A single tweet by Mehbooba Mufti, who is better known as one of the strongest political voices in Kashmir, said it all. about the conditions in the Valley in the aftermath of a spate of targeted killings, including that of minorities which has triggered a nation-wide debate about the threats swamping in the region. She wrote: “ Ironical that we the mainstream parties in Kashmir weren’t allowed to hold protests against minority killings. Could it be attributed to GOIs nervousness about the fragility of normalcy in J&K? Too fragile to withstand a peaceful protest?”
This expression of pointing out the situational and political irony came on the day Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal held a protest against Kashmir killings in the union capital to castigate the Central government for what he called its failure to protect Kashmiri Pandits. Her reference was to this protest in which the AAP leadership gave full-throated slogans pointing to the failed Kashmir policy of the Modi government, while it is celebrating its eight years in office as a golden period, free of corruption and inertia.
There have been similar protests elsewhere in the country too, by the political groups that have taken the spate of the targeted killings in Kashmir as an opportunity to focus on two things – the plight of migration revisiting Kashmiri Pandits serving in the Valley under Prime Minister’s Rehabilitation Package, and also to score brownie points against the BJP -led government at the Centre.
Like the protest of Kejriwal, whose party is seeking to make political inroads in Jammu and Kashmir as an alternative to BJP, these demonstrations have missed two crucial points – one that the targeted killings have not been carried out against Kashmiri Pandits only as in the list of minority killings includes Jammu region’s Dogra women teacher Rajni Bala, Rajasthan man Vijay Kumar Beniwal who was serving as a bank manager in Kulgam in south Kashmir. Second point is that there have been killings of Kashmiri Muslims, and the blood-spilling has hurt Muslims in equal measure, perhaps more because the nation seem to be seeing them in a different frame. Muslims are considered relatively safe for they constitute an overwhelming majority in the Valley.. They have also been made to carry the baggage of 1990s, when Hindus – Kashmiri Pandits, Punjabi traders fled Kashmir. That was the start of the militancy, the address of which was seen in Pakistan and Islamic Jihad, and the majority community was overtaken by surprise and shock, but it had only one option to – stay back in the Valley, though some of the political families and affluent people of the community also sought refuge in other parts of the country.
Mehbooba’s points, which reflect the sense of unease of other political groupings too, sum up the restrictions imposed on genuine political activities.
The mainstream parties in Kashmir is definition of National Conference, PDP, CPI-M, Awami National Conference – for these groupings have time and again reposed their faith in the Indian constitution, contested elections and accepted the results thereof, and have been in the forefront of against the killings of all sorts. These were also the first to condemn and condole killings.
Against the backdrop of protests by the likes of Kejriwal and others, Mehbooba is pointing the irony of the situation, wherein the selective protests are being allowed and the Muslim majority community and the parties representing them in the Valley are being barred. This has both political and communal overtones. Politically, it is being propagated that the NC and PDP did not hit streets in the Valley, though the partymen of these groupings did stage protest against killings in Jammu, to dub them as silent spectators and worst sit as collaborators in the crime. BJP leaders and spokespersons in their statements and TV appearances castigated these groups for not protesting. That, Mehbooba, has sought to convey was a twisted picture of the reality.
The main thrust of her words was that the situation in Kashmir was far from being normal., as she has taunted: is the situation in Kashmir so fragile that it is unable to withstand a peaceful protest.
| Posted by Sameer Khan | 
