Neutrality in Russia-Ukraine war safeguards India's national interest; West must admit its duplicity on leaving war-torn Ukraine in the lurch before questioning New Delhi

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has sent shockwaves all over the world. Since the war began about three weeks ago, there has been an unrelenting influx of haunting images showing widespread destruction in some of the country’s biggest cities such as the capital Kyiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city Kharkiv and several other places, particularly in eastern Ukraine along the Russian border. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ruthless aggression has forced thousands of helpless Ukrainians to take refuge at underground train stations and bomb shelters to dodge Russian missiles while millions of Ukrainian refugees continue to throng the borders of the neighbouring countries of Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Romania everyday after fleeing their homeland. 

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As the world stares down the barrel of a possible third world war, which by the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov's admission will be “nuclear and destructive”, India’s position as a fence sitter in the face of the Russia-Ukraine war has expectedly garnered global intrigue.

The Indian Government’s stand on the situation has been clear from the get-go. As the crisis in Ukraine unfolded, Prime Minister Narendra Modi dialled Putin and appealed for an immediate cessation of violence. He also urged Russia and the NATO group to resolve their differences through dialogue and called for all sides to exercise restraint. However, India has not joined the US-led western bloc constituting NATO to take an anti-Russia posture, naturally because New Delhi does not want to sever its decades-old friendly ties with Moscow. 

As the west looks at India in anticipation to preferably take an antagonistic stance against Russia sooner or later, the hypocrisy of the United States and the NATO in the current scheme of things cannot be emphasised enough. As a matter of fact, the west has played an instrumental role in bringing about the perilous situation that now exists in Ukraine by first provoking Russia with Ukraine’s potential inclusion into NATO and then leaving Ukraine in the lurch post the Russian invasion. 

The country of Ukraine and its President Volodymyr Zelensky has been reduced to scapegoats in the tug of war between Russia and the US-led NATO. As Putin continues to relentlessly bomb several Ukrainian cities and capture strategic points, a helpless Zelensky is left with no choice but to urge his countrymen to pick up arms in self-defence against the mighty Russian forces. 

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Zelensky’s frustration at the West has become apparent since the NATO rejected his plea to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine, with the latter claiming that it would lead to a broader conflict that could potentially involve the whole of Europe into a direct confrontation with Russia. The Ukrainian President minced no words in calling out the duplicity of the West, asserting that “If Ukraine falls, the whole of Europe will fall”. 

The fact of the matter is that if countries such as Turkey, China and Israel can offer to mediate between the two warring nations, it is unfathomable as to why the US, the UK and the western bloc at large have deliberately chosen to neglect the mediation option. On the contrary, the West has only provoked Russia more by imposing a multitude of sanctions to hurt the country’s economy in the long run. However, those sanctions do absolutely nothing in the short run to safeguard Ukraine from the utter devastation and misery received at the hands of the Russian armed forces. 

After luring Ukraine into the prospect of joining NATO and the European Union, how do the US President Joe Biden and the Western European leaders justify leaving the country at God’s mercy amid an ever-escalating Russian assault and a heart-wrenching exodus of millions of innocent Ukrainians to safer havens in the neighbouring Eastern European nations? A lesser power like Poland showed far greater courage by announcing that it would give the US its fighter jets for use by Ukraine in retaliation to Russia's air attacks, an offer expectedly turned down by the Biden administration. 

More than three weeks into the war and multiple rounds of negotiations between the two sides have resulted in no breakthroughs at all. Ukraine has now woken up and smelt the coffee, realising the hard way that it is their battle to wage while the West continues to just pay lip service.  

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As Ukraine has been left to fend for itself with the war gaining momentum everyday, President Zelensky’s loss of faith in the west has become evident through his growing skepticism, and more recently denial, about joining NATO. It basically sums up the brutal reality of this unnecessary bloody conflict triggered by NATO’s expansionist aspirations across Eastern Europe. 

Therefore, no country or group of nations, especially the western lobby, has the moral authority to preach or cajole India into taking an anti-Russia stand that can potentially jeopardise the grand old alliance between the two nations. On the other hand, the US, the UK and the EU continue to maintain oil and gas relations with Russia despite the sanctions imposed. The EU, in particular, depends heavily on Russia to meet its energy consumption. 

