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| Challenge before Mufti is to convert symbolism into substance | | | Bashir Assad
Early Times Report
Jammu, Mar 3: After two months of hard negotiations, the formation of the PDP-BJP government – headed by the astute political veteran, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed- is being seen as the most legitimate government by many that has the mandate and the will to take the state out of the present morass.
In December, Jammu and Kashmir state elections saw a good voter turnout of 65% and threw up a complex, fractured result - the PDP dominated in the valley and emerged as the single-largest party with 28 seats and the BJP was a close second with 25 seats due to a dominating performance in the Jammu region.
BJP leader Ram Madhav, who led the negotiations with PDP for government formation in the state, admitted in a national daily that in stitching the alliance, there were difficulties, highs and lows, as well as stalemates during the nerve-wracking negotiations. Madhav admitted that there were at least a couple of occasions when the two sides almost decided to call off the talks and pack up. It was like the proverbial war of nerves. The effort succeeded, Madhav says, because neither side looked at government formation as arithmetic. “We had a much larger objective in mind. We had a distinct mandate that needed to be respected. There was an opportunity to bring the people of Jammu and the Valley closer. As Mufti pointed out, the geographical distance can be covered in six hours; but the emotional distance couldn’t be covered in 60 years. We are also presented with the opportunity to decimate the emotional barriers between J&K and the rest of the country.”
“Now when the government is in place, Mufti is attempting to rephrase the political narrative of the state. Sixty-eight years after India’s independence, the nation’s relationship with Kashmir has not healed. Mufti, and the BJP team alongside him, must try all that they can to heal these wounds in six years” says Rajni Shaleen Chopra, a senior political commentator.
She says the political history of the region will note that with Kashmir’s intelligentsia pitted against his plans to align with BJP, Mufti dared to see a vision that was invisible to others. What is a statesman if not his vision? “Now that he occupies the CM’s chair in the Secretariat, PDP’s grand old man must hit the ground running. The detractors will be at his heels soon enough. He has to show concrete proof that his leadership has the capacity to translate vision into reality” says Rajni. She observes that for Narendra Modi too, how BJP partners with Muslim-majority Kashmir is one of the measures that India and the world will judge him by. “The PDP-BJP partnership will be a test of Modi’s political acumen. The RSS may be an ideological group, but the BJP is a political force. It will stay relevant only if it stays in power. Power cannot come with the exclusion of the largest minority of the country from your vote base. How the BJP carries forward its alliance in Jammu and Kashmir can help it shed the baggage of an anti-Muslim image” she says.
According to her the negotiations during last two months signaled a hugely positive development: the engagement of the most hardline Indian position on Kashmir with a perspective rooted in the valley which advocates autonomy, dignity and rights.
As for the “agenda for the alliance” everything has been distinctly clear.
On Article 370, "while recognising the different positions of the parties", the coalition agreement commits to maintaining "all the constitutional provisions pertaining to Kashmir including the special status".
On AFSPA, while noting that the "[two] parties have historically held different view(s)", the agreement observes that "the situation in the state has improved vastly" and "the coalition government will thoroughly review the security situation" and "the need for de-notifying disturbed areas" to "enable the government to take a final view on the continuation of AFSPA in these areas".
Beyond the rapprochement on the most contentious points, the agreement is significant for what it promises to do on a broader front. "The purpose of this alliance," the agreement says, is "to catalyze reconciliation and confidence-building within and across the LoC", to "widen the ambit of democracy through inclusive politics", and to "create conditions to facilitate resolution of all issues".
So "the coalition government will facilitate and help initiate a sustained and meaningful dialogue with all internal stakeholders irrespective of their ideological views... [which] will seek to build a broad-based consensus on the resolution of all outstanding issues".
Further, as "the government has recently initiated several steps to normalize the relationship with Pakistan, the coalition government will seek to support and strengthen the approach".
And, "the same [goal] will be pursued by enhancing people-to-people contact across the LoC [through] encouraging civil society exchanges [and by] taking travel, commerce, trade and business across the LoC to the next level".
“It is unmistakably the most hopeful development since the descent into violence a quarter of a century ago” Rajni observes.
She says the challenge over the next few years is to convert symbolism into substance, and the promise into reality. |
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