While in power – with the support of the nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) – Mehbooba Mufti outsourced Kashmir to the police, and now on her way out, she has handed it over for direct Delhi rule. Quite a paradox. The reality dawned on the former chief minister only after being dumped by the BJP.
Referring to her decision, prominent Kashmiri jurist and human rights activist Dr.Nazir Gilani called it an unfortunate turn of the events, though it had been on the cards ever since she partnered with the Hindu nationalist party to form the government. He recalled Mehbooba’s daring statement addressed to the Hurriyat leadership on September 6,2016, while she was speaking at the launch of UJALA scheme in Kashmir.
She said, “You are scared of my policeman. Don’t make small children your shields. If you have guts, sleep in your own homes. In the dark of the night you go to other areas and provoke kids to join ‘chalos’ (processions) but you are scared of my policeman, You tell the kids to face bullets, pellets and tear gas shells but you yourself are sacred of even one policeman.”
Gillani, whose organisation has been the driver of the 49-page United Nations report that has caused outrage many within New Delhi’s ruling circles, has also reminded us of what Mehbooba said when confronted with critical questions about young boys and girls being targeted by pellet guns : “Had these kids, who were killed by the security forces, gone to the camps to buy candies and milk?”, she said on August 25, 2016, at a joint press conference with Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh.
In statements like these, she not only resonated what the Indian nationalists and the far right often hold out to protesting Kashmiris but also added a rude comment to the conflict vocabulary of Kashmir, as a heartless step mother burst out in anger.
Subsequently, it seems that the BJP’s June 18 decisionn to withdraw their support jolted her conscience. Once the Governor told her to stay at home, all of a sudden she cried out that ‘India has betrayed Kashmiris’ .
Forgetting her 2016 sarcasm and derogation of both the militants and the protestors, Mehbooba Mufti suddenly realised that ‘a muscular security policy will not work in the state and reconciliation is the key’.
Mehbooba’s People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and the BJP’s ‘marriage of convenience’ had begun nearly three years ago. The BJP’s decision to pull out of the coalition government added to the frustrations of the embittered opposition parties, who have been accusing the coalition of threatening the stability of the region.
Gillani
In her comments, Sherry Rehman, the Pakistan Peoples Party Senator, has opined that if Governor’s rule is imposed in the Indian-administered Kashmir, it will add to existing climate of fear and horrifying injustices. Bloodshed and violence only begets further alienation, disenchantment, Rehman argues. But, geo-politics and geo-economic interests of big powers are blind to humanitarian concerns whatsoever, it seems.
Published in Daily Times, June 22nd 2018.
