Sedition after sedition
Frustrated and desperate former J&K CM and PDP’s owner, Mehbooba Mufti, has been, like other radical Islamists in Kashmir, including Omar Abdullah, committing acts of treason and provoking Kashmiri Muslims to rise in revolt against the Indian State on a daily basis since years. Her most cherished dream is the merger of the remaining J&K with Pakistan. She strove hard to achieve her objective when her party (founded in December 1999), PDP, was in power in J&K, and her father and former J&K CM, late Mufti Sayeed, was Home Minister in the V P Singh’s un-Indian government, and she has been leaving no stone unturned to motivate her constituency of secessionists to come on the roads for the same obnoxious purpose.
So much so, Mehbooba has openly advocated the invasion of the state land and asked Kashmiri Muslims to occupy the state and kahcharai (grazing) land, saying the “land belongs to them”[1]. Earlier on February 14, 2018, she had ordered the revenue, forest, and police departments not to evict her co-religionists from the forest land in Jammu district and Jammu province’s Kathua, Samba, Udhampur and Reasi districts (all Hindu-majority).
However, it was on Saturday (Feb 18, 2023) that Mehbooba Mufti not only preached sedition on expected lines but also condemned the BJP (read PM Narendra Modi and HM Amit Shah) and termed it beast. She publicly admitted that Article 370 was “a protective shield” for the encroachers (read zameed jihadis) of the state land and other break-India elements.
What did she actually say in Srinagar at a function of her party? She said: “When Article 370 was abrogated, some people thought it would only affect the People’s Democratic Party and the National Conference (NC). When the bulldozers came to demolish our homes, businesses and even the shelters for our domestic animals, people realized how Article 370 was a protection for us.”
Promotion of separatist agenda
Not just this, Mehbooba also defended her father Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s decision to join hands with the BJP to form the government in J&K after the 2014 Assembly polls on March 2, 2015, and “caged the beast and stopped it from wreaking havoc.” ”No one understands that Mufti sahib had caged the beast. He had caged the BJP…It took Mufti sahib three months (to form the government). We have been accused of bringing the BJP into J&K but how would one stop them? They had the majority in Parliament, they won the majority in Jammu and also, two seats in Kupwara” (read two seats won by separatist and votary of separate Kashmiri nationhood Sajad Lone’s People’s Conference). Mufti sahib grabbed the BJP’s hand so that he could stop them. For one year, Mufti sahib was the chief minister and I was the chief minister for two years. We implemented our agenda,” she said[2].
It is hardly necessary to reflect on the meaning and implications of what she said. For, even a naive understand everything as he\ she knows her and her ideology very well.
PDP-BJP agenda of subversion
Mehbooba was right when she unequivocally said that her father and she “implemented our agenda” between March 2, 2015, and June 18, 2018. Just look at March 2, 2015, PDP-BJP agenda of alliance and you will agree that it was nothing but an agenda of subversion. The agenda of alliance, among other things, said that Article 370 will not be touched, the special status of J&K shall be maintained, the footsteps of the army in J&K will be reduced, land under the army will be freed, Armed Forces Special Powers Acts A(AFSPA) will be rendered ineffective, Jammu province shall be considered a region of three sub-regions – plains of Jammu, (non-existent) “Chenab Valley” and (non-existent “Pirpanjal Valley”) Poonch-Rajouri region, “meaningful” talks will be held with “all internal stakeholders which include political groups irrespective of their ideological views and predilections”, PDP-BJP government will facilitate “sustained dialogue with all stakeholders including “Hurriyat Conference” and so forth.
Sins of BJP
The Mufti Sayeed government exploited the agenda of alliance and left no stone unturned to hurt the nation and wilfully outraged the Hindu sensitivities with the BJP ministers in his government extending their unqualified and unflinching support. A 12.5% service charge was imposed on chopper service to the holy Hindu shrines, including Shri Mata Vaishno Devi and Shri Amarnath. The BJP dumbfounded and shocked the nation on March 28, 2015, when its Deputy CM told the J&K legislative Assembly that “they (India) use our land and our water” and accused “the previous NC and Congress government of giving away the power projects to the Centre” (Daily Excelsior, Mar 28, 2015[3]).
Not only this, when CM Mufti declared that the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), sanctioned by the Narendra Modi government for Jammu, will be established in Kashmir, the BJP Deputy CM took on the agitating people of Jammu province and declared that no power on earth could snatch the AIIMS from Kashmir. A report in this regard said: “Deputy chief minister and senior BJP leader Dr. Nirmal Singh Friday said there is no question of snatching AIIMS from Kashmir and giving it to Jammu. He accused the opposition National Conference and Congress of creating a regional divide between the two regions of the state. NC and Congress both are trying to create a regional divide in the state in a bid to serve their political interests. We will not allow that to happen. We take Jammu and Kashmir as one entity and the AIIMS is being given to the state and not to any region,”[4].
