The political cross currents in Kashmir after the collapse of the PDP-BJP government last month demonstrate it clearly that the political maturity has not dawned on the leadership till date. It may seem to be a sweeping statement, but the actual happenings on the ground have shown that the political maturity’s definition has been reduced to cobbling together the governments and name calling. This is not something unique to Kashmir. This happens elsewhere too. But no other place is as complex as Kashmir where the paths of India and Pakistan cross, and of late China has become another player.
Internally, there are so many groups and interests and layers within layers that it is difficult to discern the real motives of what is being done and with what purpose. Commoners have understood the game but not as much as they need to know because their vision is clouded by empty but emotional rhetoric.
Coming to the crisis triggered on June 19th when the BJP announced from Delhi its withdrawal of the support to the alliance partner People’s Democratic Party in the coalition government, it should be easily concluded that the cartography of this was sketched long before the actual act. The two parties were looking for the political martyrdom moment in the run up to the demise of the North Pole- South Pole alliance, and at the end of the day neither was able to achieve that cherished goal.
Political martyrdom never dawns by design or hyperbolic language. It is born out of commitments and convictions. The political and ideological compromises never make it to the gallows of martyrdom.
BJP listed two primary reasons to pull out of the coalition government. One, the party was finding it difficult because the national security and integrity was compromised. Its simple interpretation is that in a little over three years of the PDP-BJP government, there was a serious threat to the national security. Two sets of questions arise out of this assertion. What is the connection between the national security concerns and the alliance government, and if there was any question, then both the parties were equal partners in undermining the national security. While dislodging PDP government, BJP didn’t tell that why it kept quiet all these years.
Mehbooba Mufti answered these questions in a recent interview to a TV channel, where she listed some of her acts as Chief Minister that might have hurt the alliance partner. She wanted the local militants to be captured alive, instead of being killed in encounters, no action against Jamat-i-Islmi workers simply because they belonged to the party committed to a particular ideology. More startling was the revelation that how anguished she was over the arrest of Hizb-ul-Mujahadeen Supreme Commander Salaha-ud-Din’s son by NIA. She declared him innocent and then she harked back to the hanging of the Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru. If BJP had a weak argument, Mehbooba’s assessment of her own performance in this regard was weaker. In fact, she justified that instead of working for the people, she was working for a particular set of people. The irony is that she was working for neither.
BJP’s second charge, which is laughable, was that she discriminated against Jammu and Ladakh regions. There are certain instances where the peoples of Jammu and Ladakh had this feeling and they believed that the coalition government was responsible for it. The BJP should have answered that what were its ministers doing in the government. For how many days, they attended their offices in the secretariat and in how many cabinet meetings they raised the question of discrimination against Jammu or Ladakh.
Mehbooba’s answer to these queries was full of sarcasm but at the same time she absolved herself of any charge that a Chief Minister should have accepted and answered in a better fashion. She said that the BJP ministers were holding important portfolios and they should have taken care of their constituency. Can someone ask her, was she Chief Minister of one particular region only.
One more question that she needs to answer now. When she knew that on November 7, 2015, Prime Minister Narendra Modi disappointed Kashmir by not giving any visionary statement like his predecessor Atal Behari Vajpayee in 2003, then why did she re-entered into alliance with the same party and Prime Minister in March 2016 before becoming Chief Minister in April 2016.
The troubles that will follow, and will certainly do, she and the BJP would be held equally responsible for that.
( Binoo Joshi is a political journalist based in J&K)