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| 'Dramatis personae within' trigger political storm over KP return | | | Ahmed Ali Fayyaz
Early Times Report
Jammu, Apr 12: Once again apparently it is not Pakistan or her 'rogue' ISI but the dramatis personae of New Delhi's own Kashmir story who have grabbed the forefront to defeat the Narendra Modi government's key agenda of rehabilitating the displaced migrants in Kashmir valley. And, ironically, it is not an exception but a rule.
In recent times, Kashmir, followed by Jammu, began boiling in 2008 only after the so-called mainstream politicians of different political parties created an impression that a 'city' by the title of 'Amarnath Nagar' was being built beside a holy cave of Pahalgam. The fear and perception of the land being occupied by "Hindus from all over India" was created so swiftly that nobody listened to the voices of reasoning. Nobody bothered to ask how it could be possible to build the 'city' on an inaccessible forest swathe that remains covered by thick snow for 8 to 9 months a year.
Mainly to pull down Ghulam Nabi Azad's government, the mainstream political leaders lit a fire that soon engulfed the whole State. In around a month, all these politicians vanished into oblivion and entire space in the Valley was captured by rank separatists. It took the State months to stabilize, leading to a large voter turnout in the Assembly elections but not before a number of civilians lost life and their properties perished. An equal and opposite reaction dominated Jammu where the extreme Hindu right called the shots.
Months later, when National Conference leader Omar Abdullah was in chair as Chief Minister in May 2009, death of two young women in mysterious circumstances in Shopian led to negligible whispers for two days. A senior Congress leader's statement that he would take up the matter with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and ensure "justice" triggered a veritable political storm. Everybody began believing without any enquiry or investigation that the two ladies had been "gang raped and killed" by Police and security forces.
CBI discovered in a four-month-long investigation that, contrary to the popular public perception and belief, the female duo had drowned and died while crossing a rivulet. It claimed that neither of the two had been raped and killed as the younger unmarried woman's hymen was found intact after exhumation of the bodies that autumn. Normalcy was restored but not before half-a-dozen civilians lost their life in Police firing and street demonstrations mobilised by the separatists. Inspite of a popular civilian government being in place, the mainstream politicians were completely rendered irrelevant.
Worse came next year. Death of a young student, during the course of a clash with Police, led to a full-scale summer agitation in 2010. This time, nearly 110 civilians died in clashes with Police and paramilitary forces. Then came a thaw in September when Rahul Gandhi on a tour in West Bengal ruled out dismissal of the NC-Congress government, contending that Omar should be given a chance.
Significantly, much more than the separatists, it were the mainstream political leaders who ignited the fire. Its "fruits" were subsequently harvested by the much marginalised separatists.
Characteristic of the same brand of the Kashmiri politicians, a political storm is yet again sought to be created over the PDP-BJP government's plan of taking the displaced Kashmiri Pandits back to the Valley and rehabilitating them at some places yet to be identified. Minutes after the PIB press release used the phrase 'homeland' in a context far different from the Panun Kashmir's concept of 'Homeland', some of the Valley-based politicians and lawmakers began playing the spoilsport. They craftily added a tinge of intrigue to the State government's usage of the phrase of "composite townships".
Within a day, the proposed rehabilitation camps were matched to the Israeli settlements in Gaza. Nobody in the ruckus laboured to ask who is this particular was Israel and the displaced Palestinians. The comparison would have fitted only if the Kashmiri Muslims would have been the migrants and India would have got the entire State captured by Pandits and Hindus from all over the country.
Again, in an attempt to take the lead in a fresh spell of anti-India agitation and competitive separatism, one of the legislators has gone proactive to the extent of demanding "apology" from the entire dislocated minority community for "leaving the Kashmiri Muslims in lurch" with their "escape" in 1990. New Delhi being permissive to such machinations of parochialism, peace and political stability will always remain fragile in Jammu and Kashmir where none of the mainstream political parties is contesting the separatists politically. In fact, there is a competition in winning the separatists' goodwill. |
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