[dropcap color=”#008040″ boxed=”yes” boxed_radius=”8px” class=”” id=””]O[/dropcap]n November 13, two significant political developments took place in Jammu & Kashmir, one each in the state’s winter capital, Jammu, and summer capital, Srinagar. Both the developments yet again established that the Kashmiri Muslims’ concept of India and on India and the RSS’ concept of India and on India were contradictory and mutually exclusive and that there was no meeting ground between the two ideological positions.
The Government must abide by the constitution and ensure that separatism is not encouraged and does not flourish on our soil.
In Jammu, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat declared that India was Hindu Rashtra and there was no place for separatism in the country. He also advocated a stringent action against those who were working for the disintegration of India and seeking another communal partition of India.
“India is Hindu Rashtra (Hindu country) and there is no place for separatism in the country… Government must deal sternly with those working on the direction of Pakistan from across the border. The Government must abide by the constitution and ensure that separatism is not encouraged and does not flourish on our soil. There will be no compromise on the unity and integrity of the country,” Mohan Bhagat, inter-alia, said (Greater Kashmir, Nov 14).
He was addressing RSS volunteers (Swayamsevaks) and BJP leaders, including ministers such as MoS in PMO Jitendra Singh and Jammu & Kashmir Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh.
[dropcap color=”#008040″ boxed=”yes” boxed_radius=”8px” class=”” id=””]A[/dropcap]s expected, Mohan Bhagwat’s Hindu Rashtra chant evoked a sharp reaction from the separatist camp in Kashmir. Mohan Bhagwat’s Hindu Rashtra assertion, coupled with the suggestion that separatists must be taken on head on and isolated and brought to justice, so rattled Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Yasin Malik that they issued a joint statement that sought freedom not only of Kashmir but of the entire State of Jammu & Kashmir from India.
Frustrated and desperate as they have turned following the almost total collapse of the 4-month highly violent movement in the Valley, Geelani, Mirwaiz and Malik would surely make the Mohan Bhagwat’s Hindu Rashtra chant a very big issue to arouse popular feelings in the Valley.
“We should be thankful to RSS as they, from time to time, veil off their deceitful face of so-called democracy and secularism and justify our movement. In Hindu Rashtra only Hindus can live and that is the reason all minorities, particularly Muslims are forced to leave this country. We cannot live in a country which claims to be a Hindu Rashtra. To safeguard our culture, race, ethnicity and especially our religion, we demand and fight for freedom from India,” they, among other things, said in a joint statement (Greater Kashmir, Nov 15).
Frustrated and desperate as they have turned following the almost total collapse of the 4-month highly violent movement in the Valley, Geelani, Mirwaiz and Malik would surely make the Mohan Bhagwat’s Hindu Rashtra chant a very big issue to arouse popular feelings in the Valley. In fact, they have already done it by issuing a joint statement which would surely become a subject of hot discussion in Kashmir. Indeed, they were in search of an issue and that they got on a platter, notwithstanding the fact that Mohan Bhagat didn’t say a single word against Muslims or Christians. It is a different ballgame that they would exploit the Hindu Rashtra chant in the name of democracy and secularism, which are foreign to them. And, also notwithstanding the fact that the democracy and secularism became a story of the past in Kashmir in January 1990, when hapless, persecuted and under grave threat Hindus quit their land of Vitasta (Jhelum) wholesale to save their dignity, honour, life, culture and religion and became refugees in their own country.
[dropcap color=”#008040″ boxed=”yes” boxed_radius=”8px” class=”” id=””]I[/dropcap]t bears recalling that what the Chaks, Sultans, Mughals and Pathans could not achieve during their 430-year rule (1339-1819) in Kashmir, the separatists and communalists achieved in just 43 years: Conversion of Kashmir into 100 per cent Muslim. That it could happen in independent India and under the most secular rule of the then Prime Minister VP Singh and Union Home Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed speaks for itself. It shall ever remain a blot on the name of independent India.
