And the BJP-PDP alliance has come to an abrupt, predictable and messy end. The BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) had defended the alliance, saying they came together in 'national interest', and the party’s general secretary Ram Madhav was on Tuesday heard defending the decision to end the alliance in 'national interest' too. Mostly, the nation will be the last to know all that is done in national interest.
Alliances per se are not holy or unholy, it is what they come together for and what they end up achieving that decides the unholiness quotient.
When they decided to join hands, BJP came to be seen as representing the interests of the Jammu region while the PDP (Peoples Democratic Party) was looked at as the representative of the Valley.
To assume that they could have complemented each other is naïveté. Rather, they brought out the worst in each other and fanned mutually re-enforced radicalisation.
Before the alliance, the issue of talks with the Hurriyat was something on which Prime Minister Narendra Modi had shown a level of sensitivity disproportionate to the relevance of the organisation. In 2014, PM Modi had decided to call off secretary-level talks with Pakistan on the pretext that the Pakistan High Commissioner had invited Hurriyat leaders for tea.
Several BJP leaders swore on each other that there would be no talks with the Hurriyat. However, post Assembly election, the ‘Agenda for Alliance’ was drawn out jointly by both the parties mandating talks with the Hurriyat:
The earlier NDA (National Democratic Alliance) Government led by Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee had initiated a dialogue process with all political groups, including the Hurriyat Conference, in the spirit of “Insaaniyat, Kashmiriyat aur Jamhooriyat”.
“Following the same principles, the coalition government will facilitate and help initiate a sustained and meaningful dialogue with all internal stakeholders, which will include all political groups irrespective of their ideological views and predilections,” it read.
On Article 370, the Agenda for Alliance was in clear contradiction with the BJP's passionately stated position.
The present position will be maintained on all constitutional provisions including special status.Agenda for Alliance
No spin doctor, compounder or nurse could have explained these stark contradictions that the BJP-PDP alliance rested on.
What Led to the End of BJP-PDP Alliance
There have been three major turning points that have shaped the BJP-PDP equation, and also to an extent the destiny of Jammu and Kashmir.
Firstly, it was the killing of the 22-year-old militant of Hizbul Mujahideen, Burhan Wani, in 2016 that brought the contradictions between the two partners to the fore.
Mehbooba Mufti claimed she wouldn't have let Wani die had she known he was present at the site of the operations. Muzaffar Beigh, an MP from her party, alleged that in Wani's shooting, security forces violated the guidelines laid down by the Supreme Court for any counter-terror operation. The BJP reacted sharply to these comments.
Mufti’s decision to give ex-gratia to Wani’s family did not go down well with the BJP either.
The fallout of Burhan Wani's death saw unprecedented violence in the Valley. Instances of stone-pelting increased manifold. For the first time in the electoral history of India, a Lok Sabha constituency – Anantnag – has not been able to go through a bypoll due to the bad law and order situation.
The by-election to the Srinagar Lok Sabha seat saw 7 percent voter turn out – the lowest in the history of elections in India.
If Wani’s killing was used by separatists to radicalise their side, the brutal rape and killing of an eight-year-old Bakarwal child in Kathua was openly communalised by the BJP.
Two of its ministers openly participated in rallies which were held in support of the rapists.
Secondly, an FIR against the Army after the Shopian firing incident in February this year saw Mufti’s PDP and the BJP at crossroads again.
And lastly, an FIR against an Army Major for killing civilians in firing in Shopian earlier this year saw Mufti claiming she had taken permission from Nirmala Sitharaman and Subramanian Swamy, demanding answers from the latter.
BJP Needed a Villain in Kashmir Before 2019
Kashmir became an opportune laboratory for the BJP to find fodder amidst chaos. Events in Kashmir fuel BJP's polarising agenda across the country. Not a day goes by without a TV prime time debate on Kashmir, with the undertone and overtone clearly targeted to give a communal colour to the Kashmir imbroglio and use it to communalise the entire nation.
Dineshwar Sharma, the Centre's interlocutor for Kashmir, requested the government to call a meeting of channel heads to contain the vitriol on Kashmir. The Centre showed a rather uncharacteristic 'caution in impinging on press freedom'.
The failure of the unilateral ceasefire saw the BJP completely cornered. The UN Human Rights Council Report on Kashmir is another first under PM Modi's watch that has put the country to shame. The fact that the report saw the light of the day in itself is a personal failure of NDA government's foreign policy.
Now that the chickens were coming home to roost, BJP couldn't have kept quiet, acting as if everything was hunky-dory. It had to act and act fast to distance itself from the laboratory of polarisation it had created.
BJP also desperately needed a villain in Kashmir.
In any case, in terms of showcasing Kashmir to polarise the rest of the country, the BJP has achieved what it wanted.
In the run-up to 2019 elections, having prepared the ground in Kashmir, BJP has now freed itself to make its campaign shriller, sharper and more vitriolic. Don't be surprised to find 'tukde-tukde, Jehadi, Naxali and pro-Pakistani' being interchangeably used for all those who come in the way of Modi and the vote.
(The writer is former political secretary to Sheila Dikshit, and is with the Congress party. He tweets @Pawankhera .This is an opinion piece and the views expressed are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)
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