By back-tracking on the issue of Pandits returning to the Kashmir valley, the J&K Chief Minister has strengthened the Hurriyat and the militant groups. He is looking to appease his hardline constituents as well
The reactions to Union Minister for Home Affairs Rajnath Singh’s April statement on the re-settlement of internally displaced Kashmiri Pandits in the Kashmir valley and his reported claim that Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed had assured him that the State Government will acquire and provide land at the earliest, have been on expected lines.
Frustrated and desperate separatists of all hues, who otherwise do not see eye to eye with one another, opposed in unison the idea of re-settling persecuted Kashmiri Pandits in the valley. They declared that they will not allow the BJP-led NDA Government at the Centre and the PDP-BJP coalition Government in the State to “implement the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) agenda and establish Israel-type settlements” in the valley. This is ironic because the separatists, with the help of certain elements in the establishment, have already converted Kashmir into a jihadi ghetto.
The separatists also got unflinching support from all the so-called mainstream Kashmiri parties, including the Congress and the National Conference, almost all the Kashmiri civil society groups, and Kashmir-based commentators and opinion-makers. They created a huge hue and cry which led to to protests in Srinagar city, clashes with the police, a few sham arrests, a shutdown on April 12 and a threat that they’d do all that they can to scuttle the move.
All of this was expected. The separatists were, and are, against the return of the displaced Kashmiri Pandits to their original habitat. They contemptuously dismiss the Hindus, who oppose their anti-India struggle, as ‘fifth columnists’ or ‘Indian agents’. This is why the separatists had forced the Pandits out of the valley at gun-point in the early 1990s.
However, what has dumbfounded, and, indeed, sent alarm bells ringing across, the Kashmiri Pandit community and those who are ardent believers in the concept of a secular and democratic India, is the impact of the senseless opposition by the separatists and their ilk on Mr Sayeed. He went back on his April 7 commitment and used the floor of legislative Assembly on April 8 to contradict the Union Home Minister. He spoke the language of the Kashmiri separatists and said that, though his Government wanted the Kashmiri Pandits to return to the valley, it will not allow “Israel-type settlements” in Kashmir and that the Pandits will eventually have to live in the localities where they were persecuted.
This was was not an off-the-cuff remark but a well-considered view that is consistent with the PDP’s election manifesto. The party’s Aspirational Agenda talks about “institutions of democracy” which create “conditions that facilitate resolution of the J&K issue”, “self-rule”, “dual currency” and “financial products which are sharia’h compliant”. Moreover, Mr Sayeed reiterated his views on the floor of the Jammu & Kashmir legislative Council on April 10. In this case, he even opposed composite townships for Kashmiri Hindus and re-stated that “we will neither make separate clusters that Israel has set up, nor we will make separate townships”.
Mr Sayeed made this statement to counter Mr Singh, who, in no uncertain terms, said, that same day in lucknow, that an agreement had been reached with the Chief Minister on the re-settlement of the displaced Kashmiri Pandits. By referring to “Israeli settlements”, Mr Sayeed also accorded a dangerous legitimacy to those who had upped the ante following the April 7 report on the resettlement of Kashmiri Pandits and after discussions on the issue between Mr Singh and Mr Sayeed. The Chief Minister, who talks often about peace and development in Jammu & Kashmir and the need to provide a “healing touch” to the State, has almost killed the whole talk of Kashmiri Pandits’ return to the valley. His complete U-turn on the issue has only strengthened the otherwise marginalised and discredited separatist camp.
It’s no wonder then that critics of Mr Sayeed as well as friends and well-wishers of the country and the community-in-exile-in-its-own-motherland, have all described Mr Sayeed’s changed stance on the issue as a “complete surrender” before a handful of separatists whose area of influence and activity is confined only to a few pockets in Srinagar city. There is no doubt that by back-tracking on the issue, Mr Sayeed has only strengthened the Hurriyat leadership and the militant groups. His statements were also calculated to solidify and expand his communal constituency in the valley, so that the PDP can defeat the gameplan of the main Opposition, the National Conference. The latter has been opposing the policies of the PDP-BJP coalition Government and accusing Mr Sayeed of playing a double-game so as to restore its own political space, which it lost to the PDP during the 2014 lok Sabha and the Assembly elections.
(The writer is former Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Jammu)