by AtharParvaiz
It is said that some Asian tribes catch monkeys by placing a piece of fruit into a hole carved in a tree-trunk where the monkey can lay its hand easily for grabbing the fruit. Once the monkey grabs the fruit, he alarmingly learns that he cannot extract his closed fist from the trap where he has taken hold of his prize. To extricate himself, all he needs to do is release his grip on the morsel. But since this solution is beyond the greedy beast’s comprehension, he is hopelessly caught by his own nature – effectively ensnared by that which he could not resist nor go without to his own enslavement or destruction.
This is how Kashmir’s grand old political party, National Conference (NC), and the two-decade-old, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), have been behaving when it comes to their relationship and dealings with Delhi once they take hold of their prize (power).
As these two political parties stay put at the seat of ‘power’ in Jammu and Kashmir, Delhi, in exchange, keeps disregarding their avowed demands like partial removal of Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), respecting human rights in Kashmir, partial withdrawal of troops, respecting Kashmir’s special position under Indian constitution and returning of power projects. These are basically the commitments these parties make with people to get the power.
They have never taken the autonomy demand seriously or even considered the self-rule idea. They are even half-hearted in their appeals for talks with Hurriyat. That is the reason, why they get caught in political uprisings, more often. Talks were held with Hurriyat and Pakistan a few years back. That was because of the change in regional political dynamics in South Asia. Mufti Mohammad Sayed, the seasoned politician as he was, interestingly was able to take a lot of credit from that rare peace process between India and Pakistan which, among other things, saw the establishment of people-to-people contact across the LoC. Part of the reason why he was able to sell it to the people was that he had already started a somewhat successful healing touch policy.
Happy as helpless!
What has become emblematic of the helplessness of regional political parties heading the governments in Jammu & Kashmir is their lack of authority even for lifting curfew when the security situation deteriorates during frequent political uprisings in Kashmir. The lifting of curfew by the former home secretary, G K Pillai, when Omar Abdullah was the Chief Minister during the 2010 uprising, is the case in point.
Sometimes even administrative orders are issued from Delhi while certain orders from the state government are amended or challenged. Consider the fact that decisions about reopening of schools during 2010 and 2016 agitations were taken in Delhi and not Srinagar.
Though many BJP leaders consider him being soft on PDP, the rightwing party’s national general secretary, Ram Madhav, who is also in-charge of BJP’s J&K affairs, has made several statements that embarrassed Mehbooba Mufti and her PDP. Only last month, he told reporters in Jammu that he had asked the Jammu & Kashmir government to withdraw the order, issued by Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, asking police and district administrations against providing police protection for anti-encroachment drives being carried out by government departments against Muslim tribals in Jammu without prior approval of the tribal affairs department.
Mufti herself heads the Tribal Affairs Ministry and had issued the order in the backdrop of rape and murder of an eight-year-old tribal girl. The little girl’s tragedy had turned spotlight on alleged persecution of tribal Muslims in Jammu province in the name of forest-land encroachments for the last two years.
In the order, the government had directed that tribal population shall not be disturbed, dislocated till a formal tribal policy is formulated and issued. Earlier, the central government and Madhav had justified the strapping of a civilian with an army jeep as human-shield in Budgamin April 2017and had made this statement on Kashmir situation in 2016: “The government will stand firm, eruption or no eruption.” His colleague in BJP and former defense minister, ManoharParrikar, had said that “army will have to fire weapons, can’t just use lathis.”
Snub after the ‘cease-fire’
As regards the statement made by Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, about the Kashmir issue in Srinagar on May 19, 2018, that “only solution to any conflict is development,” there has hardly been any debate.
But what the Prime Minister said was in sharp contrast to the points which were raised by Chief Minister, Mehbooba Mufti, in her speech during the same function about the Agenda of Alliance, the Common Minimum Programme between PDP and BJP.
Among other things, the Agenda of Alliance stresses upon the political negotiations for the resolution of Kashmir issue including dialogue with Hurriyat leadership. Mufti had pleaded with Modi that the Agenda of Alliance should be fulfilled.
Narendra Modi made no reference to the appeal apparently because he thought PDP had already got a conditional cease-fire after too much dithering three days before. Yet, there was no reaction from PDP leaders even as people have got used to their pocketing such snubs.
Power is paramount
The two regional political parties, NC and PDP, much in accordance with their political agenda, have got several chances to put pressure on Delhi for securing a respectable political deal for Jammu & Kashmir without any compromise on India’s sovereignty. However, they have so far never made any serious attempt for pursuing their avowed ideology on Kashmir issue.
They make subdued demands, off and on, when they are out of power. But, while heading the governments, they, like the trapped monkey’s, have never tried to summon the courage to unclench their fists for releasing the grip on the morsel and give up power for the people who elected them.
They never practically empathize with the people who they promise enough on things beyond Bijli, Sadak and Pani –protection of human rights and political rights – during elections. Neither of the two parties has so far given up power for protecting the dignity of people or in support of the special rights of the state of Jammu & Kashmir because each of them fears that if it does so, the other will be happy to take up the reins of ‘power.’
In individual conversations, the standard explanation often given by the leaders of these political parties about their helplessness is that even the legendary Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah couldn’t do anything about the tactics being employed by Delhi for remote-controlling the governments in Srinagar. True. Late Abdullah was quoted by journalist Kuldip Nayar as saying: “Intelligence agencies do not want me to succeed. They treat me like a chaprasi (peon).”
But Kashmir has never experienced the consequences of such submissive behaviour of Kashmiri politicians as excruciatingly as it is experiencing now. The more this relationship continues in this fashion, the more human costs it will inflict on Kashmir.
Mainstream, Really?
Despite being hailed as a tall leader, late Sheikh Abdullah could afford being consigned to the status of a “Chaprasi” probably because that didn’t entail killings and massive human rights violations. He also had the demographic advantage with him. One, people trusted him for whatever he did. Secondly, Kashmir didn’t have a burgeoning youth population which is educated, angry and tech-savvy in a digital world when Sheikh was around.
So, it is very much advisable for NC and PDP to give up the business-as-usual attitude and muster the courage to play their bit in extricating the people of the state from the morass they are in today, largely because of their opportunistic politics.
Crying in assembly over the killing of innocents or sitting selectively with the mourners in a huddle is not going to yield anything except holding on to the seat of power by making too many compromises.
By the way, these political parties are mostly referred to as “mainstream” political parties by media. Oxford Dictionary defines “mainstream” as “considered normal because it reflects what is done or accepted by most people.” So, the moot question NC and PDP need to ask themselves is if they are accepted by most of the people.
Unfortunately for them, they can’t even go among the people to find answers to that question, at least in the current circumstances. The best thing they need to do for now is to relax and think hard about their political future and try learning how to say “no more” and how to reject power in certain political situations.
(Author is a journalist specializing in ecology. Ideas expressed in this write up are personal.)
