Tarun Upadhyay
Just hours after the Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti addressed a function on Saturday to mark the foundation day of the PDP in Anantnag, most of the news channels started debating the points she made. One particular channel was even debating has she (CM) gone off the edge and the screen also promoting hashtag on similar lines. The TV debates had probably, well quite surely, made the hash of context, content and continuinum of political landscape.
Firstly, what was the content of the CM’s speech? She talked about having consultations with representatives of the PoK to nominate seats reserved for them in J&K assembly and vice-versa and also that sessions J&K Assembly should be held in PoK and there in J&K. The CM also called for cultural exchange and put heads together to find solutions to the problems facing the two parts of the undivided state.
To some especially politically uninitiated nominating the members of the ‘hostile’ country to our Assembly may surely be viewed a clear case of gone off the edge. But J&K Assembly has constitutionally reserved 25 seats for residents of the PoK. The 1994 parliamentary session claims PoK to be part of the India-read J&K- and BJP believes that getting that party back is the only ‘problem’ confronting J&K. The CM has technically reasserted the Indian position and in a manner she has further extended the Indian position. What she has stated is to infuse local sentiment and to an extent the ‘soul’ too to the idea of PoK being part of the J&K. Viewed from constitutional context one can safely argue she has not gone off edge.
In March this year BJP MP Nishikant Dubey introduced bill which seeks to reserve five seats in the Lok Sabha and one in the Rajya Sabha for the residents of Gilgit and PoK. On some what similar lines, last year the Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha (ABHM) urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to reserve five seats in Parliament for residents of Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (PoK) on the lines of 25 seats reserved for them in the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly. So going by the logic of the TV debates, then this Bill and the demand is surely a threat to the nation.
Broadening the context a bit will further clear the image and the context. The undivided J&K which shared boundaries with Afghanistan and China encompassing PoK, Gilgit, Skardu, Aksai Chin, even Tibet was given geographical and political entity by Dogra rulers. MP Dr Karan Singh is the scion of this one ruling family.
Mind you, Kashmir region, except for the religious thread, doesn’t have much cultural affinity with any other part of the undivided state but which is shared by the people of Jammu and Ladakh regions. The CM seemingly is expressing the latent sentiment of the Jammu region, the political base of the BJP, the right-wing party.
What Mehbooba Mufti has or done is to extend the ‘idea’ and ‘sentiment’ to a higher level. The idea is to blur the geographical boundaries even if conceptually and give a sense that J&K is only single entity as it was once was. The idea negates Pakistan factor and counter the idea of ‘liberate’ or getting ‘Azaadi’ prevalent or rather infused in the Kashmir.
Making borders blurred if not obliterating, which surely is not possible, could counter the idea of ‘sub-nationalism’ in the Kashmir. Sub-nationalism is the matrix in which every thing what is happening in Kashmir moves.
Mehbooba Mufti is attempting to slowly and gradually fading away or merging it with the Indian nation but not having a sense being caged in Indian nationalism rather openly seeing and feeling across the lines dividing the state.
The idea may not be to liking to many Indian and people of the across both Jawahar and proposed Zojilla tunnel but radical steps or ideas are needed to counter the 70-yr-old narratives manufactured across the border.
One of the manufactured ideas from across the border is that fellow religion people are being ‘caged’ ‘held hostage’ and ‘persecuted’ in Kashmir and they have to be ‘freed’.
Now, why and how these ideas have been floated. Let’s try to understand it by what former Pakistan ambassador Husain Haqqani said in a talk held by Asia Society, last year in New York.
Haqqani gives out some number to understand the Pakistan. He said at the time of independence in 1947, Pakistan ended up with 25% territory, 20 % population 17 % revenues and 33% British army, yes 33 percent much more than other things at the time of partition. At that time 1/3rd of muslim population decided to stay out , now this figure has gone up after creation of Bangladesh.
So the army of such size needs and enemy crafted to feed and sustain itself. It also needs voluntaries and that comes in the form of terrorism now. And religion brings out the perfect paradigm to operate and this religious paradigm it uses or continues to create trouble in Kashmir and consistently planting seeds of distrust in the valley.
Finding leverage, operating in such manufactured matrix in Kashmir and countering it needs an idea of higher platform which not only runs counter to this paradigm but negates it both on religious line and lines on the border.
Both the nations are here to stay and India if not Pakistan has gained enough maturity to discuss and debate the ideas especially which can have an effect on 20% of its population.
These are not off the edge or ideas that are security threat to the nation. But, these nuances and contours can’t be understood and contextualized in TV studios.
A four member team recently visited Kashmir. A clip of their meeting with the CM was released by the information department. It has two or three second sound byte of CM saying ‘ Uff TV walon se dar lagta hai.. yeh kuch bhi bana dete hain’.
So, CM knew what TV debates will and still went out with this idea. Probably she has faith some where top the line, where TV debates doesn’t matter much.
A media report on Aug 2 had said Centre will not stop the trade and this was communicated by the union home ministry to the CM in Srinagar.
Post Script: 119 terrorists killed in valley till now, one of the highest numbers in this time span. So, security grid is quite active and guards never lowered.
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