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Why BJP-PDP alliance is on a knife-edge

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Minhaz Merchant
Minhaz MerchantApr 19, 2018 | 10:14

Why BJP-PDP alliance is on a knife-edge

Has the BJP-PDP alliance run its course? The Kathua case is an inflection point. Chief minister Mehbooba Mufti would break the alliance in the blink of an eye but for her fear that a spell of Governor’s rule, followed by a mid-term Assembly election next year, would hand Omar Abdullah’s National Conference a landslide victory.

Borrowed time

The BJP is equally worried. Dissolution of the alliance would be a setback for its ambitions in India’s only Muslim-majority state. For now, despite the mass resignations of the BJP’s J&K ministers, ostensibly pending a cabinet recast, the alliance is safe. But it is living on borrowed time. By aligning with the BJP three years ago, the PDP lost a slice of its Muslim vote base.

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Misgovernance over the past two years, following PDP founder Mufti Mohammed Sayeed’s death in January 2016, has further alienated the PDP’s vote-bank. Were elections held today, the National Conference would sweep the Valley. Mehbooba’s brother Tassaduq Hussain was echoing the general sentiment in the Valley when he told a daily last week: “PDP and BJP have ended up being partners in crime for which an entire generation of Kashmiris might have to pay with their blood.”

Watching from the sidelines is a predatory Omar Abdullah whose National Conference was voted out in December 2014 after six desultory years that witnessed, among other outrages, the death of over 100 Kashmiris in organised bouts of stone pelting in the summer of 2010.

It is Kashmir’s misfortune that its politics continues to be held to ransom by two dynasties — the Abdullahs and the Muftis — with no viable third alternative. The BJP-PDP alliance was an attempt to find that third alternative but was doomed from the start.

The BJP must accept part of the blame for the failure of the alliance government. It has broken its promise to resettle and rehabilitate Kashmiri Pandits. It has been slow to commit funds promised for Kashmir’s devastating floods in 2014. It has not improved the state’s civic infrastructure or invested sufficiently in healthcare and education.

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Meanwhile, Pakistan has continued its insidious project to Wahhabise the Valley. The security forces have neutralised over 250 terrorists from the LeT, JeM and Hizbul Mujahideen. But such terrorists are expendable commodities for the Pakistani army. It has an endless supply of impoverished young jihadis whose “martyrdom” gets their families generous financial compensation in lieu of blood.

The root cause of Kashmiri’s descent into sullen anarchy is an incoherent policy on J&K followed by successive Union governments and the toxic nature of the state’s dynastic politics. Mehbooba inherited power from her father. She has made younger brother Tassaduq the state’s tourism minister.

The other Kashmiri dynasty is equally toxic. Three generations of Abdullahs have reigned over J&K since Independence. Any visitor to the state, with its shoddy infrastructure, could justifiably ask: what have the Abdullahs done for J&K since 1947? Srinagar once had theatres screening the latest Bollywood and Hollywood movies.

A wave of Islamisation has made Srinagar cinema-free in an era when even quasi-medieval Saudi Arabia has allowed cinema theatres in Riyadh for the first time since the 1970s. To be compared negatively with Saudi Arabia on cultural openness reflects the appalling governance inflicted on J&K over the decades by the state’s two prominent political dynasties.

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The dynasts

Sheikh Abdullah had a tempestuous relationship with Jawaharlal Nehru who jailed him for several years. Farooq Abdullah had a more congenial relationship with Rajiv Gandhi — so congenial that the two were alleged to have rigged the 1987 J&K Assembly election, causing widespread anger and leading to the insurgency in the state in 1989. That insurgency is now in its 30th year and has caused far more blood to be spilt than Tassaduq fears a new generation of Kashmiris will have to shed.

Kashmiris know there is no better alternative for them across the border in Pakistan. They see how brutally Kashmiris are treated in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). They have no wish to be Pakistan’s chattel.

Future tense

The pro-Pakistan flags and stone pelting on the Indian Army are choreographed by Pakistan’s agents in the Valley. The Hurriyat separatists are just the visible face of the terrorist-abettors Pakistan funds, trains and indoctrinates. Pakistan is not an option for Kashmir’s freedom-loving youth who yearn to join the IAS, play in the IPL and be a part of India’s vibrant tech start-up ecosystem.

They look at once-civilised Lahore and learn with horror that several shops in this beautiful Punjabi city now sport signs that say: “Ahmadis not allowed”. Pakistan’s descent into Islamist-driven sectarian chaos is gathering pace. Kashmiris want no part of this purgatory.

What next for J&K? Prime Minister Narendra Modi is unlikely to opt for Governor’s rule during a fevered election year. Unintended consequences may follow. The BJP-PDP alliance will hobble along as long as it can. Mehbooba, undeterred by the mass resignations of BJP ministers from her cabinet, will assert her authority within the alliance.

The BJP will emerge a loser in both the Valley, where it is reviled more than ever before, and in Jammu where its core voter base feels betrayed by its failure to honour its pre-election promises. The BJP-PDP alliance was a marriage of expedience. When you enter into such an alliance with one of Kashmir’s toxic dynasts, don’t expect to emerge unsullied.

(Courtesy of Mail Today)

Last updated: April 19, 2018 | 10:23
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