee, 1797 to 1801. Then he was federal territorial governor of Mississippi Territory; then of Orleans Territory.When we compare this process to the British, French, Spanish, Belgian, Dutch, and, later, German territorial expansionism in the form of colonialism, we see a fundamental difference.A British colonial governor went out to a colony to rule it and exploit it, always with the expectation of going home; his prominence was always dependent upon his status within England or Scotland.These European powers had no element in their conception of government for these colonies to become member-states of the original government that sent them out. As British political leader Alfred Duff Cooper said at page 306 in his 1953 memoir, Old Men Forget, about a trip he made in the Asian colonies in 1941:“Our next stop was at Calcutta, where the Governor of Bengal … was another House of Commons friend. It seemed to be British policy at that time to govern the great provinces of India through former members of the Whips' office.”In America, the job of territorial governor was a young man’s job, in a place where he would settle, and turn into a full-equal state.In Europe, the job of colonial governor was an old man’s job, a prestigious and profitable title to take back with you when you went back home.What Josiah Quincy asserted in January 1811 was the attitude that the British House of Commons and House of Lords held in 1773 and after: that distant acquired lands must not be accorded equal share in the central government, because that would dilute the power of the existing office-holders from the existing states.Had Quincy prevailed, the Louisiana Purchase lands, and the Spanish lands of Florida and the future Mississippi and Alabama, would have been in the same perpetually subordinate and dependent status that the British parliament intended for the thirteen colonies of North America – and that it intended and applied for what is today Canada, and that it intended and actually applied in all the later colonies of the Empire.The American people rejected Quincy’s attitude. We did not rebel from Britain merely to re-adopt Britain’s arrogant self-centered power attitude, which would have led to a rebellion of such oppressed colonies west of the Mississippi and south of Georgia against us, as we had rebelled from Britain. We had a new vision and we applied it.This is shown not merely by the vote in 1811 to authorize Orleans Territory to become a state, but more fundamentally, by the course of conduct by the American people for decades thereafter.In April 1812, the former Orleans Territory, now as the new state of Louisiana, entered the Union (to avoid name confusion, the then-named Louisiana Territory was renamed Missouri Territory). 40 governments.This process of forming territorial governments, and then state governments, continued for another 100 years, until the admission of Arizona in February 1912 (Hawaii and Alaska would be admitted in 1959).In the period between the Constitution and the end of the Civil War in 1865, the federal government succeeded to sovereignty over the territories formerly governed by the pre-Constitution Confederation; and received transferred title from some of the original 13 states to unsettled claims to their west; and bought land claims of other countries (such as the Louisiana Purchase), and won land claims in various wars (such as the Mexican War), all of which became federal land.By means of these wars, purchases, and treaties, the federal government became sovereign over all the land now comprising the continental United States. The task of fostering governments over all this land provided the perfect opportunity to take the expertise in government-formation that we developed in the colonial and revolutionary times, and apply that expertise to a whole continent. No other nation has had such an opportunity; no other nation ever will again.The task, and the opportunity, facing us is well-described by President Lincoln in his Annual Message to Congress of December 1, 1862 (the equivalent of today’s State of the Union address, but in those days merely written and sent by messenger, not read aloud). Again, I give more than most readers will want, also because necessary to a complete answer:“That portion of the earth’s surface that is owned and inhabited by the people of the United States is well adapted to be the home of one national family; and it is not well adapted for two, or more. …“There is no line, straight or crooked, suitable for a national boundary upon which to divide. … The great interior region, bounded east by the Alleghanies, north by the British dominions, west by the Rocky Mountains, and south by the line along which the culture of corn and cotton meets … already has above ten millions of people, and will have 50 millions within 50 years, if not prevented by any political folly or mistake. It contains more than one third of the country owned by the United States – certainly more than 1 million square miles. … [I]t is the great body of the Republic. … In the production of provisions, grains, grasses, and all which proceed from them, this great interior region is naturally one of the most important in the world.“And yet this region has no sea-coast, touches no ocean anywhere. As part of one nation, its people now find [] their way to Europe by New York, to South America and Africa by New Orleans, and to Asia by San Francisco. But separate our country into two nations, as designed by the present rebellion, and every man of this great interior region is thereby cut off from some one or more of these outlets … by embarrassing and onerous trade regulations.