India’s position in the national interest 

India may have abstained from voting on US-sponsored United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution castigating Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva in favour of setting up an international enquiry into the Russian invasion, but New Delhi has certainly not abstained from its humanitarian responsibility towards Ukraine. Since the beginning of March, nearly a hundred tonnes of supplies that include medicines and other relief material have been sent for the internally displaced Ukrainians and those who have fled to the neighbouring countries. 

Yet, for the West, a crucial yardstick to evaluate India’s position is based on whether or not New Delhi continues to purchase the Russian oil. On the other hand, the US, the UK and the EU have not decided to completely halt their oil and gas imports from Russia. In fact, the EU countries depend much more heavily on Russia for its energy consumption compared to America and Britain, The European bloc members have been frank in admitting the infeasibility to abruptly cut energy ties with Moscow and letting their economies go into free fall. 

The duplicity of the West has well and truly become as explicit as it can get. For the bloc to try to subtly unnerve India by claiming that New Delhi’s continued affinity with Moscow will push the world’s largest democracy on “the wrong side of history” only reeks of its desperation to chase its own strategic ambition vis-a-vis the Ukraine crisis. 

The line taken by the Indian Government is one of diplomatic sagacity and completely in India’s national interest. India wants peace restored between the two nations and does not condone Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. But, at the same time, PM Modi is mindful of the extreme significance of the Indo-Russian ties. 

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Moscow has been New Delhi’s all-weather friend. Among a plethora of associations between the two nations, Russia has even supported India on the Kashmir issue when the world stood against it. During the 1971 war of liberation of East Pakistan, it was Russia that countered the US and Britain’s two-pronged military support to Pakistan against India. 

If the US and the EU have unanimously decided to refrain from engaging militarily in an ongoing war that affects them more directly than it does to India, then they have no business to sermonise or educate India on geopolitical propriety. 

India’s neutrality is the best policy to follow under the current circumstances. The Modi government is upholding the country’s age-old tradition of not joining a geopolitical bloc, and rightly so. Moreover, India must take great pride in the success of the Indian government’s Operation Ganga which evacuated more than 20,000 civilians, mostly students, from the Ukrainian war zone. 

Amid backlash from nationalists and progressives over the revocation of farm laws, BJP now finds itself in a relatively more congenial political space in Punjab before the state election

The nation was in for a surprise towards the end of November when Prime Minister Narendra Modi made an assumably likely yet unanticipated announcement (in the context of its abruptness) of the withdrawal of the three “controversial” farm laws. The Modi government had maintained all along that the laws were introduced for the welfare of the Indian farmers and for reforming India’s agriculture at large. 

However, a so-called farmers’ movement, although majorly restricted to the states of Punjab, Haryana and parts of Uttar Pradesh, kept India on the edge for several months before eventually making sure that the Centre’s agrarian reform initiative never saw the light of day. 

As expected, the government has been at the receiving end of a lot of backlash from progressives and nationalists who feel let down by the belief that an anarchist agitation ultimately managed to overpower the Centre’s long term vision of revamping India’s agricultural landscape. 

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Another theory vociferously doing the rounds, and again expectedly so, is that the decision to repeal the farm laws was a political move on part of the government to embolden its electoral chances in Punjab which goes to polls early next year along with five other states in a mega election season.

With the former chief minister of Punjab Captain Amarinder Singh quitting the Congress following the incessant snubbing he received for months at the hands of the Gandhis-led party leadership in New Delhi and having had enough of the biggest thorn in his flesh Navjot Singh Sidhu’s cheap self-servicing political tactics - Punjab politics has witnessed ripples galore coinciding with the farmers’ agitation. Captain’s exit is destined to create a vacuum among Congress’s traditional voter base in Punjab. This leaves the BJP with a solid advantage to capitalise on the situation and better its performance in the upcoming assembly polls in Punjab as Amarinder Singh’s new party, the Punjab Look Congress, has announced an alliance with the BJP going into the election.