Not just this, the PDP-led coalition government declared the chanting of Vande Mataram a cognizable offence, Additional Advocate General and Deputy Advocate General belonging to the BJP-RSS were fired because they wanted the J&K HC to uphold the anti-cow killing laws and the HC upheld the law, a Kashmiri Muslim MLA, now in Tihar, hosted beef party (for the first time) in the MLA hostel at Srinagar, two BJP cabinet ministers were forced to resign because they demanded a CBI probe into the 2018 alleged Kathua “rape and murder case”, brutal attacks on Hindu students in NIT Srinagar just because they celebrated the Indian victory over the Pakistani cricket team and the CM Mehbooba Mufti’s February 14, 2018 order in the presence of two BJP ministers, including Forest Minister Lal Singh, that her co-religionists be not evicted from the forest land.
But these are only a few of the several other such instances which serve to establish what the Muftis did to hurt the nation and the complicity of the BJP and its ministers. It is just not possible to catalogue in this piece all the sins committed by the BJP for the sake of some loaves and fishes of office.
Modi’s Reform scheme not enough
However, to say all this is not to suggest that the Narendra Modi-led BJP government didn’t try to stem the rot the PDP-BJP coalition government created. It did. The BJP withdrew its support to the Mehbooba government on June 19, 2018, and she resigned the same day. Justifying the withdrawal of support, the BJP bigwigs, among other things, said that she had become a threat to national security and her government had failed to dispense justice to Jammu and Ladakh. PM Modi termed the PDP-BJP coalition government a “mahamilawati gathvandhan” (read unholy alliance). “The BJP’s decision to form a government in J&K with the PDP was the party’s mahamilawat,” he said on April 6, 2019, in an exclusive interview with Hindustan[5]. On August 5-6, 2019, the Modi government sprung a very pleasant surprise. It read down the seditious Article 370, abrogated Article 35A, and divided J&K into two Union Territories – J&K UT and Ladakh UT. Earlier, the Modi government banned JKLF and Jamaat-e-Islami, rendered Hurriyat Conference defunct, put hardcore terrorists, including Yasin Malik, in Tihar Jail, took stringent action against stone-pelters, put in jails or make-shift jails almost all the so-called mainstream Kashmiri politicians, including Farooq Abdullah, Omar Abdullah, Mehbooba and Sajad Lone. They were released after 13/14 months. The archaic practice of darbar (secretariat) move from Jammu to Srinagar during the summer and back to Jammu during the winter, which had caused huge damage to Jammu’s demography and adversely impacted the socio-religious life in Jammu, was scrapped. The point is that the Modi government took several steps to rein in subversives and terrorists and integrate J&K fully into India.
However, what the Modi government has done after the withdrawal of special status is not enough. It has not produced the desired results. The secessionists like Farooq Abdullah, Omar Abdullah, and Mehbooba continue to roam freely ad preach sedition on a daily basis. The system in J&K has remained almost unchanged. The people of Jammu province continue to face discrimination in its worst form; it still remains tagged with Kashmir. The internally-displaced Kashmiri Hindus continue to suffer as their homeland demand has not been conceded. The Modi government would do well to review its August 2019 reform scheme so that the system is reformed and Indinised, Jammu is segregated from Kashmir and the problem of jihad remains limited to Kashmir Valley and the grievances of the Kashmiri Hindu refugees are redressed. All this is imperative.
Note:
1. Text in Blue points to additional data on the topic.
2. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of PGurus.
Reference:
[1] Srinagar Politics: Mahbuba Mufti provoking common people to take government land under his control – Feb 16, 2023, Jagran
[2] People Have Realised After Demolition Drive How Article 370 Protected J&K: Mehbooba – Feb 18, 2023, Daily Excelsior
[3] Rs 815 crore concept paper submitted to Centre: DyCM – Mar 28, 2015, Daily Excelsior
[4] NO QUESTION OF SNATCHING AIIMS FROM KASHMIR: NIRMAL – Mar 24, 2015, Daily Excelsior
[5] ‘It was our mahamilawat’: PM Modi says alliance with PDP was a wrong move – Apr 06, 2019, HT
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More power to you Hari Om. Keep highlighting the anti-India activities of the jihadi brigade and also lack of action of the Modi govt. Someday hopefully the ruling elite will take note of your exposures and do something concrete about the issues you are highlighting.