“And this is true, wherever a dividing line or boundary line may be fixed. … [T]he people inhabiting, or to inhabit, this vast interior region … will vow, rather, that there shall be no such line. …“There is no possible severing of this [region], but would multiply, and not mitigate, evils among us. In all [this region’s] adaptations and aptitudes, it demands union, and abhors separation. In fact, it would, ere long, force reunion, however much of blood and treasure the separation might cost.”Almost a year after submitting the above-quoted Message to Congress, Lincoln summed up in the Gettysburg Address that the Civil War was, indeed, a test of whether any nation “so conceived and dedicated” as ours was conceived and dedicated by the authors of the Declaration of Independence “can long endure.”There is a mode of thinking and understanding revealed by Lincoln’s words that is important to take a moment to recognize. Lawyers and other writers, such as journalists and academics, and legislators who write statutes, and judges who write opinions, are trained to think it terms of words and sentences and paragraphs on paper.But a statesman learns to think also in terms of people upon land. It is a matter of developing a sense of what people need, and what they want to do, and what they will try to do, given the opportunities and limitations they see before them. It is a mode of thinking that feels instinctive, because it cannot be put into words – or to be more accurate, it is a kind of thinking where people, not words, and the fundamental elements, and land, not paper, is what they are placed on. One can use words to describe what one has been thinking, kind of like the way a translator can take a text in one language, and prepare a representation of it in a different language.Lincoln looked at his own people, and he looked at the geography of the land before them, and he knew what the people would do upon that land, as generation succeeded generation. He was able to do this because he was thinking in terms of people, not of words.The special aptitude of America is that we, more so than any other nation, have developed the aptitude in thinking in terms of people and of land – in assessing accurately what people want, what they feel, what they will do or not do; in assessing the opportunities presented by the land, the effects of plains, rivers, mountains, and minerals; and in assessing how the people are likely to want to develop the land, enhancing its opportunities and reducing its limitations.Our development of our portion of the North American continent, both economically and governmentally, was a kind of advanced graduate-school in the art of fostering popular advancement and self-government: a graduate-school to which America alone, and no other nation, has been admitted, and from which only America has attained an advanced degree. As I will outline below, we began to apply the fruits of our advanced degree, first to the lands obtained as a result of the Spanish-American War, and then to the lands defeated in World War II, and then to other lands during the Cold War, and most recently, in the Middle East.Our graduate-schooling began with the vast federal acquisitions beginning in the late 1700s, through the early 1900s. We defined political subdivisions for this land, calling those subdivisions the territories, whose boundaries we sometimes changed, as circumstances on the ground, or in economics, or in population flow made advisable. We formed federal territorial governments, such that for every state government that eventually came into the Union on these lands, there had been prior to that government a federal territorial government.The total number of these federal territorial governments we formed, prior to the end of the Civil War, comes to 26 governments (perhaps 28, but I ignore whether we formed territorial governments over the Pacific Northwest obtained by treaty from Britain, and over the land obtained by war and purchase over the Southwest and California from Mexico), formed by the Union government over a period of 75 years.These 26 governments, managed over the span of 75 years, were of a kind unique in history: their purpose was to provide a basic legal framework under which the people, as they grew in numbers and matured in the skills of self-government, would establish their own self-governments. This concept was different than the original British plan of the 1760s, in which permanent governments would be designed in London and imposed, and the people would then move in underneath governments that drew their legitimacy from the central planners’ maps and charters in London.These 26 territorial governments eventually became 29 state governments (many formed and admitted after the Civil War). Each of these had to submit itself to review and acceptance by the federal Union government, which had to assure itself that the new government offered was one that both would well-govern its own people, and integrate harmoniously, peacefully, and productively with the other states of the Union and as part of the Union government itself. (I ignore the argument that California was a sovereign republic between the time of the Mexican War and its admission as a state.).Before the Civil War, Texas established itself as an independent government, which remained the same government when it became a state.The Confederate “central” government was also an American exercise in government-making - but built as it was on the principle of secession, it was inherently unstable. It counts in the list of American experiences in government-making, though not as a government formed in the process of leading to our existing governments.At the end of the war, the Confederacy defeated, the federal government then began the process of reconstructing new governments in each of the seceded states. Whatever the arguments over legal history may be, and ignoring interim military governments, these were in substance the formation of 11 new governments. (The next section of this chapter discusses some interesting governmental implications of the Civil War.)After the Civil War, we formed 4 new federal territorial governments (I ignore earlier federal forms of governing Alaska), bringing our total of territorial governments to 30. These then became 4 new states, the last of which is Hawaii.Including various U.S.