B L Saraf
Making due allowance for a counter view, this write up proceeds on the, most likely, premise that there will be no redrawing of the boundaries – International or LOC – between India and Pakistan and that no more independent State, cutting out of the existing one, would grow on the soil of the Indian Sub – Continent; at least not in the foreseeable future. So, the discourse, for a change, has to shift away from Azadi and the plebiscite and be specific to the real issues which stare a common citizen. In this situation it would be most desirable to unshackle the thought process of a common resident of J&K and give him space to think , dispassionately, of what matters most to him for his bare physical survival and how he should foresee and be a part in the making of a political / administrative dispensation that will address his bread and butter issues. There is no gain saying that an ordinary person in the State is mortally confronted with issues of price rise , missing electricity, unemployment, pot holed roads, corruption, rights abuse and shortage of drinking water. These are, undoubtedly, matters pertaining to the good governance. To tackle them we need a performing Government. CM Ommar Abdullah and some influential separatist leaders justified huge participation of the state electorate in the elections held in 2008 – particularly in the Valley – on this ground; and sought to delink the participation from the people’s “urge” to settle the ‘ Kashmir dispute’. This argument is a skewed one which we leave to be settled at some other time. If that is so, then, it will be in the fitness of things to afford a level playing field to the general electorate and not bind them to the ‘ idea or ideology ‘ which is nowheregermane to the main issue – that is of the good governance. It will do a world of good to the separatist leaders if they provide this space and opportunity to the helpless populace and free them of the mental fetters and not make it a hostage to the particular view point, which deters people to articulate what matters most for their immediate and long term survival .
When people in the state come out on the streets to protest peacefully against the problems they face for a mere living and raise slogans against the powers that be they reaffirm faith in the democratic process. Apart from that, they display a strongdistaste against the politicians and the conventional type of the politics, as acutely as the people in Delhi felt and expressed it in no uncertain terms. That explains the arrival of Aam Admi Party (A A P) to the national political scene. People need a credible alternative . They miss it . They are in a dilemma . When people in the Valley shut down on the call of separatists they show utter disregard for the mainstream politics . But when these very people queue up early in the morning, braving the severity of weather, and, despite the boycott call of the very separatist leaders , vote in large numbers for the mainstream politicians, in the elections, they express a clear no confidence in the separatist politics. Credible alternative, therefore , becomes imperative . What AAP has shown in Delhi could be explored in J &K . After all, there is no dearth of well-meaning and dedicated activists to take a call in this regard and show a way to the beleaguered people in the state. AAP has changed political discourse and the political landscape . Change is desired in J &K also .
Here, with few exceptions, the political space has been usurped by the exploiters. Some stoke emotional sentiments in the minds the people to milk them ; others play on their weak and insecure susceptibilities and evoke existential issues. Some debit the politics of exploitation to the Azadi Bank to draw the sustenance; others draw on the Security Related Expenditure – an account which will never run dry ,nor demand any accountability . In the dismal scenario, some amongst us has to come up with a possible vision and show a way out of the muck . The possibility has be validated which will force these bunch of exploiters to leave a bit of space for democracy to be operationalized in the strangled political and social atmosphere, we are made to live in.
J&K needs AAP both as metaphor and in the letter . The way this party kept things simple and uncomplicated and made electioneering transparent and cost effective, certainly, does inspire faith of a common man in the basic ethics which the traditional politicians had cast away. We need it most. Because, the so called special status and too much emphasis on the security concerns has shrouded even a simple thing in a mystery. Hope, the mystery can be revealed. The sense generated by the APP has brought impossible in therealm of possible. We need to replicate here. If not for anything else , just to take the arrogant, disconnected and brazenly power broking politicians out of the comfort zone . Secondly , the prospect of a credible political alternative will ensure that the peace dividend, achieved at great human and material cost, percolates down to the common man. In addition, the thought of a sincere political dispensation arriving on the State’s horizon will grant real Azadi to an ordinary voter to exercise his right of franchise dispassionately, unmindful of highly spurious and grossly inappropriate considerations.
(The author is former Principal District & Sessions Judge) .
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