The jury is still out on whether the impending high-stakes Punjab and UP elections forced the Modi government to relent and accept the demands of the anti-establishment agitators led by the likes of Rakesh Tikait of the Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU). Parallels are being drawn between the farmers’ protests and the Shaheen Bagh centred anti-CAA agitation that became a national spectacle in early 2020. Since the Shaheen Bagh campaign did not culminate into the government’s yielding to a conglomerate of anarchists holding the country to ransom in the name of secularism, the argument being extended is that it was because the Shaheen Bagh protests did not possibly have any election-related ramifications unlike the farmers’ movement. Hence, the Centre had no choice but to climbdown over the farm laws to safeguard its larger political interest. 

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Be that as it may, the one big consequence from a short term perspective having arisen from the withdrawal of the farm laws is that it has instilled a renewed sense of confidence within the anti-establishment lobby. This is evidenced by the fact that the PM’s announcement of scrapping the three laws was shortly followed by a new set of veiled threats and demands by the protesting groups, including a demand connected to a completely unlinked subject like the privatisation of banks. 

From a long term standpoint, whether giving in to the blackmail of the compulsive agitators boomerangs on the Modi government and emboldens the spirits of anarchic forces in India remains to be seen. The agitating farmers may have wound up their camps and returned to their homes for now but it will be interesting to find out if the Centre’s back-pedalling on the farm laws is interpreted as a sign of weakness, thereby serving as a perfect launchpad for future anarchist movements.

The fact of the matter is that the possibility of this being a temporary lull before yet another storm cannot be ruled out. 

BJP’s Mission Punjab 

With regard to Punjab, now that the three farm laws have become history and the focus has begun to shift predominantly towards the forthcoming assembly polls in the state, all eyes will be on the BJP’s performance in the election. The party will hope to achieve electorally more than it bargained for. 

Besides Captain Amarinder Singh’s new political outfit siding with the BJP before the Punjab polls, speculation is rife that Sukhdev Singh Singh Dhindsa who floated his own party Shiromani Akali Dal (Sanyukt) after quitting the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) will also team up with the BJP. Clearly, this should work as an advantage for the BJP in the run-up to the nearing state election. 

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At the very least, the high-octane battle for the Punjab assembly has now become four-cornered with the Congress, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP)-SAD alliance and the BJP-Punjab Lok Congress alliance pitted against one another.  

The Punjab legislative assembly has 117 seats. When it shared an alliance with the Akali Dal in its erstwhile arrangement, the BJP used to fight for just 23 odd seats. The picture has well and truly changed now as the BJP is all set to contest nearly 70 seats. This renewed sense of confidence to widen its playing area is an indicator that the BJP, unlike in the past, now wants to take the lead in its new alliance in Punjab which has traditionally never been a bastion of the party. 

The BJP had been fighting a wave of extreme disgruntlement among a majority of the masses in Punjab due to the three reformist farm laws it had introduced. Only time will decide whether the Modi government’s decision to repeal the laws will help in paving the way for the BJP’s electoral success in Punjab. But one thing is certain that the atmosphere in Punjab under the new circumstances is a lot more congenial for the BJP to carry out its election-related political activities compared to when the farmers’ agitation was at its peak not very long ago. 

Expect the security situation of minorities, non-Kashmiris and nationalists in the valley to improve amid further alienation of Kashmir’s separatist political lobby post Amit Shah’s recent J&K visit

In the aftermath of an abrupt and unprecedented rise in the targeted killings of religious minorities and non-Kashmiri migrant class living and working in Kashmir came the Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s significant three-day visit to the union territory of Jammu and Kashmir late last month. 

Apart from the expected sounding of the J&K assembly elections bugle, one of the biggest anticipations from Shah’s visit to the UT was the laying of a fresh blueprint aimed at improving the security situation for the people of Kashmir, especially the non-muslims and the regional leaders and workers of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in J&K who are constantly on the terror radar because of their nationalistic credentials. 

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Specifically from the perspective of the Kashmiri Pandits (KPs) based in the valley, the recent cold-blooded killing of Makhan Lal Bindroo, a prominent KP who continued living in Kashmir despite the forced mass exodus of KPs back in the 90s, there has been immense resentment and dejection within the Pandit community, and rightly so. The current volatile scenario, therefore, puts the onus more strongly than ever on the Modi government, the present J&K administration and even the state leadership of the BJP to put a foolproof mechanism in place for the uprooting of the Pakistan sponsored terror machinery operating in the valley that has found a renewed mojo in targeting minorities and nationalists. 