-affiliated, but non-state, governments, such as Puerto Rico, the present United States includes 57 governments, including the present 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the federal government itself. The number of governments necessary to bring about the present United States was 113 governments, counted as follows:13 colonial governments50 state governments11 “reconstruction” southern state governments30 territorial governments that have been superseded by state governments5 territorial governments still operating (Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, Guam, Marianas, American Samoa.)3 union governments (Articles of Confederation, U.S. Constitution, Confederacy)1 District of Columbia governmentI omit from this list other governments we founded in order to foster governments that are now independent, such as the Philippines.Thirty of these governments – the territorial governments – were formed by the federal Union government specifically for the purpose of fostering the development of functional, peaceful, productive states, and were intended to go out of existence when their work was done.From the establishment of the first of these territorial governments in 1787 over the lands of Ohio and points west, to the admission of the state of Hawaii in 1959 – a period of 172 unbroken years – the federal government had in its portfolio of duties the superintending of federal territorial temporary governments whose purpose was to foster the development of permanent democratic governments that, in the words of President Lincoln, were governments “of the people, by the people, and for the people.”The American experience and competence in forming republican, democratic government has largely been in abeyance since 1959, due to an attitude that the United States is essentially “finished” or, perhaps, on a downward slope. The press and the academic community seem to think that talking about American decline gets more “eyeballs before the ads” than anything else. My own view is that Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand ought to be thinking about forming themselves into several non-monarchical democratic and republican states, with an eye towards applying to join the Union. I develop this concept in Chapter 12 of “America the Great” - but that is outside the scope of this answer.

"To my colleagues at CNN both in front of and behind the cameras. Without your collective efforts, this book would not have been possible. We truly did go “all in” to cover this story. And we will continue to do so, wherever it goes."A large commercial airliner going missing without a trace for so long is unprecedented in modern aviation. It must not happen again.— Tony Tyler, director general, IATAWhere’s that plane?” If there is one question I get asked most these days, this is it. From politicians and CEOs to doormen and cabdrivers, time and again they want to know, “What happened to that plane? Where is it?” Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 — with 239 people aboard — departed from Kuala Lumpur shortly after midnight on March 8, 2014, bound for Beijing, China, and has never been seen since. Despite the largest aviation search in history, virtually nothing was found of the aircraft in the wake of its disappearance. Sixteen months later, thousands of miles from the flight’s path, a piece of an airplane’s wing washed ashore on Reunion Island. Still, this bit of evidence and a flimsy trail of electronic satellite data are all we have to go on—plus a huge amount of speculation and confusion.“The most difficult search ever undertaken in human history.”When Australia’s prime minister Tony Abbott uttered those words in April 2014, it was not just the usual hyperbole of a politician. What happened to MH370 has been described as a unique, unprecedented, and extraordinary mystery. Planes may crash, but they are not supposed to disappear without a trace. Earlier ocean crashes, such as Air France 447 or Air India 182, have demonstrated that wreckages can typically be located within hours. Airlines today own the most modern aircraft, featuring up-to-date navigation technology, while regulations govern everything from the number of hours a pilot can fly to the fire-resistant fabric used in the passenger seats. Despite the precautions, no one has been able to pinpoint the final resting place of MH370 and those on board. All the while we know that if you lose your iPhone, it can be traced within minutes.At the heart of this mystery remains the question of the cause of the plane’s disappearance. Was it mechanical, or was it criminal: Did someone deliberately take over the aircraft and set it on a course to the south Indian Ocean, intending to kill all on board? Would that someone turn out to be an unknown hijacker or terrorist, or could it have been one of the pilots?Do I have a view of what might have happened? I do, and I will share it. In doing so, I am not blind to the obvious options, but prefer to keep an open mind on the eventual outcome. As will become clear in the chapters that follow, as a television journalist, I became frustrated, and even angry, with some of the pundits with whom I had to work who were quite prepared to convict the pilots long before any evidence had been found. Instead, this book will stick to the facts as we know them. In the end, you will be left to make up your own mind about where you think the evidence leads.The disappearance of MH370 has been a serious failure for the multibillion-dollar aviation industry, revealing disturbing facts and behaviors. That one of the most advanced aircraft in the world should vanish, while an airline left hundreds of desperate families waiting for news of their loved ones, is unpardonable. In response, airlines have rewritten their rules from top to bottom. An alphabet soup of international organizations responsible for air travel safety held high-level meetings and set up a task force to look at ways to ensure that planes are always being tracked in real time. Even CEOs I spoke to were as astounded as the general public that planes were not always being tracked to a fine point of precision. Some of the changes did not come soon enough: as suspicion about MH370’s pilots increased, discussions were held about a “two-person in the cockpit” rule, stipulating that if one pilot temporarily leaves the cockpit, he or she should be replaced by a flight attendant. Yet the considerable amount of talk led to very little action. If such a change had been made, the crashing of