Ranbir Singh Pathania
It is really a silly season in Kashmir. The air is thick with a sense of déjà vu. Misled and maneuvered from Pakistan, Kashmiri youth, have been on a rebellious path since the past month and a half. An attempt is being made to paint a most wanted terrorist, Burhan Wani, as a ‘youth icon’ and make mountain out of the mole-hill. The middle ground of ‘self-rule’ ‘pre-1953’ look like buried beneath the debris of damaged police stations, camps of paramilitary forces and damaged government buildings.
Prime Minister has trailed the blaze from ramparts of Red Fort on Independence Day while sharing the pain of Baluchistan and acknowledging POJK as fourth region of the state of J & K. Union Home Minister quips, ‘Kashmiri children should have pens and laptops in their hands and not stones’.
Giving a new twist to the dramatic turn of events, ‘rag-tag’ conglomerate of opposition parties led by former J & K C M, Mr. Omar Abdullah, have come trooped all along from Kashmir to Delhi and submitted a memorandum to President of India vis-à-vis ongoing unrest in Kashmir – accusing armed forces from committing ‘excesses’, seeking political solution of Kashmir and holding Mehbooba Mufti and not Pakistan responsible for the situation in Kashmir. On one hand, Omar’s National Conference boycotts all-party meets of Mehbooba Mufti and also those called by Rajnath Singh in Kashmir. While, on the other side, they have the temerity to heli-hop to the National Capital and sell stories of all sorts. Emancipation should be constructive, categoric and contributive always. This is what it suits national interests and urgencies. And the people also like and reward it.
In the backdrop of this hullabalo on situation in Kashmir, the million-dollar question that springs out of the cupboard – Who sowed first-ever seeds of mistrust in Kashmir? Who rigged 1987 elections leading to a mass upsurge in Kashmir? Who ruled Kashmir for three decades and could not find a political solution? Who throttled the concept of ‘local self-Government’ and ‘decentralization of powers’ by intentionally disempowering Panchayats and deliberately not conducting municipal elections thereby at the lowest level? And further that who engineered lack of faith in institutions by killing Accountability Commission, Human Rights Commission and ‘right to information’ law in the State? All this is history and does not need a bush. Even a layman on streets of Kashmir knows this.
Had it not been for the rigged elections in 1987, Syed Salahuddin would have been an MLA or an ex-MLA today. Pakistani cats would have found least space to swing. But much water has flowed under Jehlum.
It was at the behest of National Conference that led the Centre into the blind alley with its two miscalculated adventures – first, in replacing popular Maharaja rule with Shiekh Abdullah’s puppet government, and second, in clinching the ill-conceived and ill-materialized Indira-Sheikh accord.
Mr. Omar was handed over the reins of the party by his father in 2002 resulting in reducing of his party’s strength on Assembly from 56 to 28, and he himself losing to a little-known figure on the home-turf of Ganderbal. Again in 2008, he was catapulted directly into the CM’s throne by the Delhi Durbar. And in 2014, his party as well as his ally-partner, Congress, were found at the lowest end of mercury in Lok Sabha as well as Vidhan Sabha elections. It is high time that he should no more be obsessed with a Utopian belief that the Chief Ministership of J&K shall fall in his lap like a ripe apple one fine day.
Whereas, on the other side of the ridge is Mehbooba Mufti who was launched by her father in 1996 on a Congress mandate from Bijibehra. And there after she never lost a single election – may it be Parliamentary or Assembly. She started from a shred in 1999 and steered her party to power in 2002 with sixteen MLAs. Her party swelled to twenty-one in 2008 and to twenty-eight in 2014, again coming to power in alliance with BJP. Despite all odds and mischiefs from within and across the border, she has rode the tiger in Kashmir transcending an impression that ruling J & K is less a family-centric flirtation and more a serious commitment.
Another intriguing and disappointing part of the story has been that Congress has also sided with NC for confounding the confusion. Is it the same Grand Old party which had put Sheikh Abdullah behind the bars for a single anti-India outburst. Whose LOP in Rajya Sabha, Ghulam Nabi Azad, is known for all support to armed forces in Kashmir. Whose former Prime Minister, Narasimha Rao has a proud feather in his cap for piloting through a resolution on the floor of Indian Parliament declaring J & K, including POK, as integral part of India.
In Jammu, there has been stage-managed and play-to-the-gallery reactions to the Center’s rumble n’ tumble in Kashmir. Chamber of Commerce has been hitting the headlines with its hum and haw and its demand of shifting Civil Secretariat to Jammu. Bar Association at Srinagar is firing salvos of all sorts. While across Jawahar Tunnel, the Jammu Bar is flexing its muscles.
The self-declared ‘Sher-e-Jammu’, accredited all-over for amusing media at national and international levels by selling fables of the sorts, suffers a reprimand from Supreme Court for seeking imposition of Governor’s rule. This is probably twentieth occasion since government formation that his party has sought imposition of Governor’s rule in the State. But neither the sky has fallen nor anybody has caught larks.
If gimmickry and window-dressing could have been able to do the good, Bharat would have by now turned into happy oasis of a State.
United we stand and divided we fall. No political brinkmanship and fission but fusion is the mood today. It is in the same vein and background that I call upon all political and non-political groups – Kashmir is too sensitive an issue to play politics with. Irrespective of our political affiliations, ideologies, thoughts and political compulsions too, we need to be on the right side of pedestal while confronted with such sensitive issues.
We should bear in mind, clear and forthright, that the Prime Minister of India Narendra Bhai Modi, seems to be in a combative mood with nothing soft, stale for fomenters of terrorism on the Indian soil and to take up the lost thread from Vajpayee’s pragmatism on Kashmir issue – redeeming Jhumuriyat, Kashmiriyat and Insaniyat. Millions of eyes of hope and optimism have been pinned on him. Let us stand united and cohesive on the political firmament of the country.
(The columnist is member of J&K Legislative Assembly and practices law in the J&K High Court.)
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