From Lakhimpur violence to targeted killings of KPs and other minorities in Kashmir: Congress-led united opposition’s selective outrage exposes their duplicity

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Selective outrage is the flavour of the season. While the united opposition engages in political tourism to score brownie points with regard to a brutal incident in one part of the country, a series of terror attacks in another part of the country do not garner even the slightest indignation from the same anti-Modi political class. 

The Congress leadership duo of the Gandhi siblings successfully managed to derive great political mileage from the shocking Lakhimpur Kheri episode in which a speeding car belonging to union minister Ajay Kumar Mishra mowed down a group of protesting farmers and it was alleged that his son Ashish Misra was in the car. Eight people, including four farmers and two BJP workers, died in the incident and the violence that followed it. 

On display was high-voltage optics courtesy of Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, and her team, who appeared in the Lakhimpur Kheri district in Uttar Pradesh, a key state that goes to polls in a few months, solely to capitalise on the tumultuous situation that transpired in the aftermath of the killings. To avoid further vitiation of the already tense atmosphere in the region, the law enforcement authorities in UP had no choice but to detain the protesting leaders who preposterously accused the Centre and the Yogi Adityanath government of trying to shield the minister’s son. 

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But nothing could be further from the truth as an investigation into the horrific event went underway right from the get-go and the Yogi administration showed absolutely no lack of alacrity or provided any form of undue insulation from the law to the accused to derail the process of delivery of justice. On the contrary, the accused Ashish Mishra was summoned, grilled and arrested by the UP police in less than a week after the Lakhimpur violence took place and continues to remain in custody ever since with the UP Special Investigation Team (SIT) now probing the case. Safe to say, therefore, that the law is taking its course to bring the perpetrator(s) of the crime to book. 

The flip side 

The hypocrisy of the Congress-led opposition becomes blatantly evident when their scripted hue and cry against Lakhimpur violence is juxtaposed with their apathy towards the targeted killings of Hindus and Sikhs in Kashmir. 

For the Kashmiri Pandit (KP) community, the ghosts of Islamic terror that were unleashed on the KPs in Kashmir in the 90s returned to haunt them in a massive when 68-year-old Makhan Lal Bindroo, a prominent Pandit pharmacist, was shot dead by terrorists inside his pharmacy in Srinagar on October 5. ML Bindroo, who consciously chose to stay back in Kashmir after the onset of terrorism in the early 90s aimed at wiping out the Kashmiri Pandit minority from the valley, after these years paid the ultimate price for being a Hindu who was living peacefully and honourably in his homeland.

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Two other civilians, a Hindu street vendor from Bihar and a Muslim cab driver, were also gunned down by terrorists on the same day barely hours after Bindroo’s cold-blooded murder. If this was not enough - Satinder Kour, a Sikh principal at a government school in the Eidgah area of downtown Srinagar, and Deepak Chand, a Hindu teacher at the same school, were shot dead on October 7 by terrorists of The Resistance Front (TRF), a proxy terror group of the Lashkar-e-Taiba. They were killed for daring to involve students in the Independence Day celebrations of the school this year.

Such irreversible damage was inflicted on the minorities in Kashmir within one week but the united opposition did not find it worthy of the same degree of condemnation and clamour, albeit fake, as they displayed in the case of Lakhimpur. Instead, the Congress party’s veteran leader from J&K, Saifuddin Soz, had the audacity to suggest that PM Modi must hold talks with those in the valley who only speak the language of the gun.

However, the fact that the opportunist opposition led by the Congress along with the Samajwadi Party in UP, among others, have politicised the Lakhimpur happening to their advantage comes as no surprise at all given the high stakes that are involved in the state from an election standpoint. 

The solitary agenda of the Gandhi-Vadra Congress and other opposition parties in UP quite clearly is to somehow rock the BJP’s boat in the run-up to the assembly polls and present themselves as a viable alternative to the current Yogi administration. As conspicuous as it gets, everything else is merely a facade. Why were these so-called custodians of humanity silent when sadhus were lynched by a vigilante mob in Palghar in April 2020 or when the Intelligence Bureau staffer Ankit Sharma was stabbed 51 times to death in the February 2020 Delhi riots?

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The fact of the matter is that the anti-Modi political brigade stands exposed whenever it ventures to politicise a mishap or a criminal activity in a BJP ruled state, Lakhimpur Kheri in this instance, or maintaining a stoic silence when religious minorities are targeted and killed in Kashmir by terrorists. 

The bigger picture 

Amid all the absurd politicking by the Congress-led opposition, one cannot afford to lose sight of the bigger picture that depicts the constant security threat that looms over the civilian minorities in Kashmir. Such a precarious scenario is detrimental to the embodiment of Naya Jammu and Kashmir, which the Modi government envisaged after the revocation of Article 370 in August 2019. 

Reports of KP government employees, who work in the valley under a rehabilitation package, fleeing Kashmir fearing for their life following the targeted killings is reminiscent of the 90s. Attacking civilian minorities is an escalation from the prevailing pattern wherein several BJP workers and nationalists in Kashmir have been eliminated by terrorists in recent months. This is a dangerously growing trend, to say the least. 