Germanwings 9525, in which a rogue pilot deliberately flew his airliner into a mountain, possibly would not have happened.When all is said and done, MH370 boils down to one simple fact. For the first time since the Wright brothers first flew, this industry, which prided itself on a policy of “safety first,” is having to cope with the unthinkable: a plane disappeared. It is no wonder the head of the airline organization IATA, Tony Tyler, decried, “A large commercial airliner going missing without a trace for so long is unprecedented in modern aviation. And it must not happen again.”The fascination with MH370 goes deeper than an aviation story.International diplomatic and political issues have been raised too. More than 60 percent of the passengers on board the plane were Chinese citizens, and the Chinese government wasted little time in flexing its muscles on their behalf. The relatives of Chinese victims were put up in a Beijing hotel where regular briefings were given by low-level Malaysian government and airline officials. These were acrimonious events, interrupted frequently by hysterical outbursts from distraught family members frustrated at the lack of information they were being given. The way the relatives were treated was shabby at best.Then there was the role of the Malaysian government itself. Were they a bunch of incompetents who had no idea what they were doing, doomed to make mistake after mistake? Or perhaps the truth was something more sinister: a cover-up for an erroneous military strike? Few people will deny that the first weeks of this crisis were not something of which the Malaysians can be proud. As the tensions rose across the South China Sea, the fate of MH370 rapidly became entwined in a diplomatic game of realpolitik, mystery, intrigue, and failure.As planes get bigger, and the ultra-long-haul flight becomes more common, the fact that MH370 happened is worrying, for it should never have happened.THE PLANE AND PASSENGERSAircraft Reg: 9M-MROAircraft Type: Boeing 777-200ERBuilt & Delivered: May 29, 2002 (11 years 9 months 9 days)Flight Hrs: 53,465Comms: 3 VHF radios, 2 HF radios, 1 SATCOM, 2 ATC transpondersSouls on Board: 239Crew: 12Pax: 227THE PILOTSThe Captain: Zaharie Ahmad Shah. Malaysian, age 53. Total flying hours: 18,365 hours. Experience on 777: 8,659 hours. Joined Malaysia Airlines in 1981.First Officer: Fariq Abdul Hamid. Malaysian, age 27. Total flying hours: 2,763. Experience on 777: 39 hours. Joined Malaysia Airlines in 2007.THE FLIGHTMH370, Kuala Lumpur to BeijingMARCH 8 (MALAYSIA STANDARD TIME)00:27 Push-back00:41 Takeoff00:42 Directed to Igari (waypoint)00:50 Directed to climb FL35000:50 Read-back FL35001:01 Advises reached FL35001:07 ACARS last transmission (provided total fuel remaining)01:07 Repeats FL35001:19 Handoff to Vietnam “Contact HCM 120.9 good night”01:19 Read-back “Good night Malaysian 370” LAST WORDSIn the case of the safety history of the 777, there was nothing to worry about. The 777, which first came into service in 1995, has an exemplary safety record. In almost twenty years, there had never been an accident where passengers had died in a plane crash. In 2013, Asiana 214 crash-landed in San Francisco. Two passengers died after they escaped from the aircraft and were run over by a fire truck responding to the accident. A third passenger died later in the hospital. The only other major 777 incident at the time of MH370 was the crash landing of the British Airways Flight 38 at London Heathrow. That came about because ice had formed in the fuel lines during a frigid flight from Beijing. When the ice jolted free, it blocked the line and starved the engines of fuel. The plane lost power and glided the last few miles to crash just short of the runway. Fortunately, everyone survived.Having seen the state of the crashed aircraft with both Asiana and British Airways, I find it a miracle that no one was killed when the planes hit the ground — a testament, I have no doubt, to Boeing’s ability to build superb airplanes (and the same is true for Airbus!). The 777 was, and still is, among the safest aircraft, and I had no hesitation in saying so on-air, then or now."We owe it to the grieving families, we owe it to everyone who travels by air, to get to the bottom of this mystery."—Tony Abbott, Australian prime ministerWell, he was voted out of power and that is that.In the following days, then weeks, months, and now years after MH370’s disappearance, Chris and all my other anchor colleagues have asked me the same question again and again. My answer has always been the same. “Yes, they will find it. They must.” As the time has gone by, sometimes I think I detect a certain wry smile on my colleagues’ faces as the words I uttered with such certitude come back to haunt me.So far I have been proved wrong, and with the exception of the single flaperon, nothing of the plane has been found. Some are now saying that the plane may never be found, that the task is too great. Assuming the Inmarsat data is correct, and the plane is lying along the seventh arc, the water is too deep, the ocean canyons too wide, the area too large. The search teams could be trolling right over the wreckage and never notice it.Of course we want to know what happened during those moments, on the morning of March 8, 2014, at 1:19, just after Captain Zaharie said, “Good night Malaysian 370.” But if we never discover the facts, there are plenty of other issues occasioned by the plane’s disappearance and it is these that must be resolved. There is the failure of air traffic control on that night, the confusion and political interference in the search operation, and the new methods of tracking planes and retrieving vital black-box data that are now being considered.Sixteen months after MH370 went missing, I was on assignment in Florida for CNN Business Traveller when I got the email. My producer Saskya Vandoorne wrote, “Twitter is abuzz with MH370 . . . probably a false lead but a wing has washed up near the Reunion Island.” She enclosed a picture of the object found in the western Indian Ocean. I was about ten miles from Legoland, where I was filming the next part of our show on theme parks. As I looked