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. 

Geelani’s passing ends a dark era of secessionism in Kashmir but it is naive to assume that with it valley’s vile separatist tendencies are now buried

The sordid tale of separatism vis-à-vis Kashmir encompasses several dark chapters and scores of protagonists, who in their farcical struggle for self-determination, left an obnoxious yet indelible impression in the history books. 

One of the principal protagonists of Kashmir’s secessionist movement that left the valley ravaged for decades, Syed Ali Shah Geelani - a man whose name will always remain synonymous with the idea of an Islamic Kashmir without Hindus - breathed his last on September 1, 2020, at his Srinagar residence. He was 91. 

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His demise pulled the curtain down on an era of belligerent secessionism that powerfully emerged in the 80s as a subset of the sinister anti-India ideology espoused by the pro-Pakistan Hindu-haters in Kashmir. It was marked by a characteristic blueprint of holding the Indian state to ransom while enjoying its benefits and a systematic infusion of seditious sentiments into the minds of the Kashmiri Muslim youth. 

Geelani - the quintessential Islamic separatist, the ‘hartal’ leader and Pakistan’s main man in Kashmir 

Regarded widely as a pioneer of the Jihadist movement in Kashmir, Geelani’s journey as a hardline separatist commenced as far back as the early 1950s with the Jamaat-e-Islami Kashmir - an Islamist political outfit that positioned itself on the doctrine that Kashmir was not an integral part of the Indian Union, but rather a disputed territory. A three-time MLA from the Sopore constituency, Geelani quit electoral politics after his last term in the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly from 1987 to 1989. He constituted the Tehreek-e-Hurriyat in 2004 after ending his long-term association with the Jamaat, which he represented at the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC).

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Bringing the valley to a standstill by giving hartal calls at the drop of a hat, or more particularly, each time a terrorist was executed by the Indian forces was the hallmark of the Geelani style of functioning. It turned Kashmir into the hartal capital of India. Geelani’s Tehreek-e-Hurriyat methodically brainwashed ordinary Kashmiris, especially the youth, into becoming a hostile citizenry pitted against their own nation. This antagonism towards India gave birth to a mob mentality that took the shape of a culture of stone-pelting and anarchy which had become endemic in Kashmir’s routine life for many years until the revocation of Article 370. 

Geelani enjoyed greater proximity to Pakistan compared to most other separatists of his time. Toeing the Pakistani line, Geelani dedicated his life to fomenting trouble in the valley by inciting the Kashmiri people in the name of freedom and orchestrating mass anti-India uprisings. So blatant, and substantially effective at the same time, were Geelani’s subversive actions that even the senior NC leaders Omar Abdullah, Sheikh Mustafa Kamal, among others - had blamed Geelani in the past for creating mayhem in Kashmir and for acting at the behest of Pakistan. 

Although Geelani sold the idea of the right to self-determination to the Kashmiri people and publicly held that Kashmir was an internationally accepted disputed region between India and Pakistan, it remained an open secret that his true allegiance lied with Pakistan. He had close ties with the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi and was often featured as a guest at the consulate events.

On August 14, 2020 - Pakistan’s Independence Day - the Government of Pakistan conferred the country’s highest civilian award, Nishan-e-Pakistan, on Geelani. Pakistan’s appreciation of Geelani’s unrelenting commitment to anti-India activities in the form of an official reward came only days after he announced his resignation from the chairmanship of Tehreek-e-Hurriyat.

Geelani’s influence on Kashmir politics and the region’s politicians

Geelani, and popular separatists of the same feather, exercised an unduly profound influence over Kashmir politics for a prolonged period in the pre-Modi era, so much so that the Hurriyat’s core narrative of challenging Kashmir’s integration with India found a subtle reflection in the narrative of J&K’s mainstream political parties with a national outreach - mainly the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and the NC. 

Following the abrogation of the absurd Article 370, political leaders 

from the NC, the PDP and other parties were put on house arrest under the Public Safety Act (PSA) courtesy of the Government of India. It was during this period, and after their release from detention, that the Abdullahs and Mehbooba Mufti, along with other representatives of their parties, started echoing the sentiments of the Hurriyat more openly than ever before. Their expression of reverence for Geelani and synchronisation of thoughts with the Hurriyat went up several notches after the Indian Parliament dumped the special status of the erstwhile state of J&K in August 2019. 

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Mehbooba Mufti lambasted the Modi Government subsequent to Geelani’s death, calling them “ruthless” for allegedly not allowing Geelani’s kin to “mourn and bid a final farewell as per their wishes”. Mufti’s scathing attack on the GOI came after an FIR was registered against the deceased’s family members by the Budgam police last weekend under provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for draping Geelani’s body in a Pakistani flag during his last rites. 

It simply corroborates that the fabric of ideological similarity between the mainstream politicians of Kashmir and the separatists is, or has always been, so strong that a political leader like Mehbooba Mufti, who fights elections under the banner of the Indian constitution and has previously served as a Chief Minister of the former state of J&K, castigates her country’s government for upholding the law of the land by prosecuting those with anti-national tendencies. However, Mufti maintains a deafening silence when it comes to questioning the mindset of the people who covered Geelani’s body with the flag of an enemy nation when he was laid to rest.   

It is fair to argue that the cottage industry of separatism in Kashmir took a body blow after the Indian Parliament scrapped the ludicrous laws in August 2019 which had left a disconnect between J&K and India for decades. Geelani’s passing has led to the advent of a new phase in J&K wherein the separatist lobby has been reduced to an even feebler state.  

However, it would be naive to assume that secessionist feelings in Kashmir have all but vanished. Modi government must continue to remain cognizant of this reality as they have been so far, for Naya Jammu & Kashmir is a work in progress.