KL Desk
SRINAGAR
A Delhi based author and columnist Praful Bidwai has said that PDP patron Mufti Mohammad Sayeed is on way to become condemnable than Sheikh Abdullah’s 1974 “surrender” to Indira Gandhi.
Bidwai said that if Mufti embraced the BJP, his party will soon be routed. But it will help Modi strut about the world stage for having co-opted J&K’s Muslims in an “inclusive”, “secular” arrangement, and whitewashed his own record in Gujarat and beyond. “What a coup that would be for the RSS-BJP!,” Bidwai said in a piece published in DNA.
My recent telephone conversations suggest that a wide spectrum of Kashmiri leaders, from the CPM’s Yousuf Tarigami to the hardline-separatist Syed Ali Shah Geelani, would consider such “capitulation” much worse than Governor’s Rule, indeed more condemnable than Sheikh Abdullah’s 1974 “surrender” to Indira Gandhi. The Valley will erupt again, and the Indian State will unleash unprecedented repression.
“By embracing the BJP, Mufti risks becoming a weaker version of Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas, powerless against Israel’s occupation, yet helplessly dependent on it. The PDP will soon be routed. But it will have helped Modi strut about the world stage for having co-opted J&K’s Muslims in an “inclusive”, “secular” arrangement, and whitewashed his own record in Gujarat and beyond. What a coup that would be for the RSS-BJP!”
Bidwai writes, “………it would be suicidal for the PDP to ally with the BJP even if the latter shrewdly concedes all its demands, including those on Article 370 and AFSPA, makes Mufti a full-term Chief Minister, and offers J&K a generous central financial package, including special rehabilitation assistance for the flood-affected Valley.”