at the photo it was obvious that this was something significant. It was a part of a large aircraft wing, probably one of the flaps.Within hours, larger, better photos of the missing plane part had been published and we were comparing it to online schematics of the Boeing 777 wing. The pictures suggested that the piece was part of the control surfaces of the wing. Rather than the flaps, it appeared to be one of the plane’s two flaperons. A flaperon is a hybrid piece of equipment that combines the functions of the flaps and the ailerons, hence the name flaperon. The ailerons control the left and right banking of the aircraft by going up and down into the airflow, helping raise or lower the wing to make turns. The flaps extend on takeoff and landing and increase the wings’ size, giving the plane greater lift at slower speeds. The flaperons are part of a plane’s steering mechanism, and allow the pilot to bank the plane. At slower speeds they also extend marginally out of the wing in order to give greater stability and lift. As a passenger, you can see the flaperon in action if you sit behind the wing. It is on the trailing edge and is located nearer the fuselage. You will see it bouncing up and down on takeoff and landing as it stabilizes the aircraft, unlike the flaps, which extend in several sections then retract into the wing. The flaperon remains active throughout the flight (although at higher speeds it is far less noticeable).After some initial confusion over a number reportedly printed on the piece, it was confirmed as 657BB. It was described in the Boeing 777 maintenance manual as “flaperon Leading Edge Panel.”2 Another piece of debris was also recovered on the beach: the remnants of some sort of suitcase or backpack.While we waited for the aviation investigators to make a final determination on the source of the flaperon, I was being asked one vital question, hour after hour: Was it possible for a piece of debris from MH370 to have traveled 2,500 miles from the most likely crash site? It became obvious that the answer was, unequivocally, yes. If you look at a map, you’ll see that Reunion is on the opposite side of the Indian Ocean from Australia. It is a straight shot across the water from the most likely search zone to the coast of East Africa, where the island is located. Experts were put on-air reminding us that they had long predicted that the currents of the southern Indian Ocean Gyre, swirling around, creating a great sea garbage tank, would eventually cause the debris to drift across to the other side.In March 2014, the experts were telling us that eventually, something would be washed up on the western side of the Indian Ocean. It was all backed up by solid scientific evidence from the University of Western Australia, which showed us its drift-modeling forecast, which indicated that after eighteen months, wreckage would land in that region.If we were surprised by this development, our expert oceanographers were not.As the news of the find flashed around the world, it was particularly noted in Paris, where a new bureaucratic wrinkle was about to be added to the proceedings. Reunion has been under the control of France since the seventeenth century. It is now classed as an overseas territory and considered an administrative region, or prefecture, of France. Even though the French had played only a limited, advisory role in the MH370 investigation so far, the fact that the flaperon had washed up on French soil meant the French authorities took responsibility for handling the debris, which had to be transported to France for specialized examination. Thus, late on Friday, July 31, the flaperon was crated and boarded onto an Air France 777 flight bound for Paris. As I watched the video of the plane taking off I thought of the strange juxtaposition of one 777 carrying in its belly a vital part of another 777, taking it on a journey to release any secrets it had carried for the past sixteen months.As the piece was making its way to France, Boeing sources made it clear that yes, their experts recognized this as a flaperon from a 777 but they couldn’t say whether it was from 9M-MRO without further tests. This was backed up by comments from the Australian deputy prime minister, Warren Truss, who said the flaperon was a “major lead” and was “not inconsistent with a Boeing 777.”It was a very strange situation: everyone agreed that this was a 777 flaperon, but no one would say it’s the flaperon. Yet what else could it be? There were no other missing 777s in that part of the world. Though no 777 had reported losing a flaperon in flight — it’s the sort of thing a pilot would notice pretty quickly — everyone stopped short of weighing in definitively on the piece of debris. The French transferred the flaperon from Paris to Balma near Toulouse, and the headquarters of the Direction Générale de l’Armement (DGA). The DGA is part of the Ministry of Defense and is a specialist laboratory and testing center for the military and civilian aerospace industry. In many ways it was the perfect place to send the flaperon, as the DGA did much of the work on the wreckage of Air France 447, which had been in the water for years. This gave them expertise in analyzing pieces exactly like this one.The judicial authorities in France were now calling the shots because four of the passengers on board MH370 were French citizens. With a hijacking or other criminal act looming as a possibility, under French law the judicial authorities were given primacy to inquire into what had happened. The inspection of the flaperon was to be conducted under the control nd presence of three French judges carrying out their legal mandate. Inevitably a bureaucratic circus ensued. In Paris, meetings had been held between the French and Malaysian governments to determine how to handle this development. In Toulouse, there were representatives from the BEA, NTSB, the Malaysian DCA, Malaysia Airlines, the Australian ATSB, the Chinese, Boeing—it seemed everyone had to be there to make sure proper protocol was followed during the inspection of the flaperon. Its analysis didn’t begin until four days after the piece arrived in France. It left me and my colleagues