Rekha Chowdhary
Referring to the recent statements of the Chief Minister, Ms Mehbooba Mufti in the state legislature, a journalist in a local daily of Kashmir commented on how she has taken a complete U-turn and from being a ‘soft-separatist’, she has turned into ‘ultra-nationalist’. One may not agree with the use of the terms like ‘soft-separatist’ or ‘ultra-nationalist’ to define her politics, but one can clearly note that there is definite change of emphasis in her political tone in more recent period. To capture her political stance at the moment, one may refer to the remarks made by her during her speech during the discussion on motion of thanks to the Governor’s Address. The essence of her remarks lay in presenting to the House the ‘vision’ that her father had about the state and the obligation that that she has to go by that vision while discharging her duties as Chief Minister of the State. While doing so, she also defended the alliance that her party had entered into with the BJP in forming the government. Her remarks were directly addressed to the National Conference in general and its leader, Omar Abdullah in particular who has been critiquing the PDP for entering into an ‘unholy alliance’ with the BJP and having ‘compromised’ the Kashmiri identity and in having endangered the special status of the state. In a very strategic manner, Mehbooba invoked the very history of National Conference to argue that nothing that the PDP had done was unusual and the path that the PDP had taken had already been treaded by the National Conference.
In plain words, she stated that she was in power mainly to fulfil her father’s mission of establishing peace and fulfilling his vision. Senior Mufti, she sought to emphasise had a clear vision about the state and its relation with India. He believed in the ‘Idea of India’ as it best suited to the genius of people of Kashmir who followed the pluralist ethos and led the lives of co-existence. Giving the examples of shrines and temples being located side by side in the Valley, she referred to the tradition of harmonious living which could be sustained only in pluralist and democratic India. The point that she made about Mufti was that he was ‘Indian’ by conviction who continued to remain so even at a time when a lot number of Kashmiris were swayed towards separatism. At a time when anyone going with mainstream parties was branded as a Gaddar (betrayer) and Kafir (infidel), he had the guts to continue with his own politics and to establish a new political party.
In seeking to establish the political greatness of Mufti Sayeed, Mehbooba simultaneously showered praises on Sheikh Abdullah and referred to him as the greatest leader of the State but she also pointed towards his failings. Mufti, she said respected Sheikh Abdullah a lot for endorsing the Accession of State with India but was always confused as to why he backed out of this endorsement later. Mufti, in contrast, remained consistent and never faltered from his faith in the ‘idea of India’.
By stating that her biggest strength was her father’s conviction and her father’s conviction was defined as the faith in the idea of India, Ms Mufti in a very unequivocal manner sought to define her own ideological position. Till the time her father was alive and was at the helm of affairs, she could afford to be ambivalent. But that is not possible any more. She needs to state her political position very clearly and by this speech she has done that. This speech read along with her another statement in which she blamed the separatists for turning the pious Fridays into stone-pelting ones, clearly reflects her new approach to politics at the moment.
In the history of PDP, this is a very important moment. The party has travelled a long way away from its ‘pro-separatist’ orientation that it had strategically applied in post-1999 period to create a space for itself. At that moment it faced a strong competition not only from the National Conference which had so far controlled the mainstream politics; but also from the entrenched separatism which had made the mainstream politics irrelevant. Using the separatist agenda to its advantage and shifting most of the issues being raised by the separatists to the mainstream politics, the party succeeded not merely in creating a space for itself but also in extending the space for the mainstream politics as well.
Around one and half decade since it entered the political space of Kashmir, there has been sufficient transformation of Kashmir’s politics. PDP has been able to meet both the challenges – of separatists as well of NC in quite an extraordinary manner. Every subsequent election since 2002 has been more participatory giving a serious blow to the separatist call for boycott. And as for as NC is concerned, after losing its dominance and sharing the mainstream political space with PDP after the 2002 and 2008 elections, in 2014, it has even lost the privilege of being the largest party of Kashmir. It is now the PDP which has emerged as the largest party of Kashmir both in terms of votes as well as in terms of seats.
One can, therefore, see that the PDP in power in 2016 is quite different from PDP in power in 2002-2008 period. With barely 16 seats and less than 25% vote share in Kashmir region, it did not have the confidence that it has now after obtaining 25 seats and around 38% vote share. In 2002, the party was still struggling to establish a space for itself since it had only one electoral victory behind it and its loss in the next election would have cost its very existence. That explains the shrill in the political discourse of the party. More than governance, its leaders in general and Mehbooba Mufti in particular, referred to issues related to conflict politics and hence the emphasis on ‘Self-Rule’; ‘Opening of roads on the LOC’; ‘Joint Control/ Currency’ etc. The emphasis for the party now is on different issues and for Mehbooba Mufti ‘governance’ has taken precedence.
In the course of its evolution, the party has also realised the limitation of pursuing an exclusive ‘pro-Kashmir’ politics. Within the fragmented political space of Kashmir region, the party can at best emerge as the largest party of the region but to be in a comfortable position, it needs to transcend its regional image and become an all-state party. That is the reason that despite the fact that the party continues to draw its strength from Kashmir region, it has been seeking to find a base in other regions of the state as well. More pertinently, to gain acceptance in other regions of the state, it has, over the period (especially after 2008), moderated its aggressive stance. One could get a glimpse of the change in her above referred speech in which she raised pertinent issues about the inter-regional relationship within the state. Referring to mutually competitive and binary politics, she said that it is biggest failure of Indian and Jammu Kashmir leaders that they could not link Jammu and Kashmir. This was despite the fact that interests of people all over the state are the same and people all over the state want peace and progress. The border people of Jammu are as much wanting end of hostilities as Kashmiris are. They are directly affected by war. This emphasis on harmonious relationship between Jammu and kashmir is much different from her approach in post-1999 period when her focus mainly was on ‘Kashmiri identity’ and she needed to establish the party as a pro-Kashmir party. Now, on the contrary, she clearly questioned those who sought to create a politics by repeatedly referring to threat to ‘Kashmiri-identity’!
(Feedback welcome at rekchowdhary@gmail.com)
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