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It puts the onus, therefore, on the Modi government more strongly than ever to revisit its security blueprint for Kashmiri minorities and pro-India voices living and working in Kashmir. The last thing the idea of a unified India wants is for the dream of a peaceful and stable Naya Jammu and Kashmir to get sabotaged due to Pakistan sponsored terror in J&K. For this dream to remain safe and ultimately translate into reality, the security of Kashmiri Pandits, other minorities and nationalists based in the valley holds paramount importance. 

Team Modi puts its foot on the gas to ensure BJP’s stellar performance in J&K as assembly polls could be around the corner

When Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared from the ramparts of the Red Fort on August 15, India’s independence day, this year that assembly elections in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir would be held in near future, it sent pleasing waves to the people of J&K with a renewed sense of anticipation of an elected government taking the reigns of the politically reorganised region. 

The formation of a government at the legislative level means the revival of the democratic phenomenon of elections at the highest stratum in the new union territory after the historic revocation of Article 370 in August 2019. The seeds of this revival were sown when the District Development Council (DDC) elections were held in December 2020. 

As it stands, the delimitation exercise in J&K is scheduled to be completed within the first quarter of 2022 with the number of seats in the J&K assembly likely to go up to 90 from the current tally of 83. An unprecedented parity in the political representation between two regions, a long-overdue aspiration of the Jammu division, is finally appearing on the horizon.  

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The Centre aims to see J&K going to polls in March-April next year, immediately after the UT’s electoral arithmetic in terms of the strength of the legislative assembly is altered through delineation of fresh boundaries of the constituencies by virtue of the delimitation activity. Five other states - Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Manipur and Goa - are also slated to hold elections around the same period. 

The subcontinent’s escalated vulnerability to terrorism in the aftermath of the Pakistan-backed Taliban’s taking over of Afghanistan, following the botched up withdrawal of American troops from the Afghan soil courtesy of the Biden administration, has posed a potential threat to India’s internal security and to that of other regional countries. Consequently, the Modi government wants to stay cautious of Pakistan’s sinister designs, which predictably will also feature the Taliban, to sabotage peace and harmony in Kashmir. 

Senior government officials, as well as BJP leaders, have maintained that restoring the electoral process in J&K at the earliest, which allows an elected government to run the show, serves in the best interest of the region from a security perspective. Cognizant of the fluid security dynamics after the Afghanistan development, the Government of India is vehemently endeavouring to ensure that the target of pushing J&K into polls within the estimated time frame, i.e. March-April 2022, is met.  

The big push 

BJP’s poll preparations in J&K received a strong impetus following PM Modi’s Independence Day speech in August. The party has put its foot on the gas as it gears up for a high-octane electoral showdown in the UT. Under the Prime Minister’s leadership, the BJP has launched a massive outreach programme in J&K to maximise its chances of emerging with a stellar performance in the election. 

According to media reports, the Modi government has dedicated more than 60 ministries to the task of visiting J&K in the next three months in order to develop a robust party-voter connection. This blueprint is also aimed at apprising the people of the region of the several progressive and developmental schemes and plans that a BJP government will undertake if the party is voted into power by J&K’s electorate. 

Creating a conducive atmosphere of communication with the public has in essence been the hallmark of the Centre’s scheme of things ever since the special status of the erstwhile state of J&K was scrapped in August 2019. Just a few months following the momentous development, the Government of India assigned the task of touching base with the people of J&K to several ministries as a confidence-building measure. Shortly after the culmination of this year’s monsoon session of the parliament, as many as 300 MPs representing 13 different parliamentary committees reported visited multiple locations in Kashmir and held several rounds of meetings. 

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There also remains a point to prove for the BJP that it will not be deterred at all despite its workers and regional leaders having been constantly living under the terror radar in recent years. Several party representatives have had to pay the ultimate price for standing up for the Indian democracy and for fearlessly expressing their nationalistic views. 

Notwithstanding a looming threat of life at the hands of radical Islamic terrorists, the party’s J&K unit is upbeat about the idea of elections in the UT and would be looking to leave no stone unturned in the run-up to the polls. 

Separatists jaded, advantage BJP 

The picture is crystal clear. Team Modi deems this to be the most opportune phase to present itself as a viable political alternative for J&K from a governance standpoint. The mojo of the valley’s separatist lobby has constantly diminished after the Naya Jammu and Kashmir came into existence owing to the revocation of Article 370. More recently, the death of the quintessential secessionist and pro-Pakistan voice in Kashmir for decades - Syed Ali Shah Geelani - served as a body blow to the Hurriyat. 

It makes for a sorry state of affairs for all the forces that are pitted against the Modi government as obnoxious challengers of the idea of a unified India with Jammu and Kashmir as its crown. The blues faced by the Pakistan-backed separatist industry coupled with the ever so weakening fortitude of the once-mighty regional political leadership, the Abdullahs and the Muftis that perpetually object to Kashmir’s complete integration with India, leave the BJP with a great opportunity to capitalise on. 

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As per popular belief, the UP election is a crucial precursor of the mega battle for the Low Sabha in 2024, which in many ways is true to a large extent. However, the assembly polls of the J&K UT carry tremendous weightage given the metamorphosis that the region’s political landscape has gone through since 2019. PM Modi and the BJP are well aware of this fact. 

The battle for the J&K assembly is so much about nationalism vs separatism rather than merely being a competition for votes. It is only the triumph of nationalism over separatism that can propel J&K into an era of long-term peace, stability and development, which is exactly the vision Team Modi will carry going into the J&K polls.