J&K cannot be allowed to drift into a pre Article 370 revocation era

The dark reality of Kashmir politics is best known to Kashmiri Pandits who have learnt it the hard way. Unfortunately. And there are no two ways about it. Go back about three decades and that is where the learnings have come from. 

A warning or a prediction regarding Kashmir coming from a Kashmiri Pandit (KP) is ill-advised to be overlooked. After all who knows it better than those who were at the receiving end of radical Islamic terror in Kashmir in the late 80s and the early 90s as well as many times over after that. 

After the draconian Article 370 was repealed in August last year and subsequently Kashmir’s “mainstream” political leaders from the National Conference (NC) and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) with known separatist tendencies were placed under detention, KP commentators and activists were among the first to caution that a new theatre could begin following the release of those Kashmiri politicians.

The exact same thing happened! The absurd theatre began when former Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister and senior NC leader Omar Abdullah walked out of detention in March this year after nearly eight months. It reached some sort of a climax with his father Farooq Abdullah’s series of anti-India remarks in recent weeks, the biggest of them being the latest in which he called on the Chinese administration to challenge India’s sovereignty. 

However, this theatre barely surprises anyone. After all the NC and the PDP never had India in their hearts, which contributed majorly to the failure in creating a conducive atmosphere for a safe and dignified return of Kashmiri Pandits to their homeland. It is an aspect of the post-90s Kashmir history that the pseudo-secularists and leftist-liberals must educate themselves about in order to understand how a systematic campaign was run for years to deny Hindus their rights in Kashmir. 

But narrowing down on what has been happening in Kashmir’s separatist political circles lately, it is clear that desperation has led to the mask falling off and an outright secessionist attitude has been put on display. The unadulterated hatred for India is more evident than ever. As an observer, it is interesting to understand whether this is because the Abdullahs and the Muftis along with their campaigners want to salvage whatever little relevance they are left with and so they are trying their best to stay in the headlines, or because they believe that running an anti-India tirade will lead to their political revival in Kashmir, or both. 

Farooq Abdullah’s consistent rant in recent weeks demanding the restoration of Article 370 will not deter Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s far-sighted vision and plan about Kashmir but cannot be overlooked either. 

After all the threats are coming from no less than the former Chief Minister of J&K, a former Union Minister and a current Member of the Parliament. This man has sworn by the Constitution of India and fought all his elections under the Indian flag. As an MP, he is under oath to maintain his allegiance to the Indian republic. But he and many others of his kind continue to openly challenge the undisputable fact that Kashmir is an integral part of India. 

The threats have now transformed into an overt appeal to our aggressive western neighbour China to help the separatists break Kashmir away from India. Moreover, Abdullah has also displayed the audacity to state that Beijing had not approved of India’s constitutionally taken decision of scrapping the discriminatory article. 

Abdullah has, therefore effectively, called on a foreign power to challenge India’s territorial sovereignty, which in the simplest of terms amounts to nothing but an act of treason. 

But the question really is: how will the Government of India (GOI) ensure that Kashmir does not drift into the same situation that existed for decades before August last year given that the spoilers are out in the open again? 

On August 4, 2019, a day before the Modi government announced the revocation of Article 370 and bifurcated the erstwhile state of J&K into two union territories of J&K and Ladakh, the India-hating political parties of Kashmir huddled together at Farooq Abdullah’s Gupkar Road residence in Srinagar. In the joint statement - which came to be known as the Gupkar declaration - issued by the separatist parties, they expressed resentment and promised protest against any decision by GOI to scrap the ludicrous law. 

Following the release of the PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti on October 13, the disgruntled politicians held a meeting last week to declare that they were going to join their forces to bring back the special status of J&K. 

This alliance for the Gupkar Declaration is at best a photo opportunity to pose as though they have anything credible to offer in terms of separating Kashmir from the Indian union. The parties have tried to use one of the older tricks from the book, expecting a dramatic turnaround to the situation and other fortunes. 

However, nationalists have reposed their faith in the Modi-Shah combine to ensure that there is no revival of anti-India rhetoric in the valley but at the moment it appears that separatists have found a fresh mojo although Farooq Abdullah was recently grilled by the Enforcement Directorate in connection with a multi-crore scam in the J&K Cricket Association during 2002-11, something which the NC has claimed to be an act of political vendetta by the GOI against their patron. 

But it is pertinent to mention that the mood in the country is for the Modi government to pursue a zero-tolerance policy against anything that challenges India’s national interest. The mood is to see J&K treading on the path of development rather than getting embroiled in another phase of political and social turbulence. An antagonistic upsurge, no matter how big or small, against the idea of a unified India is the last thing the nationalist Kashmiris want. It took years and years of longing to finally realise the dream of a fully Indian Kashmir. It must be treasured and nurtured now while protecting it from malevolent forces. 

For more than 60 years, the Abdullahs and the Muftis have followed the dual policy of India-bashing in Kashmir and fake show of India-loyalty in New Delhi while exploiting the sentiments of the local Kashmiri Muslim population and arousing alienating emotions in them vis-a-vis India. Amid fading political clout, evoking passions and promising the return of Article 370 is their only recourse in the current scenario. 

The GOI must act tough and send a strong message to all the anti-national voices in Kashmir who, in the name of dissent and self-determination, are striving to keep alive their perennial agenda of Islamisation of Kashmir while shamelessly wanting to reap the benefits of being a part of the Indian union. 