Notably, this was Shah’s first visit to J&K since the historic date of August 5, 2019, when Article 370 was abrogated and the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir was bifurcated into two union territories - J&K and Ladakh. Several union ministers have frequented the UT in recent weeks as part of a wider outreach programme and as a confidence-building measure towards the people of Kashmir. This exercise comes while the delimitation process to redraw the boundaries of J&K’s electoral constituencies is underway with the aim of bringing political parity between the two divisions, Jammu and Kashmir - the absence of which remained a gigantic political error that marred the fortunes of J&K for years. 

However, the Gupkar alliance spearheaded by the Abdullahs and Mehbooba Mufti, along with their echoers in New Delhi in the form of the united opposition led by the Congress party and the pseudo-liberal Lutyens media, downplaying the significance of Shah’s visit and being persistent in their criticism of the scrapping of J&K’s special status is a conspicuous sign of their desperation. The fact of the matter is that the lobby has been called out on more occasions than one for their duplicitous agenda surrounding J&K politics. While addressing the public in Jammu and in the valley, Shah minced no words and launched a scathing attack on what he termed as the “three families” who had been playing with the sentiments of the people of J&K for decades in order to cater to their vested political interests. 

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Lobby’s frustration 

What irks the lobby no end is the indisputable reality that the Modi government, by virtue of the dumping of Article 370, has been able to settle the debate once and for all on what the pro-Pakistan voices in Kashmir deem as an automatic “right to separatism”. This has come as a body blow to the National Conference (NC), the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and the Hurriyat, who have lost their charisma and relevance a great deal in the current scheme of things. Hence the only recourse for these so-called stakeholders is to sell the same tattered theory as they did in the pre-Article 370 revocation era which claims that J&K remains to be a contentious political issue demanding resolution through a dialogue with Pakistan. 

However, Shah made it abundantly clear during his visit, as has been the permanent formal stand of the Centre, that J&K’s integration with India is absolute and there is no question whatsoever of holding talks with Pakistan in the wake of constant provocation by the terror-harbouring neighbour. 

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On the other hand, the Home Minister’s reaching out to the youth of Kashmir is a clear-cut reiteration of the Modi government’s commitment to serving as an administration dedicated to the cause of the people of Jammu and Kashmir. In effect, it also establishes that the Centre has no intention of following an absurd appeasement policy with regard to the political leaders from the valley, unlike the previous non-BJP union governments. The Modi government is solely focused on following a single-point approach of a direct government-people connection in J&K, thereby further denting the already diminishing supremacy of the Abdullah-Mufti era.

Addressing the big concern 

As mentioned in the initial part of this piece, the palpable concern that was probably one of the defining factors for Shah’s J&K tour was to address the worrying security condition of non-muslim minorities and migrant non-Kashmiris in the valley. Almost a dozen civilians including those from the Kashmiri Pandit and Sikh community, daily wagers from Bihar, among others, have been killed in recent weeks by Pakistan sponsored terror groups functioning in Kashmir. 

Moreover, Pakistan has escalated its aggression lately along the border areas leading to the death of several Indian Army soldiers. According to the intelligence sources, there has been marked a rise in cross-border infiltration throughout the summer with terrorists, who are believed to have operated alongside Taliban fighters in Afghanistan, working with a nuanced modus operandi to unleash a fresh wave of terror in Kashmir that targets civilians.  

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To counter the alarming security menace in Kashmir, the Government of India has put its foot on the gas. The Ministry of Home Affairs has reportedly engaged officials from IB, RAW and NIA to oversee the building of a fortified security mechanism in the region. The J&K police have listed names of overt anti-national elements who will be at the receiving end of UAPA or PSA as part of a comprehensive clean up process in Kashmir. 

As the time for assembly polls in J&K draws closer, it is imperative that the Government of India does everything in its power to avert the threat of life that looms over minorities, non-Kashmiris and nationalists in the valley. Fair to say that the GOI has taken it up as a top priority issue and tackling it head-on. 

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.