The Hindu Business Line : A point of no return?

Kashmir is moving dangerously close to a point of no return; today, it has become a tinder box and only the coming weeks will tell us which way the crisis is headed, says RASHEEDA BHAGAT.

The Centre is caught in a tangle over the Kashmir issue.

Over the last few weeks, it is only grim news that greets us each morning. Beginning with the bomb blasts in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and Surat, the country seems to be getting embroiled more and more in violence and destruction, not to mention rhetoric dipped in poisonous tones.

For two months now, the controversy over the transfer of land in Kashmir to the Sri Amarnath Yatra Board for constructing shelters for the Amarnath yatris has been raging fire, claiming lives both in Jammu and Kashmir. In this game of hatred, violence and bloodshed that has claimed scores of lives, mainly in the Kashmir Valley, the biggest losers have only been the people of Kashmir. On Monday too, three people were killed in the Valley as protestors defied curfew and clashed with security forces.

For some of the political parties and their netas on either side of the divide — a Hindu Jammu versus a Muslim Kashmir — this has been a heaven-sent opportunity to whip up dormant feelings, open up old wounds and add some new ones. Why do all Central governments pamper only the Kashmiri Muslims all the time, ask the enraged Jammuites. Is it because they raise the Pakistan bogey and threaten to demand a plebiscite? If our voices can be heard by New Delhi only if we shout, then we too will scream from rooftops, is their message.

In the Kashmir valley, those out of power, such as the People’s Democratic Party, and those who can never come to power because they boycott all elections — the Hurriyat Conference — have seized the Amarnath land controversy to rake up the azaadi issue once more. A belligerent PDP chief, Ms Mehbooba Mufti, who had supported the Kashmir fruit dealers’ proposed march to Muzaffarabad to find a route for their wares as the Jammu-Srinagar highway was blocked by the Sri Amarnath Yatra Sangarsh Samiti, on Sunday warned the Government of India to rein in the security forces and desist from using violence on the protestors in the Valley.

Political mileage

Leaders such as Ms Mufti and those from the Hurriyat have been quick to read, and derive political mileage from, the angry backlash from the Valley to the attempt by the Shrine Samiti to impose an economic blockade on Kashmir. Visual images of the thousands of Kashmiris, who are ready to turn out for any protest march called by any entity in Kashmir today, are frightening. And they do so knowing fully well that at such huge gatherings, there is bound to be use of force and violence from the authorities that could result in loss of life.

With such explosion of anger being evident, it has not taken too long even for mainstream political leaders such as the National Conference Chief, Mr Omar Abdullah, to challenge the Centre to “solve the Kashmir problem” once and for all. It is one thing for the separatist Hurriyat leader, Mr Syed Shah Geelani, or even the moderate Hurriyat leader, Mr Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, to ask India to “resolve the unresolved Kashmir dispute”, or face the music in the Valley. But when leaders such as Mr Abdullah too start finding fault with Delhi for having “forgotten the Kashmir issue” and urging it to find a “solution” to the problem, then we have trouble on our hands.

Of course, all eyes are on the forthcoming Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir. While creditably enough, the National Conference decided to sit in the Opposition despite emerging the single largest party in the last Assembly election, the break in the partnership of the Congress and the PDP, ostensibly on the Amarnath land issue, seems to have cleared the road for the NC’s return to power.

The anti-incumbency factor will also go in its favour, but any political party which fails to read the mood of rebellion and anger emanating from the Valley at the moment, can kiss goodbye to any chance of emerging a winner.

Mehbooba, Omar up the ante

Unfortunately for the Congress, the Ghulam Nabi Azad Government failed to make any mark in the Valley; Mr Azad’s chief ministership was anyway fraught with danger, as being a Congressman he was always looked upon in Srinagar as one who would take his orders only from Delhi. In more ways than one, despite being a son of the soil, Mr Azad can barely lay claim to that title as the bulk of his political career has been shaped outside Kashmir. But both Ms Mufti and Mr Abdullah are looked upon as home-grown politicians in the Valley. The sad reality of the polarised times in which we live is that their having to face ugly protests in Jammu during the recent developments only pushed up their stock in the Valley.

