Masarat Alam release: How Mufti took Modi and RSS for a ride

Through its mouthpiece, Organiser, the RSS has told the BJP to ask Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed if he is an Indian or not. Frankly speaking, the RSS should be asking this question to the BJP leadership. And more than that, it should be asking this question to its own leaders who played a pivotal role in brokering the deal with Mufti's People's Democratic Party. The RSS cannot claim this time that the BJP did not keep it in the loop because they were the loop when it came to forming the government with the PDP.

Many Indians were hoping that Narendra Modi's government would mark a new beginning in Kashmir. The separatist leadership was worried about Modi's ascension to power. If you spoke to any Kashmiri separatist, he'd tell you that Vajpayee's regime was best for Kashmir. What they really meant is that those days were best for them.

In the absence of political cadre in Kashmir, it was left to the country's intelligence apparatus to run Kashmir for New Delhi. Different agencies had their own favourites among the separatists, and, depending on who had the Centre's ear, that particular leader would have his bread buttered both sides. A Kashmiri journalist friend jokes about those days. "If you asked even a tea-seller who the National Security Advisor was, he would answer you correctly," he quips.

With Modi at the Centre, one hoped that the soft secessionism that successive governments have promoted in the Valley would be discouraged and that he will send a clear signal that Kashmir's welfare lay with India.

Modi began on a solid note. He called off talks with Pakistan in August last year after its envoy in India met Kashmiri separatists. It sent a very strong signal to both Pakistan and the separatist leadership that he meant business. He talked about bringing development to Kashmir. But just before elections in the state, Modi's emissaries began to cosy up to the radical fringe in the Valley. These meetings gave much credence to the likes of Engineer Rashid, an independent legislator known for his anti-India utterances. The talks with the PDP, meanwhile, went on and on, because Mufti in his all shrewdness wanted to form the government on his own terms. After the BJP suffered a humiliating defeat in Delhi, Mufti only increased the pressure of his thumb. And the BJP crumbled under it.

Mufti has now gone ahead and released the Islamist radical, Masarat Alam. The Fab India liberati may like us to believe that he is an innocent person detained illegally by India. But just go to the YouTube and listen to some of his speeches. In one, just like his mentor Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Alam clearly declares that nothing but Islam will work in Kashmir and that the Kashmiris owe their allegiance to Pakistan. That also means that he believes no person of other faiths should live in Kashmir. And going by the history of extermination of the Hindu minority in Kashmir, this alone makes him a terrorist. The violence of 2010, which he has been accused of inciting, may have been a result of genuine anger against the Indian state. But it is also a fact that the violence led to the death of more than a hundred people. And after his arrest, not a single death took place in that violent episode.

If Mufti is allowed his way, he will go on to release many other dangerous radicals from jails, including the Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist Qasim Faktoo, currently serving a life sentence for murder. But more dangerous is how the BJP leadership has responded to the protests against Masarat Alam's release. Speaking in the Lok Sabha earlier today, Modi said his government was kept in the dark on Alam by Mufti. Dark! Does Modi rely on Mufti to provide him light in Kashmir?

God help India!

Does Modi's government realise what its actions may signal to those in Kashmir whose heart beats for India? The signal is clear: it pays to be an anti-India separatist in Kashmir.

The men in the Sangh Parivar collective are like those office executives who boast to their women about "strategy" but then go silent in the office elevator, listening to elevator music. In the elevator that the Sangh Parivar is riding, Mufti controls the Muzak. And the Ram Madhavs can no longer plug their ears. That is not an option Mufti gives to his victims.