Men, Matters & Memories
M L Kotru
What’s all this hoo-ha about the saffronites having got a popular mandate in Jammu which,it is argued, gives them the divine right to rule in the State of Jammu and Kashmir. Had it been a truthful assessment none would not have grudged the Bharatiya Janata Party, the political arm of the Saffron Parivar, its moments of glory. Something it had been wanly hoping for the past so many years.
If securing 25 seats out of the 37 it contested in the Jammu region, not the blank it logged in the valley where it contested an unprecedented number of seats, is sought to be passed on as a massive mandate I confess my inability to share the party’s joy.
The figures released by the Chief Election Commission of India suggest that Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s People’s Democratic Party won 28 out of the 47 seats in the valley and elsewhere, the ousted National Conference 15 and the discredited Congress Party a surprising 12,including all three seats from Leh.
For the record, also the total vote polled by the BJP in the Assembly Elections was 11,07,194, a reasonably fair 23%, but markedly short of the 32.65 % it polled in the parliamentary poll in the State in May; contrast this with the 10,92,203 votes polled by the PDP, 10,00,693 of the National Conference and 8,67,883 of the Indian National Congress. the Bharatiya Janata Party drew a blank in the valley and in Ladakh, which it had wooed in the recent past, it simply failed to open its account; of the 32 Muslim candidates it pompously sponsored in the valley, all but one lost, almost all losing their deposits. All these figures taken together do not give the BJP the mandate to undo the State as it has existed since 1947.
And to think of the passions that the BJP aroused in the Jammu region in the post- election days one would tend to believe that a grave injustice was about to be done to the predominantly Hindu region and to the BJP as a consequence.
From the party President, Amit Shah down his plenipotentiary in Jammu and Kashmir, Ram Madhav, a party General Secretary, and the whole crop of State BJP leaders, each demanded, as a matter of right it seemed, to be asked by the Governor to form the government. As if government formation were a ‘ladoo’, a chocolate stick,if you like ! The day he met the State Governor N.N. Vohra, Mr. Madhav snapped at a TV camera (post Vohra meeting) : ‘The BJP has to form the government’. To which was added by the State BJP chief that only his Party has the mandate to form the government. The BJP would have its man, as the Chief Minister, he thundered, secretly perhaps hoping he or his colleague Dr. Jitender Singh will earn the distinction of becoming the first post-independence Hindu Chief Minister of the State.
Mufti Sayeed, the PDP supremo and the party chief Mehbooba Mufti had meanwhile chosen not to reveal their hand, even as other dramatis personae continued to breath fire and brimstone, seeing the post-election chasm between Kashmir and Jammu developing into an inseperable divide.A call from Delhi by Union Finance Minister, Mr. Arun Jaitley to Mufti Sayeed was kept under wraps by both and the word regardless was conveyed.
The chips began to fall in place only when Mehbooba Mufti sought a meeting with the Governor a day ahead of schedule. The contours of an agreement between her PDP and the BJP it appeared had begun to emerge even after allowing for the proverbial slip between the cup and lip .And this is bound to continue to be so for the next day or two even as a I write. There are so many imponderables to overcome for this unlikely marriage to be consumated.
Mehbooba even as she asserted her party’s political commitments, including the retention of Aritcle 370, dilution or removal of Armed Forces Special Powers Act, continuation of the peace process in the region, strongly invoked memories of the Vajpayee era and urged the BJP leadership in Delhi do emulate the former Prime Minister’s approach, tempered by ‘insaniyat’ and the need to stabilize relations with Pakistan which continues to occupy half of the State for the past seven decades.
At first dismissive, the BJP obviously sensed an opening in the Mufti overture, one that would lead it to ending the impasse , thus giving it access to the levers of power in the State. I don’t know if it is wishfzul thinking on my part but I do see the possibility of wisdom having finally dawned on the BJP leadership that its intransigence in Jammu might result in a change of gears in the valley, forcing Mufti Mohammad Sayeed to do the unthinkable such as accepting offers made by several valley-based non-BJP parties. Not that the Mufti will.
That’s where the Mufti initiative acquires significance. It may well spare the State , at least for now , the pain of being seen as a divided entity, Hindu Jammu and Muslim valley ,with Ladakh left to its own devices including its being made a Union Territory, a cherished BJP dream, spurned presently by the electorate there.To that extent the PDP overture becomes significant and which in the prevailing circumstances should not be wholly unwelcome to the BJP. Even the saffron parivar’s known disdain for our being a multi-religious, multi-lingual, multi-cultural nation (remember ‘sarva dharma sambhav) wouldn’t save us from being sneered at by those who in any case have never believed in ours India that is Bharat Mata being a secular State.
This is not to say that our secular credentials have not already been brought into question by the safrron parivar’s many chauvinistic ‘abhiyans’, like the gharwapsi abhiyan, Christmas not being what it has been for centuries,like Mr. Mohan bhagwat’s clarion call, duly broadcast live by TV channels, that the Vishwa Hindu Parishad’s larger task is to make good Hindus out of all non-Hindus the world over and the Prime Minister Mr Narendra Modi’s studied refusal to call his Saffronite forces to order are no ordinary straws in the wind. There appears to be much deliberation behind these and similar other shots fired by the parivar and its numerous frontal organizations on a day to day routine basis.
Reverting to the Jammu and Kashmir tangle one can only hope that New Delhi will try to restore some balance to the silly politics being played out in Jammu and Srinagar. Gandhi, the original, had seen the only ray of hope coming from Kashmir when the rest of the sub-continent had been turned into an ocean of blood-letting by the dominant forces of hate. Must it be said that two Gujaratis, one the Prime Minister and the other the ruling party chief, Amit Shah held sway over the country when it moved away from its long cherished moorings.
And as I conclude ,the BJP-PDP parleys on the face of it appear to have hit a sticky patch.Not life threatening, in fact very predictable in a crazily fractured electoral verdict. The important thing is the two parties are very much in business as of now. Arun Jaitley’s call may in fact have helped matters along
It was not for nothing we heard Mehboba Mufti acknowledging the huge BJP mandate in Jammu even as she admitted offers of support from the valley parties to raise her party’s strength to 55. To me, as of now, the inevitability of a PDP-BJP alliance seems ordained, as it were. But for it to be a stable arrangement lasting the whole of six years Messrs Modi and Mufti Sayeed will have to work out a fresh work ethic, the contours of which will become clear when the two join hands. As I look into my crystal ball for one last time I do see clouds of doubt lingering over the possible alliance with fair weather forecast as a near certainty.
Follow our WhatsApp channel