Ashwani Kumar Chrungoo
History will bear testimony to the fact that two Chief Ministers of the then Jammu and Kashmir state created a situation which facilitated a “political revolution” in the state in the year 2019. Some would blame them for the current situation while the others would call them the most immature politicians in command that the state witnessed so far, some would thank them for being responsible for bringing such a huge change in the political fortunes of the state while ‘the others’ would thank them selectively for being stubborn and foolhardy to enforce a palatable situation in the state for a changeover (from nationalistic point of view).
This author considers himself among ‘the others’ who firmly believe that Omar Abdullah in general and Mehbooba Mufti in particular are responsible for the current positive change in Jammu and Kashmir though inadvertently and without a clue to that effect. Omar Abdullah, the youngest Chief Minister of the state proved that the political sagacity and maturity don’t pour to the heir-apparent automatically. Both need to be earned with successes and failures of life. His infamous statement in the Parliament in July 2008 that “not an inch of land will be given to the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board for Amarnath Pilgrimage” was enough to put the then J&K state on fire for two months. His childish outbursts thereafter paved way for the nationalists in the state to not only consolidate their position but also to be capable to tear into pieces the political narrative that J&K was a special state in the Union of India.
During his regime from 2008 to 2014, he made it sure that J&K is pushed to the wall on one pretext or the other. The protests, killings and restrictions of the year 2010, Kishtwar communal carnage, terror spree in the valley, corrupt practices in the administration, behind the curtain state Home Department’s policy regarding surrender and return of terrorists in the state and the controversial Roshni Act made an indelible bad scar on his six-year long rule in the state. His rule convinced the unconvinced that some drastic thinking process needs to be initiated about the J&K state in the long run. The change of Government at the centre and the following Assembly elections in 2014 provided an ample opportunity to do the undoable about the state.
The alliance of BJP with PDP led by Mufti Syed in March 2015 was an arrangement of political compulsions as a consequence of the poll verdict plus an opportunity to assume the political power in the state. The death of Mufti was an unpredictable happening that created a political void for sometime leaving enough space and time to think about new opportunities. BJP played smart, undoubtedly, keeping its cards close to its chest. The leadership of BJP was clear that the government was the first priority in the state and the allignment with the PDP with Mehbooba Mufti as its head could be managed eventually.
Important people in PDP played key role in forming Alliance-II, by doing everything given in the political syllabus to manure and manipulate the alliance. BJP having its goals and targets very clear from the very word go, made it known that it was flexible to any extent though detrimental to it’s own image and perception about it in general. Government in all cases was the target in sight. Mehbooba tried to play tricks and traunts, but ultimately succumbed and formed the Government though a delayed one.
The game plans unfolded from the day one when the Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a huge package of Rupees eighty thousand crores for the state. Mehbooba was asked to implement the projects with the available money but she went with her own plans to defy the central projects. She went ahead with the idea that the illegal entry of the surrendered terrorists via Nepal be given legal status and made such appeals before the then Home Minister a number of times.
The happenings of 2016 and thereafter exposed her mind fully. She hardly convened the meeting of the Unified Command in the state but once and created a situation unthinkable in which the national security and law and order in the state were pitted against each other. While openly opposing operations against terrorism and terror operatives and alligning with the opposition tantrums in Delhi and in J&K, she gave enough opportunities to BJP to hasten its actions on its plans in-mind.
She had not even an iota of inclination of the political permutations and combinations when she outrightly rejected the Prime Minster’s requests to contribute to the national security issues in the state. She made it impossible for the BJP, with her outbursts and actions, to do anything that would take J&K state nearer to the national aspirations in tune with the national demand. She had hardly an idea of BJP’s political, intellectual and strategic thinking and kept on banking upon her party’s supremacy in the government.
The Chanakyas, Chandraguptas and their comrades in arms at the Centre had enough of reasons to believe that the time had come to take the plans to the execution table and the execution was done with perfect finesse. In a jiffy, the head of the government in the J&K state was reduced to nothing excepting an MLA and the party chief confined to her party work when the support was suddenly withdrawn by the BJP. Everything of the sort, necessary to the situation, was ready by the time the Governor was asked to assume the reins of the state. What happened thereafter is history well known and recognised.
Once again, the doctrine proved itself right that the political sagacity and maturity don’t pour to the heir-apparent automatically. The trio, Mehbooba Mufti, Rahul Gandhi and Omar Abdullah, the princess and the princes have ultimately relieved the generations to come to carry their burden upon their shoulders as the natural aspirants of their family fiefdom, so unfortunate to the democratic values and decorum. Their foolishness, stubbornness, immaturity and foolhardiness contributed “positively” in favour of the national cause.
Article 370 and 35A stand scrapped, J&K state stand divided while three regions of the state going to the two units each and both the newly created units are declared Union Territories, one with the Assembly and the other with the two Development Councils. The ultimate in this regard stands to have been achieved with the elimination of the state flag and a separate constitution.
The release of the new maps of the Union Territories by the Surveyor General of India with the concurrence of the Union Home Ministry closes all chapters legally, constitutionally, historically and politically. The support of the International community to India and the PM Modi on this account is unparalleled and overwhelming. Isolation of Pakistan on the issue internationally and its domestic anarchy is its fate earned out of it’s bad intent and follow-up. The Union Territories of J&K and Ladakh have eyes focussed on POJK now and await its liberation so that those areas would physically be amalgamated with where they actually belong to.
In the early years of fourteenth century, some foreign introducers, mischief-mongers, fugitives and scoundrels took refuge in Kashmir under king Sahdeva and with the passage of time made their entry into the palace. Within a period of thirty years, these foreign scoundrels conspired to end the Indigenous rule of Kashmir and it passed on into foreign hands in 1342 for a period of almost five hundred years. The scars, injuries, bleeding wounds, exodus and tormented psyche of the people are the living witnesses of the 500 years despotic rule in Kashmir which ended in 1819 with the introduction of Sikh rule under Maharaja Ranjeet Singh followed by the one century Dogra rule in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. The injustice done seven hundred years ago has ultimately been set right with annulling all fake narratives of the last seven decades cooked up in the shade of the last seven hundred years of history of Kashmir.
(Feedback: ashwanikc2012@gmail.com)
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