J&K stalemate: With talks at an impasse, will PDP regret approaching BJP?

Srinagar: The issue of Article 370 and revocation of the draconian Armed Forces Special Powers Act have become bones of contention between the Peoples Democratic Party and the BJP, two parties, who though ideologically poles apart, are in a decisive phase of talks over alliance formation which could pave the way for the first non-Congress, non-National Conference government in Jammu and Kashmir. The political landscape of Jammu and Kashmir underwent a tectonic shift in the recent assembly elections, with the People’s Democratic Party winning 28 seats and the right-wing BJP winning 25. For many observers, it was a loud and clear “message for change” expressed by the people of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh. While Jammu gave a massive mandate to the BJP, the people of Kashmir voted to keep both the BJP as well as the National Conference out. The PDP wants the BJP to give it written assurance that status quo will be maintained on Article 370, which gives Jammu and Kashmir special status under the Indian Constitution. The party has also sought a phased withdrawal of AFSPA from the state, beginning with the capital Srinagar city. [caption id=“attachment_2109287” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  AFP[/caption] PDP patriarch Mufti Mohammad Sayeed has himself made it clear that his party “will not budge” on an 11-point agenda that his party gave the BJP, which also includes talks with Pakistan and assurances on economic development. The BJP however, has not committed to giving the PDP a written assurance on the issue of Article 370, since the party will have to consider its larger ramifications at a time when many states in India are scheduled to go to polls in coming months. There is a growing sense that Mufti should have opted to go with Congress which had 12 seats, rather than opening the doors for the right-wing BJP to enter Kashmir. Renowned constitutional expert, AG Noorani, recently wrote in a local daily that the ‘handshake’ of PDP with BJP would lead to a catastrophe for the state, from the mounds of which Mufti would not be able to emerge. He even warned that such an alliance would pave the way for further dilution of Article 370, which is at the heart of the current dispute between PDP and BJP. “An alliance with BJP gives the PDP the advantage of ruling a state with a favourable Centre but it brings a political windfall to the BJP. It will be part of the government in the only Muslim-majority state despite not holding a single seat in the Kashmir valley. The combination will allow the BJP to blunt criticism over the exclusion of Muslims from the central government,” Muzamil Jaleel wrote in Indian Express. “Any government which will weed out corruption and bring transparency and accountability in the system will be a welcome change for the people of the state. Although there is an understandable anxiety among people about the BJP’s coming to power, it will be only fair to give a chance to a new combination. The ultimate power rests with the people. If they throw National Conference out, tomorrow PDP can meet the same fate,” Wajid Rasool, a student of Political Science at the University of Kashmir, said. If the coalition between BJP and PDP goes through, it will have no honeymoon period and the change has to begin earnestly. Also, more than BJP, it will be Mufti Sayeed who will be sitting on the losing side. If anything goes wrong in the coming days, his party men will find it tough to wash away the “stain” of bringing the right-wing party to power in Kashmir. This is a far cry from the track record of the PDP. When the state of Jammu and Kashmir went to polls in 2002, Mufti Sayeed and his daughter Mehbooba Mufti, in their public rallies, advocated the need to move beyond the ‘beaten track’. In the bastion of PDP in south Kashmir, once the hotbed of Hizbul Mujahideen, Muftis would refer to the Kashmiri militants fighting security forces as “our boys in the jungles.” Load cheers followed these utterances and people saw the party as a credible alternative to the National Conference which had traditionally ruled the state, with or without the support of Congress, and almost always miserably. With the promise of disbanding the notorious counter-insurgency wing of the Jammu and Kashmir police and providing what they referred to as the ‘healing touch,’ the party won 16 seats in its first election. After two years of coming to office in 2002, the party went on to change the mainstream political discourse in Kashmir by advocating “shared sovereignty” of an integrated and united Jammu and Kashmir between India and Pakistan as well as the creation of international institutional arrangements with political, economic, constitutional and security character. But these issues have now been conveniently forgotten by the party, in its zeal to finalise a power sharing arrangement with the BJP In Kashmir, as anywhere else, symbolism matters more than the realities on ground. Mufti took many symbolic steps in his stint as chief minister of the state including the opening of Srinagar-Muzaffarabad highway that made him a popular but controversial leader, not only in his traditional bastion but in the urban areas of Kashmir as well. “Be it disbanding of STF or healing touch policy or talking to Pakistan, these are symbolic issue which attract greater respect for Mufti. But people on the streets don’t know that Mufti did so after lobbying hard with central government,” noted political historian, Noor Mohammad Baba, told Firstpost. The party also floated a “Self-Rule Doctrine”, the first policy doctrine by any mainstream political party in the state to resolve the Kashmir issue without redrawing the Line of Control. But times have changed. Today the ground reality in Kashmir and New Delhi is different to what it was in 2002. People in J&K are dismayed with successive governments who have institutionalized corruption at the cost of ordinary people and pushed the state from bad to worse. Under the leadership of both Atal Bihari Vajpayee of the BJP and Manmohan Singh of the Congress, it was under Mufti’s leadership that India resumed talks with Hurriyat as well as Pakistan over Kashmir. “But today there is no Vajpayee nor Singh but Narendra Modi. So until Mufti gets some kind of assurance, it is unlikely that he would go ahead with government formation. His diplomacy has ensured him a full time chief ministerial berth. Imagine what will happen if he waits more than two months,” Baba says. The PDP patriarch understands this. He said as much in a recent interview with The Times of India that it would be ‘wrong’ to ignore the mandate of people of Jammu if his party had gone with Congress which was another alternative for PDP to form the government. But while a coalition with Congress would not have entailed so much of back-channel talks, with BJP, Mufti is extra-cautious.