And so you have both the young leaders adopting hawkish stances. Mr Abdullah has been constantly chiding the UPA Government for allowing the Kashmir issue to fall off its radar during the last four years of its rule and has threatened to resign as Lok Sabha MP if blood continues to be shed in the Valley by use of brutal force to quell protests.

Ms Mufti, on the other hand, goes a step further. Urging the Centre to rein in the army, she said on Sunday that her party and its workers were prepared to take “bullets” for the cause of Kashmir. Rejecting the proposal of allotting the land in the Valley to the Shrine Board for only two months in a year for constructing temporary shelters, she warned the Centre that she would co-operate with any peaceful resolution to the problem. “But if it decides to act tough through the army and tries to suppress Kashmiris, then we will stand with our people and fight against the Army.”

Surely she knows only too well that no government in Delhi can give in to her “demands”; warning the Centre that Kashmir was soon moving towards a point of no return she demanded that the Muzaffarabad route be opened, all Kashmiri prisoners released, troops be reduced and the Armed Forces Special Powers Act be revoked.

Clearly she is looking at life beyond the resolution of the present land dispute. Responding to the single-most grievous charge against Kashmiri protestors that they start waving the Pakistan flag at the drop of a hat, she dared the government to put “all those who wave Pakistani flags behind bars”. You could say she has already launched her election campaign, but the sad part is the inflammatory tone and playing to the gallery of the separatist elements in the Valley. But then our politicians latch on to various methods for coming to power… and retaining it, be it through inflammatory speeches, divisive communal politics, buying votes, or even MLAs and MPs!

But Ms Mufti is right in expressing concern about Kashmir moving dangerously close to a point of no return; today it has become a tinder box and only the coming weeks will tell us which way the crisis is headed.

Tata vs Mamata

In other parts of the country too, there is little news that brings cheer. The Trinamool Congress leader, Ms Mamata Banerjee’s launch of yet another protest at Singur provoked the otherwise reticent and unruffled Ratan Tata to threaten pulling out Tata Motors’ Nano plant in West Bengal if his company continued to remain “unwanted” there. Though the fiery West Bengal leader was put on the backfoot by Mr Tata reading out the riot act, she decided to go ahead with the protest. It is clear that she does not want the burden of the blame that, thanks to her, an investment of Rs 1,500 crore was pulled out of West Bengal. She now says that let 400 of the 1000 acres allotted to Tata Motors be returned to the farmers; how permissible this will be legally is anybody’s guess.

The West Bengal Chief Minister, Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, has invited her for talks, but the surprising factor in the whole show was the presence of Samajwadi Party General Secretary, Mr Amar Singh at Ms Banerjee’s protest. He is obviously trying to score a brownie point in the recently launched battle against the CPI(M). While our politicians continue to fish in troubled waters, several other States such as Maharashtra, Punjab, Orissa and Himachal Pradesh are salivating at the prospect of the Nano plant being relocated on their soil, and have all rolled out the red carpet for Mr Tata.

Reports of Naxalite violence — the latest in Orissa on Sunday killed five people including VHP leader, Swami Lakshmananda Saraswati — continue with chilling regularity. While the government held the Maoists responsible for the attack, the VHP, which called for a bandh in Orissa on Monday, blamed Christians (the Swami was a staunch opponent of conversions) and vowed revenge.

With so much of violence, revenge and counter-revenge in the air, small wonder that the entire nation erupted into a huge bout of celebrations as two more bronze medals were added to India’s miserable kitty in the Olympics. But, ironically, there too the divide in society — Abhinav Bindra who can afford to take off to Germany for training, versus our boxers and wrestlers who had to fight against all odds to make a mark — hits you on the face.

Response may be sent to rasheeda@thehindu.co.in

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