wondering what on earth was going on and taking so long.Finally, on Wednesday, August 5, 2015, it was time to reveal what they had found. An announcement was expected at 8 p.m. Paris time, from a French prosecutor, and then a statement from the Malaysian prime minister, Najib Razak. That was the plan, yet the Malaysians weren’t going for it. Ten minutes before the French were to present their findings, the prime minister spoke. From everything I have heard, the Malaysians were determined that because this was their plane and their investigation, it was their right to speak first. Here is the crucial part of Razak’s statement:An international team of experts have conclusively confirmed that the aircraft debris found on Reunion Island is indeed from MH370. We now have physical evidence that, as I announced on 24th March last year, flight MH370 tragically ended in the southern Indian Ocean.Within minutes of the prime minister’s statement, the deputy prosecutor in France, Serge Mackowiak, held his news conference. We waited for a similar announcement of “conclusiveness.” It never came.What was a cut-and-dried conclusion for the Malaysians was a matter of “strong presumption” for the French.The prosecutor said that Malaysia Airlines representatives had seen specific similarities that linked the flaperon to the plane. But he didn’t say what they were. No one mentioned the presence of a serial number, which would seem to be the only conclusive proof of its origins.This was a shambles. The first time potentially hard evidence of the plane is found and the authorities managed to make a complete mess of it by differing in their wording. It beggars belief that something like this was able to happen.The families, scattered around the world, had been given an early warning of a few moments about the announcement. Some received it by text message, others by email, while luckier ones got a phone call from Malaysian embassy officials. They were given the prime minister’s version of the announcement: This flaperon was part of the plane. The plane went down in the southern Indian Ocean. Yet all of a sudden we in the media were questioning this conclusion. Not surprisingly, the families of the Chinese victims were having nothing of it. Soon they were out on the streets, protesting in front of the Malaysian embassy in Beijing.Now that the French authorities had said with “certainty” that the flaperon was from MH370, one key question had been definitively answered: the plane had indeed gone down somewhere in the southern Indian Ocean. Many of the more fanciful theories about the disappearance, including the ones about landing on Diego Garcia or in the Maldives, could now be put to rest. (The conspiracy theorists will never let up, and will claim the flaperon was planted by the Chinese, Americans, or someone else who shot down the plane.)An in-depth examination of the part will probably reveal how and when it separated from the aircraft, and whether this occurred in flight or as the plane hit the water. What the flaperon will not reveal is the exact location where the plane went down. This was confirmed by the ATSB in its report published in December 2015: “While this debris find is consistent with the current search area it does not provide sufficient information to refine it.”5 It seems the flaperon won’t reveal the secret of where the plane is.Nor will the flaperon reveal what happened at 1:19 after “Good night Malaysian Three Seven Zero.” Unless there was an explosion (almost certainly there wasn’t) and residue is found (highly unlikely after all this time), the only information that the piece can possibly yield will be how it separated from the aircraft.After an accident, finding the plane is essential. Of course, the recovery of bodies must be a top priority of the airline. But to discover what happened, and how to prevent its happening again, it is also necessary to retrieve, and to analyze the contents of, the black-box recorders. MH370 rightly created huge concern among both travelers and the aviation industry. Time and again on various shows, as I explained the difficulty of the search, anchors would look incredulous and ask the same question: “If we can find the location of our lost iPhones easily online, how come a modern jetliner could just disappear without a trace?” Every day people are using ordinary technology to find something as small and commonplace as a cell phone. Yet in the case of MH370, tens of millions of dollars were being spent during months of searching the deep ocean in appalling conditions, and no one could find something as large as a 777, which costs $250 million! Months after it disappeared, we had no certainty where the plane had flown, or where on the ocean bed it lay.To track a plane with certainty, air traffic control must know where it is at all times, even when the plane’s communications equipment has been switched off, disabled, or has failed. The goal must be to receive as much information as possible from the aircraft while it is still flying. Looking at MH370, I can trace all the problems back to what happened on the night when the 777 had been able to evade the most sophisticated air traffic technology. The plane’s transponders had been switched off, the ACARS system was disabled, and there were no radio signals. The plane had “gone silent.” It was able to continue flying without anyone noticing partly because of terrible human errors made by air traffic controllers and radar operators. But, even discounting these initial mistakes, it was the long, seven-hour flight over the southern Indian Ocean that turned an incident in Southeast Asia into the world’s biggest aviation mystery. It is only stating the obvious to say that surely the technology should be put in place so that no plane can fly for so long, anywhere in the world, without air traffic control knowing its whereabouts. The public has rightly said it’s a disgrace, and the industry has to make sure it can never happen again.What is galling about MH370 is that this was not the first occasion when a major jetliner went missing and it took several years to find it. The industry had had to cope with some of the very same issues