(Mani Shankar Aiyar is a Congress MP in the Rajya Sabha.)Early polls indicate that the Congress and the National Conference have lost a great deal of support in Jammu and Kashmir. They also indicate that the PDP is likely to be the overwhelming winner in the Valley and the BJP the big winner in Jammu and, possibly, Ladakh.
Poll findings are notoriously unreliable and as the campaign progresses, the picture will become clearer. But as of now, it would appear that, unlike in the past, when the NC-Congress alliance ensured that the ruling coalition would have a joint presence in all parts of the state, this time round, there might be a dividing line along the Chenab, in effect dividing Hindu-majority Jammu from Muslim-majority Kashmir, with Ladakh standing helplessly on the sidelines.
While the NC-Congress will take defeat, as they have victory, in their stride as part and parcel of the ups and downs of the democratic process, all Indians, including voters in the state, need to ponder the consequences of splitting the state politically on religious lines. Mehbooba Mufti has made it clear that she intends to have no truck with the BJP within the State. In an interview to The Hindu (23 November) she has said the BJP "is trying to convey to a particular group of people that they are going to handle things in Kashmir differently and teach Kashmiris a lesson." She adds that the BJP's aim is to "disempower them (the Kashmiris) because when they talk of Article 370 it means disempowerment of the state." She also draws attention to "the communalization they (the BJP) are fostering". This, she says, is an attempt to pit "Jammu v/s Kashmir and then Kashmir v/s the rest of India." She describes this as "a very, very dangerous game." She has also strongly condemned the language ("loot") with which Modi began his Kashmir campaign in Kishtwar. (
Read The Hindu article here)
It is difficult not to agree with her. Pakistani interlocutors, in particular Niaz Naik, who once served as Pakistan's High Commissioner to Delhi, have long propounded the theory that if all of J&K cannot become part of Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir, at least allow the Valley to be merged into Pakistan, leaving Jammu and Ladakh with India - for the sole reason that there is a Muslim majority in the Valley, but not in other parts of the state under Indian sovereignty and control. We have consistently rejected such mischief-mongering and defended the integrity of the state, and the integration of all of J&K (including Pak-Occupied Kashmir) with the Indian Union.
But if the forthcoming assembly election results in the state getting politically divided along religious lines, pro-Pak elements in the Valley, and Pakistan itself, are bound to get incentivized into demanding integration with Pakistan. Happily, Mehbooba adds that "we will not allow it to happen" and one can only hope she is right.
However, the waters are in danger of being muddied because of the BJP's stated position on Article 370. After the PM's own MoS, Jitendra Singh, who is a Jammu MP, stirred an angry controversy within hours of being sworn in by raising Article 370, the BJP have tried to moderate their stand by saying they want no more than "a public discussion" on the continuation of the Article. Even a discussion of the continuing validity of the Article is bound to cause disquiet and unease in the Valley.
Of course, the Article is in the "temporary and transient" section of the Constitution but the fundamental reason for persisting with it is that the original reason given by Law Minister Gopalaswamy Ayyangar in the Constituent Assembly continues to hold good - namely, the continued forcible and illegal occupation of a part of the state by Pakistan. The vacation of Article 370 can only follow, and not precede, the vacation of Pak aggression. Were there to be that "final settlement" of issues related to J&K envisaged in the Simla agreement of 1972, there might be cause to reconsider 370 but short of that, it is the height of irresponsibility on the part of Modi to talk, on the one hand, in terms of reconciliation with the people of Kashmir and, on the other, provoke tension by starting a public debate on 370, and that too in the midst of a tension-raising election.
Moreover, it is historical illiteracy (of the kind we often get from Modi) to delink Article 370 of the country's Constitution from Article 1 of the J&K constitution. The latter clarifies and confirms that J&K is an integral part of the India Union. If 370 is prematurely thrown in doubt, integration will also be questioned by a swathe of public opinion in the Valley, including those Kashmiris who regard 370 as the condition precedent for Article 1 of the J&K constitution. Finally, what happens to PV Narasimha Rao's promise of the sky as the limit for Kashmiri autonomy, which broke the back of Kashmiri insurgency, if even 370 is brought into question?
Actually, the BJP is hoist with its own petard. Since even before Syama Prasad Mookerjee's ill-fated 1953 visit to the Valley, where he fell terminally ill and died, the Jan Sangh/RSS have challenged the validity of 370. Now that they are in power at the centre, their past stand on 370 hangs like an albatross around their neck. Neither can they shrug off their past nor can they continue to assert it with the stridency of the past now that power in the state is a distant possibility.
The minute they revert even tangentially to the idiom of the past, they will be sure of losing every seat in the Valley and possibly the Muslim-majority seats in the shadow of the Chenab in Jammu as well. So, while it is always a pleasure to watch Modi twisting slowly, slowly in the wind, in the present context, this spectacle gives no comfort because we are not talking polemics, we are talking of the unity and integrity of the Indian Union. Only a categorical repudiation of the long-held saffron position on 370 will reassure public opinion in the Valley and, therefore, lend substance to the BJP's dreams of dominating the state. This, Nagpur will never permit Modi to do.
Of course, it is for the people of Kashmir to decide who to vote for, but this time they have to think through their vote more carefully than ever before, for if the result is as foretold by the polls - a straightforward politico-religious divide along the Chenab - the only ones to derive any satisfaction from the outcome would be the very Hurriyat whom Modi forestalled from meeting the Pak High Commissioner.
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