Political Correspondent
JAMMU: Founder of PDP and Chief Minister of J and K Mufti Mohammad Sayeed has been under severe attack ever since he assumed office for second time. The people of Jammu and Ladakh and leading national news channels have been highly critical of the PDP-BJP coalition government. The BJP is a junior partner in the Mufti government and it has no say whatever in it. They have been criticising the coalition government, saying it has been “soft” towards Pakistan and terrorists and that “under this government militant and separatist-related activities have increased manifold”. They have been charging the government with giving a long rope to Pakistani agents like Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, Yasin Malik, to mention only a few, and urging the BJP to come out of the coalition government as “its participation in the government has not been in the larger national interest”.
The oft-repeated charge of the people of Jammu and Ladakh and national news channels that the present dispensation is “soft” towards anti-nationals and pro-Pakistan elements cannot be brushed aside. Events which unfolded in Kashmir after 1st March do suggest that the situation in the Valley has assumed alarming proportions and that the Pakistani elements are ruling the roost in Kashmir.
The Chief Minister was very fortunate because he had in the person of BJP leader and Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh a great supporter of his. Singh had been defending Mufti and his coalition government on a daily basis. Singh considered Mufti a “great visionary” and believed that the State under him will make all round progress. He is on record having said that “Mufti likes the BJP ministers” and the State Government would complete its full term of six years”. Singh had been the Mufti’s most reliable spokesperson. It was not for nothing that Mufti appointed Singh chairman of almost all the committees which were charged with very important responsibilities. The relations between the two continue to more than cordial.
On Thursday, Mufti got another powerful spokesperson. He was Ram Madhav, BJP national general secretary and the one who clinched with the PDP a power-sharing deal in the last week of February. He defended Mufti and his policies in the manner no one had defended till then. He didn’t agree with those who had been saying that the situation in Kashmir had worsened after 1st March and, instead, he gave full marks to the Chief Minister, saying his performance had been commendable.
Delivering a talk at far off Hyderabad on “Challenges to National Security: Jammu and Kashmir to Arunachal, Pakistan to China”, organised by the J and K Study Centre and Pragna Bharat, Ram Madhav said: “The government in J and K is taking all the measures to ensure that pro-Pakistan elements are completely arrested, marginalised. So this impression is not based on facts that the government there is soft on pro-Pakistan elements. Masarat Alam is in jail. All the important separatist leaders are under house arrest”.
Ram Madhav didn’t disclose the names of those who were under house arrest. We in the State know that Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, Yasin Malik and Shabir Ahmad Shah, the well-known India baiters, are freemen and they have been holding pro-Pakistan and anti-India rallies in different parts of Kashmir at regular intervals. Hoisting of Pakistan flags in Kashmir has become a routine affair after 1st March, but Ram Madhav doesn’t attach any significance to these anti-national acts.
The BJP ideologue expressed the view that it was Pakistan that was trying to foment troubles in Kashmir to destabilise the coalition government and that we would do well if we do not romanticise such activities undertaken by unpopular elements. “Pakistan is very unhappy with the way a stable government has been formed in J and K. It is trying its best to create unrest in the state. The Pakistani flags and demonstrations that you see now and then are attempts to create instability in the state. The government is making efforts to manage that. One should not ‘romanticise’ those forces,” said Ram Madhav “They do not enjoy the popular support there. But they are there…They have some support. But the majority of the people are with Indian democracy,” he also added.
The fact of the matter is that Ram Madhav gave full marks to the coalition government in the State and advised the concerned citizens and media houses to ignore what has been happening in Kashmir. Besides, he also gave everyone to understand that Article 370 was no more on their agenda and that it was for the Parliament to take a final call on it. “Article 370 is the responsibility of the Government of India. We have said that whatever the Parliament decides, whatever is in the Constitution, we will follow that,” Madhav said while allaying the fears of the protagonists of Article 370 or those who assert that this Article is a bridge between India and J and K and that the State would secede from India in case Article 370 was repealed. What Ram Madhav said about Article 370 was self-explanatory.
Not just this, Ram Madhav also expressed full faith in Mufti, when he said the Chief Minister was sincerely doing all that was needed to be done to reduce the gap between Kashmir and Jammu and that the state under Mufti would become a progressive and developed state. “In fact, (J and K Chief Minister) Mufti Mohammed Sayeed has gone on record repeatedly saying that his biggest challenge is not some imaginary kind of bridging of gap between the rest of India and J and K. The real challenge is to bridge the gap between Jammu (region) and Kashmir (Valley). That is the real challenge for our government. We will work towards bringing the two regions closer to each other. The air distance is 25 minutes from Jammu to Srinagar. By road, the distance is six hours, but the emotional gap is 60 years. We are determined to bridge this gap first,” he said. “We are committed to making Jammu and Kashmir one united and prosperous state like Telangana or any other state, say Gujarat or Maharashtra. No plans to divide,” said Madhav.
Everyone in Jammu and Ladakh knows the kind of steps the PDP-led coalition government has been taking to bridge the gap between them and Kashmir. The 24th April and 27th May massive bandhs across Jammu province, the threat in Jammu for a full-scale mass movement against the State and Central Governments on the issue of AIIMS and artificial lake project and the demand in Ladakh for Union Territory status as made on 27th May by the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council, Leh (LAHDC) Chief Executive Councilor, Rigzin Spalbar, were some of the immediate fall-outs of the steps the Mufti Government had been taking to bridge the gulf between the three regions of the state.
But these events were of no consequence for Ram Madhav. His main concern was to express solidarity with Mufti and he did it most faithfully by rejecting outright the demand in Jammu and Ladakh for the State’s division. He knew that Kashmiri leaders of all hues consider Jammu and Ladakh as colonies of Kashmir and, hence, he reassured Mufti and other Kashmiri leaders that the BJP will silence the votaries of division of the State. “You (audience) might have asked it because the separation of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh is still fresh. We cannot go on dividing the state like that. J and K is one state, it will develop, it will prosper as one state and our government is making special efforts,” he said.
The Chief Minister should feel jubilant because he has now not one but two spokespersons of his in the BJP.