five years before, in June of 2009, when Air France 447 went missing over the South Atlantic. By now you will recall that this was the A330 that had a problem with speed indicator pitot tubes. The pilots flew the aircraft into a stall and it crashed.No radar was tracking Air France 447 when the crash happened, and no air traffic control center was following it in real time. Most fliers are amazed to learn that planes are not always tracked by radar when they are in the air, crossing the globe. Air traffic control radar constantly monitors the airspace over landmasses like Europe or the United States, where the sheer number of planes in the sky demands full coverage. Any plane that deviates from its flight plan is quickly noticed. With Germanwings 8501, only three minutes and fifty-three seconds passed after Andreas Lubitz initiated the unauthorized descent over the French Alps before the air traffic controllers were calling him on the radio demanding an explanation (and some would say even this was too slow). During the next ten minutes, until the plane hit the mountains, fourteen additional radio calls from four different sources attempted to contact the pilots. Suffice it to say, over most stretches of populated land, air traffic control responses are typically swift.There are, however, large parts of the globe where no radar exists, including the airspace over the world’s oceans. Radar coverage requires ground-based facilities. At sea, both the distances and the costs involved mean it is neither practical nor reasonable to build floating sites for oceanic radar.Of course, the absence of radar doesn’t mean that planes aren’t being supervised as they cross the oceans. Consider the thousands of aircraft that cross the Atlantic each day between North America and Europe. As the plane travels over water, traditional radar coverage ends about 250 miles after they leave behind the Canadian or Irish coast. Radar doesn’t return until they are within similar range of land on the other side. Instead there is a complicated system of “tracks” where planes fly specific east- and westbound airways, which change daily with the changes in the jet stream. The pilots are given definite times when they must join the track to begin their oceanic crossing. The planes are spaced out, roughly ten minutes apart, and this long chain of aircraft moves through the sky. Throughout the journey they communicate their position regularly, using high-frequency radios or, more usually today, satellite-based systems. A similar track method called PACOTS is used across the North Pacific between the US and Asia. If tracks aren’t being used, then planes are directed to waypoints along standard airways. Again, the aircraft regularly reports its position so air traffic control can safely space out the planes.Air France 447 was out of Brazil’s radar coverage and had just passed over waypoint ORARO, heading for waypoint TASIL. Fortunately, the plane’s ACARS system was programmed to send its location automatically every ten minutes. Five minutes had elapsed between the last transmission and the crash into the water. After calculating the maximum distance AF447 could have traveled in those five minutes, the investigators came up with a search area of forty nautical miles, covering seventeen thousand square kilometers. It took several days before the first floating debris was spotted. In the end, AF447 was found just 6.5 miles from the last known position of the flight and searchers were able to retrieve the black box.I still believe they will find it. I say this not out of some simplistic view that missing planes are always found, but because the plane must be found; the vanishing of such a large aircraft is simply not acceptable. There are more than 1,200 of the 777 family of planes flying around the world today.After the search teams have finished covering the 46,000 square miles (120,000 square kilometers) currently designated as the most probable place where the plane went down, if nothing has been found there, the whole matter becomes much more problematic. The Malaysians and the Australians have said they will stop searching at this point, because in the absence of any new evidence of where to look, increasing the zone would cease to be feasible. They can’t search the entire length of the seventh arc.The search must somehow continue. That is what I really mean when I say, “They will find the plane, they must.” There can be no temptation to consign this to the history books as an aviation mystery that was too difficult to solve. If the searchers find nothing in their search, then they need to go back to square one. This will involve questioning everything that they have believed to be true and seeing if it remains valid. The inquiry should open its doors and its minds to other experts who may have a different perspective. There has been much criticism of the tight-fisted way information has been held, and there are independent experts who might have had something to contribute who have been shut out of the investigation.All of this is in the future. At the time of this writing, there is still more ocean to be searched. So far they have spent less than the list price of a single brand-new 777-300 searching for MH370. In the big scheme of aviation, I think the lives of 239 people, the confidence in 1,200 flying aircraft, and the reputation of the industry demand that yes, they find it. They must.Update April 19, 2016Two pieces of debris that washed up on African shores are "almost certainly" from the missing Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200ER that was operating the fateful MH370 flight.The first piece of debris, in South Africa, was initially identified as a segment from a 777 flap fairing panel by the presence of a stenciled part number. Although the stenciling did not match that used by Boeing, it was consistent with stencils used by Malaysia Airlines on its 777s, including the missing aircraft – 9M-MRO.The second part, in Mozambique, was also identified from a ‘No step’ stenciling, which again corresponded with Malaysian Airlines’ stencils but not those originally used by Boeing. The piece is part of the aircraft’s