B.K. Chum
Jammu and Kashmir is again in the media headlines for two reasons: Controversy over the demand for revocation of Article 370; and, stepped-up infiltrations and escalated terror violence by Pakistan-based terrorists.
Come elections and politicians raise issues which have the potential of fetching votes. This is the case with the demand for revocation of Article 370 which provides special status to Jammu and Kashmir.
With the Lok Sabha and Jammu and Kashmir Assembly polls due in 2014 a controversy over revoking the Article has been generated. In the forefront of the demand is BJP while the dominant ruling coalition partner National Conference and the main opposition party PDP besides some other Valley-based parties are vehemently opposed to the demand.
Responding to chief minister Omar Abdullah’s criticism against Advani’s demand for abrogation of Article 370, the BJP stalwart advised him “never to use offensive language and words like ‘cheating’ and ‘deceiving’.” Omar hit back asking the BJP veteran to explain his silence on abrogation of the Article between 1998 and 2004 when the NDA was ruling at the Centre. He said “people of Jammu and Kashmir categorically tell them that revocation of Article 370 is not possible at all and any attempt by anyone on this sensitive issue would be on our dead bodies”.
The Chief Minister is right when he says that when in power at the Centre, the BJP was silent on the abrogation of Article 370 and that Kashmiris are opposed to the abrogation of the Article. Along with its demand for revocation of 370, the BJP had then also sidelined its two other issues –building Ram Mandir and Hindu Code Bill. These demands had formed its main plank in the past elections.
Soon after Narendra Modi’s appointment as BJP’s election campaign incharge, there were reports that some party leaders toyed with the idea of reviving the three long-forgotten demands. There were also hints that Modi might resurrect the RSS-BJP’s Hindutava agenda. But the issues of building Ram mandir and Hindu Code Bill were later virtually put under the carpet as it was perhaps realized that focusing on them before the elections might prove counter-productive for the BJP ideologues apparent plan to win over the minorities. The party ideologues must have realized that having lost the company of some of its regional allies, the latest being Nitish Kumar’s JD(U), who commanded sizeable support of Muslim and other backwards votes, the BJP would not be able to achieve its dream of capturing power after the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Modi who had announced a visit to a sadhus meeting in UP abandoned his visit. The party has also formed a special cell to secure Muslims support.
If proximity of elections makes politicians raise issues designed to fetch them votes, they can push them under the carpet if they think these will harm their electoral prospects. This has happened in the case of the BJP’s three main demands.
Now on stepped-up infiltrations and terrorist violence in Jammu and Kashmir.
The rise in infiltrations and terror attacks indicates that the ISI’s three-year long slowed down push of armed infiltrators into the state have proved to be short-lived. The lately stepped-up terror violence is indicated by killing of 27 security personnel in attacks so far this year as compared to four during the same period last year. First there was the suicide attack of Lashkar-e-Toiba at CRPF camp in Bemina in March last. It was followed by the attack on the Army convoy at Hyderpora bypass in Srinagar on June 24 on the eve of the visit of PM and Sonia Gandhi to the state. Eight army troopers were killed in the attack.
Even though the Hizbul Mujahideen, primarily a Kashmir-based terrorist outfit, claimed responsibility for June 24 attack, security agencies are convinced that the two attackers were part of a group of ten Pakistani LeT terrorists who infiltrated in two batches last October. Of them two were killed as they ran into an Army patrol. According to intelligence agencies, Fahadullah, LeT’s divisional commander in north Kashmir who was arrested a couple of months back had revealed that after the crackdown on LeT following the 26/11 Mumbai attack, the outfit’s training camp in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir was moved to a new place called Dulai, near Muzzaffarabad.
These reports bring into focus the relations between the newly-elected Nawaz Sharif government and the Army. In glaring contrast to his predecessor Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistan Army chief Gen.Kayani has been on a low profile mode. It may be because of the Pakistani Army’s pre-occupation with containing the increased activities of terrorists in the country. In the backdrop of these developments and the reports about the ISI asking the valley separatists to rally around the hardliner Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani and forge a common front against India, the ISI’s revived aggressiveness shows ISI may be having deeper plans.
Ironically, the escalation in infiltrations and terror violence has taken place even when the new Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh have been stressing the need for normalizing relations between the two countries. Before he was sworn in as Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif had told an Indian reporter on May 13 “I would not allow Pakistan to export terror. The Army will be on board to better ties with India. I am determined to restore authority of the PM office. The army will report to the PM who is the boss.” It is surprising that despite all such assurances and the sweet talk about establishing bonhomie between the Pakistan’s civil authorities and the Army, infiltrations under the cover of army’s guns are allowed to take place into Jammu and Kashmir.
Although elections are still months away, the vote catching tussles in Jammu and Kashmir and normalization of India-Pakistan relations are like what a wise man had said, “Scratch a cat and you will have a permanent job”.
(IPA Service)
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