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| Study Group | | what exactly is BJP studying in Jammu & Kashmir? | | Early Times Report
Jammu, May 31: Senior BJP leader and former national president of the party Rajnath Singh, who is heading the BJP Parliamentary Study Group on Jammu & Kashmir for months now, on Wednesday announced that the BJP will soon come out with a "vision document on Jammu & Kashmir issue" to education Indian public opinion. A few local activists and "intellectuals" are assisting Rajnath Singh and other members of the Study Group in the preparation of the vision document.
It is ironical that the BJP which has been playing the Jammu & Kashmir card since years for garnering votes at the national level is still not clear about the issues facing the sensitive border state. It had in the past for years sought to tell the nation that Article 370 of the Indian Constitution was responsible for the Indian troubles in Kashmir and had right till 1998 sought its abrogation saying it was a communal and divisive Article. But even before forming the ragtag NDA government at the centre in 1998, the BJP thought it advisable not to insist on its abrogation. It said it would go slow on the issue because its alliance partners held a different view on this Article. (The fact of the matter is that the BJP adopted a common minimum programme, along with its partners, which did not contain any reference to Article 370, Uniform Civil Code and Ram Temple, its three main lynchpins.)
In fact, just on the eve of the formation of the BJP-led government Atal Bihari Vajpayee had at Tangdhar (Kashmir) declared that Article 370 shall ever remain a permanent feature of the Indian Constitution. Ever since then, the BJP has never raked up the issue in the manner in which it used to before 1998 and hobnobbed and even shared power with the those who were staunch supporters of Article 370 as, for example, National Conference . The BJP even flirted with those seeking self-rule for the state.
Not only this, the BJP-led NDA Government even tried to negotiate a settlement with Pakistan over Jammu & Kashmir. The main features of the proposed settlement were: (1) grant of maximum possible autonomy to Kashmir and its adjoining areas, (2) division of Jammu province along the Chenab river on communal lines, (3) a mechanism that would render the Line of Control irrelevant and (4) demilitarization. Vajpayee wanted to settle the Kashmir issue within the parameters of what he called "insaniyat". The BJP could not proceed further because of the internal situation in Pakistan, including a sort of revolt against the then Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf. The present Congress-led UPA Government is trying its best to implement the policy the BJP-led Government had devised to befriend Pakistan and appease the fundamentalists in Kashmir. There is no difference whatever between what BJP did between 1998 and 2004 as far as Jammu & Kashmir was concerned and what the Congress has been doing since 2004 in the state.
As for the local BJP leadership, it did not even once referred to Article 370 in its 2008 election manifesto. In fact, several reports then suggested that those who finalized the manifesto had deleted the portion dealing with Article 370 and that it was a deliberate omission made by the party to establish its "secular credentials". It was then reported that the objective of the state BJP was to win nearly 20 seats and share power with the NC, it had all along opposed.
But these are just two of the several such instances which serve to demonstrate that the BJP said one thing in the public and did exactly the opposite while talking to Pakistan and Kashmiri leadership. That's precisely the reason that many people distanced themselves from this so-called nationalist party and the result was that the BJP suffered humiliating defeat in 2004 and 2009.
The BJP needs to explain as to what precisely it is studying in Jammu & Kashmir. It should also make clear its stand on this border state. As for the issues facing the state, these include the Valley domination over Jammu and Ladakh and the Kashmiri leadership's insistence on a system that is not consistent with the Indian Constitution, demands in Jammu and Ladakh for their empowerment under the Indian Constitution, return of the displaced Kashmiri Hindus to the Valley, denial of citizenship rights to the refugees from West Pakistan and compensation to the refugees from Pakistan-occupied-Jammu & Kashmir and so on. Will the BJP take cognizance of these issues and work for a system that not only defeats the Kashmiri Muslim identity politics and integrates the state fully with India but also empowers Jammu and Ladakh and mitigates the hardships of the refugees of all varieties residing in Jammu since decades? |
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