horizontal stabiliser.ATSB outlines analysis process for MH370 debrisAnd Here Come More Conspiracy Stories: May 3, 2016More than two years after it disappeared, the mystery of what happened to Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 continues to baffle the world. Wild rumours continue to circulate about the fate of the Malaysian Airlines jet.From the moment news broke that the Boeing 777 had gone missing, conspiracy theorists have given their explanations for both the disappearance and the investigators' failure to crack the mystery.North Korea? Vladimir Putin? The US military? Fake debris? Life Insurance scam? China?MH370 conspiracy theories: What happened to the Boeing 777?Update: May 12, 2016The Australian Transport Safety Bureau has identified two more pieces of debris recovered off the African coast as most likely coming from the Boeing 777-200ER that was operating Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.In an update report, the Bureau says that the two pieces were found independently at beaches in Mossel Bay, South Africa on 22 March, and Rodrigues Island in Mauritius on 30 March.Both pieces were sent to Canberra for analysis, following a request from the Malaysian government, and were handled in accordance with ICAO practice, as per two other pieces that the ATSB previously identified.‘Part 3’ was identified as a segment from an engine cowling due to the Rolls-Royce stenciling, and it conformed to applicable drawings from Boeing as being from a 777.Although the stencil was not consistent with that originally used by the manufacturer, it did conform with the one used by Malaysia Airlines on its 777s. Nonetheless, the Bureau says that there were no identifiers tracing it specifically to the missing jet, which was registered 9M-MRO.The other part, labelled ‘Part 4’ was identified as part of the R1 door assembly from a Malaysia Airlines 777. Specifically, a piano hinge attached to it was consistent with that used on a table hinge support, and the trim line was consistent with other aircraft.“There were no identifiers on the panel segment that were unique to 9M-MRO, however the pattern, colour and texture of the laminate was only specified by MAB for use on Boeing 747 and 777 aircraft. There is no record of the laminate being used by any other Boeing 777 customer,” the ATSB says.Although marine ecology analysis is continuing, the Bureau says that both parts are “almost certainly” from the missing 777. It also came to the same conclusion on the two other parts that were previously examined.ATSB identifies two more parts from MH370 jetUpdate, May 14, 2016Terrible, terrible news, if true.“We know the plane is in the southern Indian Ocean. Generally, airline pilots and other genuine aviation experts believe captain Zaharie Shah hijacked his own Boeing 777 in a planned suicide mission.Self-appointed armchair experts are often referred to as “aviation experts” by broadcasters, rather than the aviation consultants they actually are. Such people express opinions that may sound plausible to the non-pilot fraternity but are often rubbish.This search appears to have been conducted in the wrong area, based on the Australian Transport Safety Bureau unresponsive pilot scenario. Yet we know from the National Geographic recent Air Crash Investigations documentary, which held Shah responsible, that only three minutes elapsed from when he said goodnight to Kuala Lumpur air traffic control to when he disappeared electronically and turned southwest.If there was no pilot involvement the aircraft just would have flown itself to the programmed destination of Beijing. It was still under control 90 minutes later when it turned south just north of Sumatra.If, as generally believed, Shah was trying to hide the aircraft in as remote a location as possible to hide his crime then he would endeavour to fly as far as possible before the fuel ran out. As an experienced Boeing 777 captain, this is how I would manage this. Fly at long-range cruise speed mach 0.83 at as high an altitude as possible for maximum range. As the first engine flamed out due to fuel starvation I would start a slow-speed descent at 220 knots indicated airspeed with the second engine at idle. Just before second engine flame-out, I would select flap while still having hydraulic pressure to ensure my sea impact speed would not be so severe as to cause massive amounts of debris. Passing 5000 feet and flying on limited flight control hydraulic pressure from the automatically deployed air driven generator I would turn into wind and try to judge a ditching at low speed so that the aircraft would not break up into pieces. This speed would be still in the order of 250km/h or greater.I recently was well out to sea and observed how big the sea state can be, with very large waves in a 50km/h wind. In the latitudes south of 40 degrees the winds and sea state is even greater.Some pieces of debris — confirmed as coming from MH370 — have been turning up. The first was a right flaperon that I suspect was due to the right engine being shorn off, as they are designed to do, in a heavy impact with the sea.Later an associated piece turned up, also from the area immediately behind the right engine. And then a piece from the horizontal stabiliser (tailplane) leading edge, which also would support the shearing off of the right engine. The weakest part of the fuselage is at the juncture of the body and the wing. It appears to me that during the ditching the aircraft broke at this juncture and this is generally, depending on the seating configuration, where the partition between business class and economy occurs, so some panelling was dislodged.All this does not answer the question of why the ATSB did not listen to experts who would have placed the search area at least 400km farther south and west. That is why MH370 has not been found.”Byron Bailey, a veteran commercial pilot with more than 45 years’ experience and 26,000 flying hours, is a former RAAF fighter pilot and trainer, and was a senior captain with Emirates for 15 years, during which he flew the same model Boeing 777 passenger jet as Malaysia Airlines MH370.Debris confirms MH370 crash zone in Indian Ocean