…Narendra Modi, who was a powerful Hindu leader, alone could resolve the Kashmir issue.
The Hindu Rashtra doctrine of Mohan Bhagwat and the sharp reaction that it evoked from Geelani, Mirwaiz and Malik constitutes only one of the two striking events which took place on November 13. The other was the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) convention in Srinagar and what transpired during this highly controversial convention.
It was not PDP president and Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti who explained away what her party fought for, stood for and long for and why the PDP shook hands with the BJP. It was the party’s ideologue, Member of Lok Sabha and former Deputy Chief Minister of Jammu & Kashmir Muzaffar Hussain Baig who explained away everything. He made it loud and clear that the PDP joined hands with the BJP with the objective that Kashmir issue would be resolved once and for all and that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was a powerful Hindu leader, alone could resolve the Kashmir issue. He, in addition, described the lawful killing of Hizbul-Mujahideen’s Kashmir poster boy Burhan Wani on July 8 as a conspiracy hatched by inimical forces to destabilise Mehbooba Mufti Government.
Addressing the convention of 4000 PDP workers in the heart of Srinagar City, Muzaffar Hussain Baig, inter-alia, said: “Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a strong person. He has the courage to solve the Kashmir issue. If any Prime Minister can solve the Kashmir issue, it will be the one who has support of Hindus. Manmohan Singh could not have done it, any Muslim Prime Minister cannot do it. Modi can do it because Hindus are with him. That is why we are in this government”. He in a way acknowledged that that the Kashmir issue was a Muslim issue.
As for the killing of Burhan Wani and its impact on the Kashmir’s political scene, Baig said: “The four months of unrest was the ‘most dark and oppressive time’. It was a conspiracy against Mehbooba ji, it was a conspiracy to defame the PDP…They conspired against her by killing Burhan. May Allah absolve Burhan. They took a man’s life to dislodge Mehbooba ji” (The Tribune, Nov 14).
What Geelani, Mirwaiz, Malik and Baig said was self-explanatory.
[dropcap color=”#008040″ boxed=”yes” boxed_radius=”8px” class=”” id=””]T[/dropcap]his should serve to demonstrate that the RSS-BJP and Kashmiri separatists and the Kashmiri parties like the PDP belong to two different philosophies and that the contradictions between them are irreconcilable. However, the fundamental fault lies with the Kashmiri Muslim leadership which has never considered Jammu & Kashmir an integral part of India and always tried to keep the Kashmiri Muslims aloof from the national mainstream to promote its own selfish interests. But more than that, it has always been biased and parochial.
Neither Jammu nor Ladakh is willing to allow Kashmir to again carry the day, as they have started asserting their psyche again and again…
It would be only desirable if the Kashmiri Muslim leadership acknowledges that 2016 is not 1947, when it walked away with a dispensation that was of Kashmir, by Kashmir and for Kashmir. Much water has flown down the Jamuna. Delhi can’t afford another communal partition of India as the nation doesn’t want it. Similarly, much water has flown down the Tawi (Jammu) and Indus (Ladakh) rivers. Neither Jammu nor Ladakh is willing to allow Kashmir to again carry the day, as they have started asserting their psyche again and again, thus suggesting that they are the most crucial factors in the state’s political situation whatever one may think of them. People of Jammu and Ladakh now say on a daily bases that they are a force to reckon with and they must be recognised.
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The concept of Hindu Rashtra must be clearly defined and reiterated by all proponents, on all fora, on all occasions instead of occasional opportunistic reminders. The concept of a ‘cultural Hindu Rashtra including whole of erstwhile Akhand Bharat’ has no relevance in these changed times and Hindus’ psyche and Hindu Rashtra must consist of geographic, political, cultural and emotional components; all in one.
The proponents must take care not to shift ‘goal posts’ (of Hindu Rashtra)as per convenience and not confuse others.