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| Ignoring Jammu, Ladakh | | | Prof Hari Om
Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh visited Srinagar for two days on August 24 and 25 to assess the situation in Kashmir, meet people there and diagnose what ailed Kashmir. This was his second visit in less than 45 days. Neither he visited Jammu and Ladakh during his first visit nor did he think it proper to visit these two ignored regions during his second visit. The exclusion of Jammu and Ladakh from his tour obviously offended the sensitivities of the people of these two regions. It was no wonder that the people of Jammu and Ladakh expressed their resentment over the indifferent attitude of New Delhi towards them and also reiterated their age old complaint that they had had no place in the New Delhi's scheme of things and that it was, and is, Kashmir which mattered and matters in the New Delhi's corridors of power. Some of them even went to the extent of expressing the view that the BJP, like the Congress, has turned out to be a fundamentally Valley-centric and one-sect-centric outfit and that the BJP could go to any extent to please the Kashmiri Muslims.
Their complaint is well-founded. They gave a massive mandate to the BJP both in the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections in 2014. It was their belief that the BJP, if came into power, at the Centre and in Jammu and Kashmir, would evolve and implement policies which would be state-centric and not Kashmir-centric and that Jammu and Ladakh would for the first time in 68 years obtain in the polity the political status that they legitimately deserved. Nothing of this sort happened. What happened was to the contrary.
It is no secret that the BJP handed over almost all to Kashmir and to the PDP on a platter, thereby rendering the people of these two regions ineffective and unreal for all practical purposes. The people of Jammu and Ladakh have inadequate representation in the State Cabinet. As a result, it is the PDP, which has been taking all policy decisions and playing all shots much to the chagrin of the people of Jammu and Ladakh. It would be no exaggeration if someone says that the BJP betrayed the Jammu's mandate and converted Jammu Ladakh into Kashmir's colonies. This is one sad part of the story. The other part of the story is also not promising and inspiring. The Kashmiri Muslims got everything, including the office of Chief Minister and all the vital portfolios and other very important positions in the administration. It was hoped that the Kashmiri Muslim leadership would welcome the BJP's surrender and it would eschew violence and not play the Pakistani role in the Valley to incite violence, anti-India explosions and promote ISIS activities. They did exactly the opposite. What has been happening in the Valley, particularly since Mehbooba Mufti took over the office of Chief Minister, has only vindicated those who held the view that the decades-old anti-India movement in the Valley was not political but religious in character and implications. Even senior PDP leader and former Deputy Chief Minister Muzaffar Hussain Baig has admitted in public and TV debates that the present movement in the Valley is more religious than political and that those involved in the movement wanted to convert Kashmir into a Muslim State. Only on August 24, he gave good reasons to believe that the old Vajpayee line of "Insaniyat, Jamhooriyat and Kashmiriyat' will not work. He said: "The cries of Azadi raised by teenage radicals and young jihadists no longer mean what they meant some time ago. They are about Islamisation and radicalization that have nothing to do with what India is, or is not, doing to bring peace in Kashmir".
He further said that "there have been three preceding stages of the conflict" and that "this, fourth stage in the struggle of Kashmir, is in danger of becoming religious extremism, which is not political goal but a religious vision; that Muslims must have their own state and they cannot live in a Hindu state". Muzaffar Baig only hinted at the truth and nothing but the truth.
The problem with New Delhi and the Indian political class is that they do not muster courage to hit the nail on the head and say right is right and wrong is wrong. They do not admit that the problem in Kashmir is purely religious which needed to be dealt with accordingly by isolating those who have virtually converted Kashmir into a religious state. It is this unwillingness or lack of courage that has further worsened the situation in the Kashmir Valley with the political establishments both in the state and at the centre finding it difficult to handle. There is no need to go into details of what Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Mehbooba Mufti said in Srinagar during the press conference on August 25. Suffice to say that what they said didn't cut the ice or broke the impasse. All of their formulations failed to strike a chord both with the so-called mainstream political leadership, Kashmiri separatists and the so-called civil society groups in the Valley. All of them in one voice said that the "problem of Kashmir is political and it must be resolved politically" and that "administrative and economic measures were no solution to the political problem". By political solution to the political problem they meant something beyond Article 370. Which means freedom from India and establishment of an Islamic State. New Delhi and the Indian political class themselves are responsible for creating a situation in the Valley the worried nation has been witnessing these days. It was they who accorded legitimacy to Kashmiri Muslim sub-nationalism and allowed it grow without realizing its dangerous consequences. It was the recognition of this Kashmiri Muslim sub-nationalism that has developed into a sort of jihad. If New Delhi sincerely wishes to tackle the problem in Kashmir, it has to take three steps to start with. One, it has to derecognize the Kashmiri Muslim sub-nationalism at whatever cost. It is at the root of the problem in Kashmir. Two, it has to strengthen the nationalist constituency in the state and abandon the policy it practiced so far towards the nation's backbone in the sensitive border state. Three, it has to make the state administrative and political apparatus functional and again at whatever cost. There is no other alternative left. |
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