BJP’s Mission Kashmir

IN MARCH, PRIME MINISTER Narendra Modi visited the Kashmir Valley for the first time after the removal of Article 370. From the helipad of the Army cantonment, his social media accounts first showed him bowing to the Shiva temple atop the Shankara­charya Hill seen from a distance. Later, as he addressed a rally, it was quite a different spectacle from earlier events, including those in which the Bharatiya Jana­ta Party (BJP) may have been involved even indirectly. In those events, people came reluctantly, and even then, to escape the wrath of militants, they preferred to keep their faces covered. But, last month, as Modi said Jammu and Kashmir is breathing freely, there was a big gathering of people listening to him—and freely, without any attempt to conceal their identity.

This change has happened because the majority Kashmiri Muslims have understood that it is better to be on the winning side. Already, there are individuals, previously opposed to BJP and to Modi in particular, who are now openly singing his paeans and have suddenly turned ‘patriotic’. There are chances that in BJP’s futuristic gameplan in Kashmir, they may get to play a role by acting as the party’s proxies in Assembly elections that Modi and others have promised will happen soon.

But that apart, given that there is resentment that hasn’t found an outlet in the last five years, to align temporarily with the win­ning side does not necessarily mean that the Kashmiris want BJP to win. Those who come for rallies will mostly not vote for BJP or even become the party’s cadre. BJP has understood this and that is what has led to their decision of not fielding any candidate from the three Lok Sabha constituencies from the Kashmir region: Sri­nagar, Baramulla and Anantnag-Rajouri. These will go to polls in May, while the rest two in the Jammu region voted in April. On Jammu seats, the party is relying on Brand Modi as they have done in the past two elections, now coupled with the success on Article 370 that had been on the party’s manifesto for decades. In any case, BJP had fared poorly on the three Kashmir seats in 2019 when it had chosen to field its candidates. BJP’s Jammu and Kashmir President Ravinder Raina said this decision (of not fight­ing from Kashmir) was keeping in mind the bigger goal and that on these seats BJP will support parties that are “patriotic”. This is a reiteration of the statement of Amit Shah, who recently in Jammu appealed to Kashmiris to vote for any party other than the National Conference (NC), the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and Congress. He said that in the Valley, BJP would support “pa­triotic parties”, in other words, parties that are expected to act as its proxies. Prominent among them is People’s Conference, led by Sajad Lone, who is contesting from the Baramulla seat. There is also Apni Party, whose leader Altaf Bukhari is also seen as some­one propped up by New Delhi. The two have now decided to go together, supporting each other ’s candidates in Kashmir.

Lone is pitted against NC’s Omar Abdullah. Both have been at loggerheads, with NC raising Lone’s links with BJP. In response, Lone sarcastically reminded Omar of how he was a minister in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government at which time BJP was “good BJP”, and now the same party was “bad”. Omar also targeted PDP’s Mehbooba Mufti, questioning why she was opposing BJP when she had been an ally in the past. Hitting out at BJP, Omar said in a rally in South Kashmir that the saffron party had no guts to field any candidate in the Kashmir Valley. “If they win any seats in the Kashmir Valley, I will quit politics,” he said.

BJP has in the past forged an alliance, separately, with both Kash­miri mainstream parties, the National Conference and the People’s Democratic Party. These ties, especially the one with PDP that is largely seen as a pro-separatist party, turned out to be a political disaster. BJP opted out of it, albeit a bit late, by which time consider­able damage had already happened in Kashmir. After the 2019 Pul­wama suicide attack, BJP tightened its grip on Kashmir, leading to the removal of Article 370 later that year. Since then, as a Union ter­ritory, with direct control of the Centre, terrorism has been brought under control. After the removal of Article 370, NC and PDP, along with a few others, formed the Gupkar Alliance to counter BJP in the Valley. It asked for “restoration of democracy” in the state. But in two years, fissures began to appear in the alliance. As NC and PDP failed to arrive at a quid pro quo, they decided to contest the Lok Sabha elections independently in Kashmir Valley, while supporting Congress in two seats in the Jammu region. This works well for BJP as votes against it will get split. For the two seats in Jammu, BJP is leaving no stone unturned. It deputed its star cam­paigners like Yogi Adityanath and Amit Shah to campaign for its candidates, Jitendra Singh and Jugal Kishore, who have won in both 2014 and 2019 elections. The Congress campaign, in contrast, looks lacklustre.

Srinagar and Baramulla is understandable, but BJP’s decision not to contest from Anantnag-Rajouri has made many party work­ers unhappy. This seat, formed recently after a delimitation process, is a combination of Kashmir and Jammu regions, on both sides of the Pir Panjal range. In the last General Election, while Anantnag saw less than 10 per cent voting, the Jammu part of the new constit­uency saw over 65 per cent turnout. BJP workers had been hoping to make a mark here, especially after the Centre chose to give the Scheduled Tribe status to the Paharis, a linguistic group. This was supposed to help BJP, but it chose not to contest. So did Ghulam Nabi Azad, the former Congress leader, who has now formed his own party. He said he was reminded by people that he will be returning to Delhi through Lok Sabha if he won and did not want to do that.

For BJP, the central issue remains how to go about the state­hood, which the party top brass has repeatedly promised. From its prior experience, it knows that repeating the same mistake (alliance with NC and PDP) is going to make them lose all gains. Last month, Amit Shah in an interview to a local news organisa­tion said that the government was considering the removal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) and a reduction in troops. While this could be done keeping in mind the security scenario, the real challenge begins when the statehood is restored in the Union territory. In 2015, after BJP chose to establish a government with PDP, Kashmir plunged into turmoil. In April that year, a radical Islamist, Massarat Alam, close to the separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, was given the freedom to organise a big reception and a rally for his mentor who was returning from Delhi after spending the harsh winter months. As the crowd passed by the director gen­eral of police’s office in Srinagar, many among it shouted: “Pakistan se kya paigaam, Kashmir banega Pakistan (What is the message from Pakistan? Kashmir will turn into Pakistan),” and “Jeeve, jeeve Paki­stan (Long live Pakistan)”. The rally boosted the spirits of youngsters who had grudgingly accepted that azadi is a mirage. It was around the same time that the legend of Burhan Wani was created, helped by journalistic reports from Delhi that declared him the new face of militancy in Kashmir. In the chaos after Wani’s death, a few Indian parliamentarians went to Geelani’s door to beg for an audience, which was refused. Police sources revealed at the time that after PDP came to power, it put tremendous pressure on them to go easy on stone pelters. In many instances, those who had been booked for serious violations were freed after PDP’s intervention.

In the last few years, the Centre has carefully broken down the terrorist ecosystem in the Valley. Being a separatist in Kashmir today comes at a cost, and the Kashmiris in the Valley have been made aware of this. Those who have even indirectly helped ter­rorists have had agencies like the National Investigation Agency (NIA) come to their door. Many among the security grid are not in favour of granting statehood immediately. They feel that it should only be done when the last residue of separatism in Kashmir dries out. But that will take time. BJP insiders also say that the party will try a mathematical jugglery through which there could be a possibility of a chief minister from Jammu, preferably a Hindu. This is where it expects the newly minted “patriots” in Kashmir to fall in line and help BJP do the unthinkable. Right now, it looks impossible, but if Modi comes back to power for the third time, this should not be a task bigger than the one his government un­dertook in August 2019.

2024 Elections2024: CountdownBJPFarooq AbdullahGeneral election 2024Jammu and KashmirMehbooba MuftiNational ConferencePDP