Long Political Shadow Of Kathua Rape And Murder

SRINAGAR — Just when we expected the campaign for the CBI probe into Kathua rape and murder to fizzle out after the Supreme Court ruled it out, the demand for it has only gotten stronger in Jammu  with the ousted BJP minister Chaudhury Lal Singh’s continuing public rallies in support for it, latest of which on Sunday drew an estimated twenty five thousand people.

The rally christened as ‘Dogra Swabhiman Rally (rally for Dogra self-esteem) started from Lakhanpur, bordering Punjab, to Londi Morh Kootah and a large number of protesters including Lal Singh walked the 36-kilometre distance on foot. Hundreds of people were also riding buses, cars and bikes.

In his address to the charged crowd, Lal Singh made a case for the CBI probe by framing the argument in terms of the quest for the justice for the eight-year-old victim of rape and murder, calling her “a daughter of Dogras”. And at the same time, he also played to the local sentiment and made the issue as a larger battle for restoring the “dignity and honour” of Dogras.

However, campaign has come a long way since Lal Singh launched it soon after being ousted as the forest minister in the PDP-BJP coalition in April for participating in a rally of the Hindu Ekta Manch in support of the accused in the rape and murder along with his colleague Chander Prakash Ganga who was similarly forced to resign as the minister for Industries and Commerce.

Now it is less about the CBI probe and more about reconfiguring the political landscape in Jammu in the run-up to the next year’s general election to be followed by the state Assembly polls in 2020.  What has also changed is its bitterly polarizing nature. Lal Singh has tried to avert it by recruiting some Jammu Muslims to his cause and pitting the growing anger against Kashmiri Muslims.

“Gone are the days when the Kashmir-centric parties could gag our voice through oppressive means. Now Dogras have decided to fight,” Lal Singh said. “We don’t want any lessons on secularism and brotherhood from the Kashmir-centric parties which lack guts to speak against fundamentalists. Since the times immemorial, Dogras are accommodating people of all religion and regions.”

There were slogans against Kashmiri parties with Lal Singh’s brother Chaudhary Rajinder Singh calling the Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti a “dog”.

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But as far as the rally was concerned, the effort was to project the demand for a CBI probe as coming from all the communities.

“Na Hindu ki, na Musalman ki, yeh rally hai Dogra Swabhiman ki (Neither for Hindus nor for Muslims, this rally is rally is for the self-esteem of Dogras,” went the slogan.

And later in his speech, Lal Singh rechristened the Hindu Ekta Manch as the Dogra Ekta Manch, saying the demand for the CBI probe into Kathua crime was of all the communities and not just Hindus.

But the fact that has not been lost on the political observers of the state is that Lal Singh has drawn massive crowds in twin districts of Kathua and Sambha, a development that has caused worry lines to deepen in the BJP, looking to replicate or improve upon his 2014 electoral performance in Jammu. The party had won 25 of the 37 seats in the province enabling it to form the government with the PDP.

Now the situation has come to a pass where the BJP leaders from the area – the speaker  Nirmal Singh and newly inducted ministers  Rajiv Jasrotia and Devendra Kumar Manyal – are fast losing the confidence if their voters.

Tempers run so high that earlier this month the protesters stoned the cavalcade of another BJP minister Sham Lal Choudhary’s on Jammu-Pathankot highway. The disaffection could only further spread in the province, with a growing number of the people certain about the false implication of the accused by a Crime Branch team which though headed by a Hindu has Muslim investigators as its members. And should the campaign crystallize into an anti-BJP mood and the rebel Lal Singh succeed in harvesting it for his personal political glory, it could signal deeper trouble for the BJP.

But thankfully for the BJP, Lal Singh’s campaign has not resonated with the rest of the country where outrage against the rape and murder of the eight-year-old girl has been more or less uniform. So, the BJP didn’t feel the need to acquiesce in to the demand for the CBI probe to play to the larger public sentiment. And in Jammu, it has still time on its hands to bring the situation around before the next year’s general election. Besides, Lal Singh remains a BJP leader. He will be a challenge only once he leaves the party. 

Already the BJP has adopted the line that it is not against the CBI probe but that it can do little after the Supreme Court ruled it out.

But the danger inherent in Lal Sing’s campaign, despite his belated secularization bid, is its possible communal turn – if not against Jammu Muslims then certainly against their Kashmiri counterparts. And should that happen, its political fallout will not remain limited to J&K only.

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