This is the time when the Modi government must prioritise working expeditiously on creating a conducive environment in the valley so that the Kashmiri Pandits become convinced of a safe and dignified return to their homeland. There can be no better way than that to marginalise the separatist voices and eventually push them into oblivion. Kashmir deserves it. India deserves it. 

 

image source : kashmirreader.com

This is OUR struggle, let’s not fall for the fake show of solidarity

Following up from where I left in my last piece in which I highlighted the need for Hindus of all ideological leanings to come together, putting differences aside, and join the cause for resurrecting the Hindu pride - it struck me before I decided to start this piece, that there are forces currently in India which are pretending to be a part of our endeavour, but their hidden motive is to cater to their vested interests.       

I cannot help but feel agitated at the thought that a sizeable section of our community members endorses celebrities as champions of the Hindu cause. There cannot be something more disturbing than this. Is our mission to restore the Hindu pride or to gift a perfect platform to some self-proclaimed Hindu activists and nationalists to achieve, what appears to be, their political or social goals or both?   

In the unfortunate currents scenario, it appears that we are digressing or have digressed already. The movement that was inherently supposed to be spearheaded by the average Hindu has ended up getting somewhat hijacked by the powerful and the influential, bearing no emotional connection whatsoever with the cause. 

There is every reason to believe that, who I refer to as ‘pseudo-crusaders’ having questionable intentions and credentials, are doing what they are only for the cameras. They have little or nothing to show in terms of real contribution. 

A famous film star, Kangana Ranaut, has recently been at loggerheads with the Maharashtra government over a multitude of issues, amid the Sushant Singh Rajput death controversy. Strangely, she seems to have emerged out of nowhere as a vocal commentator on several contentious issues, including those related to the nationalistic and the Hindu cause.

The argument here is not that anyone, celebrity or otherwise, should be discouraged or barred from being a part of any social movement. However, as the real sufferers, we need to be careful and absolutely sure about those we put on a pedestal and declare as the torchbearers of our struggle. 

In the case of Kangana Ranaut, the lady has no credentials or contributions that should earn her the title of ‘voice of revolution’ as many have been suggesting. The maximum contribution one can think of is her recent videos in which she spoke rather uninhibitedly about some socio-political issues from a “ring-wing” perspective. 

One of the videos condemned the brutal killing of the Kashmiri Pandit Sarpanch Ajay Bharti, who was murdered in cold blood by Islamists in Kashmir. There was nothing wrong with the content of the video or the intention behind releasing it, even if she scripted it as part of her  PR exercise to fulfil her personal ambitions. But it was what followed after that which baffled me. The social media was abuzz with adulatory reactions from Hindus, especially from the Kashmiri Pandit community, declaring Kangana as the next big Hindu voice who understands the plight of KPs, as though she had personally gone through the ordeal of the 90s and what followed in the aftermath of it.  

The point is simple. We can ill-afford to let agenda-driven people, famous or ordinary, seize - what must stay as - a movement of those who faced the heat directly. Kangana's tough stand against the Maharashtra administration is admirable. Whether her bravado emanates from strong political support remains ambiguous, but at many levels, it does seem like she is trying to settle a score, which she is entitled to do.    

But to hero-worship her, by showering adjectives like “Hindu Sherni”, “Jhansi Ki Rani” among others, is absurd. Those associated with the cause must realise that the motive behind our struggle is to unite Hindus. Allowing our endeavour to become an opportunity for a celebrity to gain publicity defeats the purpose.    

The deserving recipients of the credit are the average Hindu nationalists, the Swayamsewaks and the Karyakartas, who have dedicated their lives to the cause of restoring the Hindu pride. They are the real role models, not those celebrities who have suddenly become proactive and probably have dubious objectives. 

The other major factor we need to stay cautious against is the eulogisation of the so-called nationalist right-leaning mainstream media, which presumably for its own business benefits, is trying to take the focus away from the real issues to less significant subjects from a nationalistic perspective.   

This section of the media, in which all nationalists great faith, has become an overall disappointment due to its editorial agenda lately. They have forgotten the basic rule that ‘what may be of interest to the public may not always be in the public interest’, which forms the bedrock of sincere and effective journalism.  

We all stand together in the fight for justice for Sushant Singh Rajput and the “nationalist” media well within its right to give it an extensive coverage as it has. But it is evident that in doing so, they have put something as barbaric as the lynching of Hindu Sadhus in Palghar on the backburner.   

How many prime-time debates have been conducted in the last three months over the Palghar lynching in comparison to the discussions centred around the death of Sushant Singh Rajput?... Very few!  Somewhere the “nationalist” media’s attention over Palghar has been overshadowed by the SSR issue and, more recently, by the crackdown on the alleged drug nexus in Bollywood.         

The media has projected these matters as issues related to the national interest. It is conspicuous from the thousands of reactions on social media that the public is vastly invested in debates revolving around these subjects, thereby encouraging the mainstream media to give them larger editorial space.  

So the conclusion is crystal clear and staring us in the eye. Making celebrities or the so-called nationalist media our role models or leaders is a disservice to all those who have devoted their lives to the nationalistic and the Hindu cause.The earlier we realise this, the better it is.  

Contributions from those at positions of influence are welcome if their intentions are pure, but at the end of the day, it is OUR struggle. Let's not fall for the fake show of solidarity. 

image source: goethe.de