Late Mufti Mohd Sayeed had opined on day-one of his taking oath of office of Chief Minister of J&K on 1st March 2015 that since people of Kashmir region have voted overwhelmingly for PDP and people of Jammu Region have voted for BJP he had very faithfully decided for PDP-BJP alliance. Earlier he had in 2002 taken to an alliance with Congress but then he had never talked of any alienation of ‘two’ regions. He had particularly made it to ‘his people’ that the spirit of PDP- BJP “agenda of alliance” had been made to rest more in development of the state to avoid any further alienation of the people of two regions. Ladakh region had only four MLAs, therefore, the ‘cold dessert’ region did not find much reference from political angles.
No doubt the ‘spirit’ appeared pious but both PDP and BJP could not rise much above simple ‘political constituency interest’ gimmicks during the time Mufti Mohd Sayeed held the reins since the ‘allies’ kept on saying that each of them represented only ‘one’ of the two regions. The prime valley leadership talked of alienation of two ‘regions’ of J&K from each other and that should have worried the national leadership worth looking for some new approach towards J&K but not much headway was made in that direction even during Mufti Sayeed days.
Mufti Sayeed had summarised on 1st March 2015 that the way people voted in 2014 legislative assembly elections very clearly demonstrated that the people of Jammu region are poles apart from the people of Kashmir region (one is north pole and other is south pole). Such observations were really arming but New Delhi did not appear taking to some ‘advisory’ bank that could meet the ground needs. BJP-PDP had come together to bring the people of the regions together ‘again’ but the way the ‘two allies’ had worked for first 10 months had instead appeared making the distances to grow further since they did not even try to narrow the differences in their perceptions as regards “Kashmir issue” from Indian view point. Mufti Sahib had opined that the aspirations of the people of two main regions of J&K are different. While referring to aspirations of two regions being different Mufti Sahib did not mean that Kashmir region (‘Kashmiri’) people wanted ‘cement concrete’ roads and Jammu people wanted ‘macadam’ black top roads; by talking of different aspirations Mufti Sahib did not mean that Kashmir people wanted ‘thermal power’ and Jammu people wanted ‘hydel’ power.
Whereas, while talking of different ‘aspirations’ Mufti Sahib had been indirectly referring to such conceptual and emotional aspirations that among other things concerned issues like so called ‘Kashmir dispute’, Art-370 of Constitution of India, Center state relations, Indo-Pak relations- ‘J&K”, 1947 accession , common civil code, Kashmiriat, local identities , human rights and like .
This ‘sermon’ from the ‘elder’ leader who had remained a Union Minister twice and had also taken oath of office of J&K Chief Minister for the second time should have been taken seriously by ‘New Delhi’ BJP leadership.
But in this direction no much positive work was done by Delhi that was otherwise more needed for amicable ideological reformation.
The way PDP had later ventured into performance appraisal of Mufti Mohd Sayeed – Nirmal Singh lead J&K Government before spelling out re- alliance with BJP or otherwise after the demise of Mufti Sayeed Sahib too indicated diverging style from Indian point of view.
In Jammu Region many BJP supporters started questioning the wisdom of the architects of the draft of the BJP-PDP ‘agenda for alliance’. More eyebrows were raised in Kashmir valley too since over the years the local leaderships as well as all non BJP political parties, among other things, had been talking more of J&K being the only Muslim majority state of India and RSS backed groups / parties were being named as the agencies working to dislodge the Muslim majority identity of ‘Kashmir’. … The perceptions as appearing are even in local valley media have do not show any positive notes even after nearly three years of the alliance and Delhi is often found taking shelters under the slogans for preserving Kashmiriat. No clear truthful line has been drawn between the mainstream and separatists ideologies by New Delhi particularly when references are made to J&K being India in terms of 1947 accession of J&K with India. And South Kashmir from where PDP had won most of the MLA segments in 2014 could not even get conducted the Parliamentary elections in April 2017.
To be continued..
(Daya Sagar is a senior journalist and a social activist can be reached at dayasagr45@yahoo.com)