Why Modi has thrown the dice in J&K
THERE’s a calm in Srinagar that hasn’t been seen in years. Parks are full of children playing football and parents sitting around, gossiping. Lal Chowk is clean, with a huge hoarding that displays an ad for a pregnancy test kit. A Starbucks restaurant has opened in a mall on the bund, in front of the tall row of chinar trees still standing sentinel. Auto-wallahs and Uber-wallahs (who still won’t go to Pantha Chowk in the evening) and shop-keepers celebrate the return of the Indian tourist to the Kashmir valley. Schools are full and open the year-round — outside Presentation Convent, an electronic board says, “A good student is one who drinks deeply from the well of knowledge.”
The best part is that everyone in the former state knows, today, that things can be fixed, good governance is possible, and best of all, militancy can be controlled.
Still, take a deep breath and stand on the Jhelum bund, and wonder — is this the calm before the storm? What will happen when people realise, after the Assembly elections are done on October 1, that the ‘Delhi model’ of truncated power will be imported into Jammu & Kashmir?
That there is no easy return to full statehood, at least not yet, despite PM Modi’s promise at an election rally earlier this week. That Modi’s hand-picked man, the Lt Governor, will continue to take charge of powerful departments like land and law and order issues, while an elected CM runs the rest of the show.
Or is this the calm after the storm — have the people realised that there’s no more point in stone-pelting or protesting or joining militancy? Certainly, Kashmiris, more than anyone else in the country — with the exception of Manipuris — are keenly aware that one wrong step will provoke the Indian state into cracking down so hard that the memories of firing that August morning in 2019 to scare off a people’s protest in Soura, a Srinagar suburb, will remain just that — a handful of diminished memories.
Perhaps, this is a calm because of the storm. It is clear that PM Modi has thrown the dice again, and played the most important ace in its pack. Modi knows that the stakes, especially in the international arena, are enormous — he’s going to the US and will rub shoulders with global leaders, who are sure to ask him about Kashmir.
He knows better than most that the conduct of the ongoing poll will make all the difference — it will either enhance his credibility or it will deepen the doubt. As it is, he has lost some of his awe in the wake of the Lok Sabha polls; any further squandering in Haryana and Maharashtra will undermine him further.
But Kashmir is different. This election is not just about who wins — although, if the BJP manages to form the government, by hook or by crook, then that is not just icing on the cake, it’s unmitigated delirium — but a verdict on the past five years. Besides the fact that some public projects have been won by contractors from eastern Uttar Pradesh, the home region of Lt Governor Manoj Sinha, the fact is that some of Home Minister Amit Shah and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh’s most capable officers and soldiers have colluded in ensuring the successful delivery of goods, which has directly translated into a reduction in militancy.
That’s why this election is different. It’s definitely about a definite reduction in new recruits into militancy — there are said to be about 75 in the Valley and another 75 in Jammu region. This summer, the Indian Army lost not just jawans, but an unusual number of officers, mostly in ambushes by highly trained and motivated terrorists carrying US-made weapons like M-4 assault rifles — presumably stolen from the Afghan theatre — who dug tunnels under the international boundary to enter the Jammu region and take Indian soldiers by surprise.
Still, it is to the credit of the Indian Army that it has regrouped, both on the Line of Control — where a ceasefire agreement with Pakistan remains intact — as well as in the Jammu region. It seems to have, more or less, wrested back the advantage.
This election is important because it will draw a line under PM Modi’s most important political decision so far. When Article 370 was summarily abrogated that early August morning, a web of security was thrown around J&K. Pockets of resistance, such as the media, were isolated. Journalists and photographers and activists were put on no-fly lists and local newspapers turned into little more than mouthpieces. Politicians were put under house arrest or summarily thrown into jail. Some of them, like the sitting MP from Baramulla, Engineer Rashid, arrested under the UAPA anti-terror law, are back campaigning this election, bringing many to ask whether he and other candidates from the banned Jamaat-e-Islami, fighting as Independents, are in fact proxies of the BJP.
The bigger question, five years on, is whether it was worth it. Can you measure the fact that the streets are clean, the parks are full, kids go to school and the highways are as smooth as Hema Malini’s cheeks, against the fact that democracy, as we know it, has been off-kilter these five years? Most of all, bureaucrats, however competent, cannot replace politicians, whose job it is to listen to people and their grievances. The question is, will the polls usher in a new era, and if so, how different will it be from the old era?
That’s why it is in Modi’s self-interest — as well as in India’s national interest — to let a full statehood return to J&K. The best part is that everyone in the former state knows, today, that things can be fixed, good governance is possible, and best of all, militancy can be controlled. Imagine what a model that is for an elected government round the corner.
The first phase in a three-phase poll has just taken place, in south Kashmir, in parts of the heart of insurgency — a 60 per cent turnout is an astonishing indicator. It means that stone-pelters can be persuaded to turn from stones to votes, that years of pent-up resentment can be channelised towards the greater good. Kashmir’s years of chaos and grief can never be forgotten, but imagine, if this election is the beginning of a new page.
If it is, and a full restoration of democracy is in order, then Kashmir can dream of returning to normalcy. Today, it stands on a precipice. One step forward or backward is sure to decide its destiny.
