No, Mehbooba Mufti, Islam Does Not Mean Terrorism

A tragedy in Kashmir is often followed in quick succession by another tragedy.

In the case of the recent Pampore attack, the grief that came with the martyrdom of our brave CRPF personnel was soon followed by yet another tragedy - egged by the insatiable, newfound appetite of our Chief Minister to denigrate Muslims as an expression of her resolve to be a part of the "Islam means Terrorism" club in New Delhi.

While condemning the weekend's dastardly attack on a CRPF bus in Pampore, Mehbooba Mufti went on to condemn an entire religion and its followers by casually revealing how she apparently "felt ashamed as a Muslim" because of the actions of these particular militants. Considering the fact that even the staunchest Hurriyat leaders and hardliners including Geelani have always distanced the turmoil in the Valley from religion and matters of faith, Mehbooba's comments stand out and precariously so. 

I don't grudge Mehbooba her newfound liberalism and ultra-nationalism. Also, I understand that her compulsion as an ally of the BJP to equate Islam with terror. Plus, personally for her, there is a lot of erasing, proving and un-proving to do. The old Mehbooba's image of a raucous, untamable and rebellious opposition leader who thrived on emotionalism will take a lot of undoing and re-branding. All those "Revoke AFSPA" placards, green handkerchiefs and "dual currency" slogans are still cached in the deep, dark vault of New Delhi's inherent distrust of Kashmiri leaders.     
 On the flip side, there are equally definitive memories of the Mehbooba of yore in Kashmir - here again deeply imprinted into the collective psyche of a bruised, often politically exploited young generation. Her laboriously curated image of a "militant politician" who boasted about her acceptability amongst her "brothers with the guns" is still fresh and animated in the convulsing history of the Valley. So is her flair for scripted exhibitions of sympathy, her theatrics of mourning and her tedious moralizing lectures to New Delhi from blood-soaked altars and haunting funerals in Kashmir. 

How does Mehbooba Mufti strike a balance between her image in Kashmir and the expectations that the BJP has from her? It seems like New Delhi wants her to be an ultra-nationalistic voice that condemns Muslims and portrays them as these inherently uncivilized, unstable and sectarian societies which dwarf in comparison to Indian society. The trouble for her is that over the years she has groomed her core constituency in Kashmir to believe the exact opposite - stroking the political sentiment and the resentment as a medium of her own political empowerment. Hence, these young men from Kashmir expect from her the exact opposite of what New Delhi and BJP does. And naturally so. 

For now, it seems like she's singularly focused on what the BJP expects from her. 

In ways more than one, the late Mufti Sahab and Mehbooba Mufti remind us of the fascinating Greek myth of the master craftsman Daedalus and his son, Icarus. Daedalus was a remarkable craftsman in Athens who built the Labyrinth to imprison the half-man half-beast Minotaur that devoured young Athenian men and women. As the myth has it, King Minos ended up imprisoning Daedalus in the Labyrinth as Daedalus tried to help Theseus. To escape the Labyrinth, Daedalus fashioned two pairs of wings out of feathers (branches of osier) and wax - one for himself and the other for his son, Icarus. 
 Before trying to escape the island, Daedalus warned Icarus to neither fly too close to the sun, nor too close to the sea, but to instead follow his safe path of flight. Overcome by the lightheadedness of flying and buoyed by the arrogance of the freedom that his wings lent him, Icarus rose high into the sky to salute the sun and then dove sharply towards the sea, only to rise towards the sun again. His wings of wax melted as he flew too close to the sun. As the wax melted, down came Icarus, only to drown into the depths of the sea. Hubris his nemesis - the fall of Icarus is inarguably one of the most engrossing Greek myths. 

Mufti Sahab, like Daedalus, was the master craftsman. He knew he could fly neither too close to the sun, nor too close to the sea. Every statement glorifying the Indian mainstream and eulogizing Prime Minister Modi was balanced by another statement thanking the militants and Pakistan for the smooth conduct of elections in the Valley. Every statement condemning violence in Jammu was balanced by a counter-statement in the Valley asking New Delhi to get down from its high horse and engage with the "respectable" separatists. 

The other set of wings, those of feathers and wax, left behind for Mehbooba, are flying dangerously close to the sun. In her repeated condemnation of Muslim societies and her evident eagerness to accentuate the 'Islamic terror" narrative, she seems to be inching towards the Icarian Sea and the fate of Icarus. From publicly proclaiming to be the "representatives of militants" in the Legislative Assembly in 2002, Mehbooba has now gone on to ask Muslims to be ashamed because of the actions of the same militants.  

(Omar Abdullah is National Conference leader and former Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir)

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