In the run-up to the Kashmir elections, a senior leader from the BJP parliamentary board spoke to me about the need to weed out the Mufti Sayeed-led PDP from Kashmir: “We believe that in order for complete control on India, Kashmir is essential, and we mean Kashmir without the separatists and separatist sympathizers.”
The reference was to the PDP, which has been accused of going soft on the demand for an Azad Kashmir, a party which accused the Abdullahs of shelving the plebiscite movement in 1975 and sacrificing the interests of Kashmiris.
It was Mehbooba Mufti who backed AAP leader Prashant Bhushan’s call for a referendum on the Armed Forces Special Powers Act or AFSPA. It was the Mufti-led PDP which accused the Congress of playing soft Hindutva by hanging Afzal Guru in February, 2013.
In a classic turnaround after the results, similar to the one seen with rival NCP in Maharashtra, BJP President Amit Shah said he was not averse to the idea of forging an alliance with the PDP.
Despite the last-ditch measures and politicking that is playing out, the BJP’s dream of absolute control of India’s only Muslim-majority state looks possible.
That the BJP has been restricted to 25 seats as against its declared Mission 44 is a result of the fascination of the Sangh Parivar to see a Hindu Chief Minister. It is this dream that had a BJP leader concede in an informal conversation on counting day that a compromise formula of a rotational Chief Minister could see the party support Mufti Mohammad Sayeed.
RSS leaders campaigning in Jammu and Kashmir gave ‘Kashmirhamara hai’ a communal overtone as opposed to what could have been a nationalist slogan. It was this idea of propriety that saw the RSS cadres galvanise the Hindu voter in Jammu, and reduce the Kashmir election to a Hindu-versus-Muslim battle. The displaced Kashmiri Pandit who continues to strive for his dignity, for his dream to return back to his homeland, was reduced to just another ‘Hindu’ voter.
Senior Intelligence Bureau officials affiliated to the Sangh in the past had suggested to Amit Shah that Omar Abdullah was a natural ally in comparison to the PDP – this when rumours strongly suggested that a senior RSS functionary had met Mufti Sayeed as early as December 2013.
BJP President Amit Shah is not treating the National Conference as a pariah, knowing the Abdullahs’ famed love for power. Farooq Abdullah had famously supported the NDA government before returning to power in Kashmir and expressing regret for his decision. But the BJP is back in power in Delhi and it may not be very difficult to woo back the Abdullahs.
As I write this, BJP leaders are alleged to have opened channels of communication with Omar Abdullah’s National Conference with Sajjad Lone playing the role of mediator, and seeking the support of other independents.
As for the PDP, BJP spokespersons reminded the media of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s congenial relations with Mufti Mohammad Sayeed when he was Chief Minister. Saeed’s PDP has emerged the single largest party, falling 14 short of the magic figure.
After a meeting with Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad in Delhi a few months ago, the PDP’s Mehbooba Mufti accused the BJP of polarising Jammu and Kashmir and Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the RSS of exercising a communal propaganda before elections.
But true to the nature of Indian polity, Muzaffar Baig, PDP heavyweight, insisted that the communal experiment had nothing to do with the BJP.
The numbers show that the Modi wave alleged to be at work across the country refused to strike a reconciliatory note with the Valley. BJP leaders who spoke of Modi being Vajpayee’s avatar refused to tell the nation that Vajpayee was one of the first national leaders to accept that there ‘was’ a problem with Kashmir that could not be overlooked. Vajpayee was one of the few leaders to understand that if the Kashmir issue was to be addressed, the separatists had to be brought to the table, that the common man of Kashmir needed to have faith in the Indian state.
The BJP’s idea of Kashmiriyat, as we have seen today, stands in complete contrast to the vision of Vajpayee. It was this betrayal of Kashmiriyat which restrained BJP’s dream of Mission 44.
Irrespective of the outcome, this election has huge learnings not just for the Congress, which appears to be inching towards complete decimation, but for the BJP, who should see that its development card isn’t being bought everywhere and its complete reliance on the Modi wave and Amit Shah juggernaut is proving to be detrimental to its newly-achieved success in Delhi.
One of the most significant learnings for the party is that it cannot continue to shift from Dr Jekyll to Mr Hyde as per convenience.
While Prime Minister Modi spoke of Kashmiriyat in the Valley, his colleagues from the RSS invoked the Pandit pride, aligning it with the idea of Hindutva. RSS workers worked overtime in Jammu using religion as a calling card, talking of restoring the pride of former army men. All this while the party’s Muslim face, Hina Bhatt, delivered comments ranging from taking to a gun over Article 370 to bringing in a culture of change.
Despite the possibility that the BJP could well be a part of the new government, whether it’s with the PDP or the NC, the fact that the party was restrained at 25 proves that it’s time the BJP understands that religious polarisation might not be its best bet. The common man in the valley has come out to vote in huge numbers to reassert its faith in the Indian democracy, but the PM and his partymen refused to understand that Kashmir is not Uttar Pradesh.
Kashmiriyat is not about placing the state as the crowning glory of Akhand Bharat or a Hindu Rashtra, Kashmiriyat means treating every son of Jammu and Kashmir as a rightful heir to the idea of India.
Author is an award-winning investigative journalist and political writer. She is working on a book on Prime Minister Narendra Modi which will be published in 2015.
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