BJP-PDP fallout: Muscle twitch for 2019 poll

In dumping the Mehbooba Mufti-led government in Jammu and Kashmir, the BJP has effectively grabbed sole control of the state. Governor's rule means New Delhi henceforth dictates terms and effects measures.

PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti (L) and Prime Minister Narendta Modi. PTI Photo

NEW DELHI: In dumping the Mehbooba Mufti-led government in Jammu and Kashmir, the BJP has effectively grabbed sole control of the state. Governor's rule means New Delhi henceforth dictates terms and effects measures. From the sequence of events on Tuesday, it is not unreasonable to suggest the home ministry will not, or will only nominally, order those terms and measures. BJP president Amit Shah, party general secretary Ram Madhav and national security adviser Ajit Doval will call the shots. It was after Doval crossed the lines of convention and briefed Amit Shah on Kashmir that Madhav announced the BJP was pulling out. They clearly have a plan. Succinctly put, that plan is what Madhav spelt out to The Telegraph in April 2017 - give security forces a free hand to operate against militancy with the "utmost harshness". In complaining now of mounting militancy and radicalisation, and the failure of the now-revoked Ramazan ceasefire to fetch dividends, Madhav seemed to suggest that with Mehbooba at the helm, they were having to spare the rod in the Valley. That probably was true. Mehbooba was pushing for an extension of the ceasefire and has been advocating restraint on security operations. She said as much after putting in her papers this afternoon: "A muscular approach will not work in Kashmir." With her bundled out of the way, muscle is probably twitching and awaits flexing. That's an apprehension felt way beyond Kashmir. Congress leader and former Union home minister P. Chidambaram was among those who articulated it: "Let us hope and pray that the muscular, militaristic policy does not come back under the guise of governor's rule," he tweeted. What the BJP brass effected on Tuesday was a politico-military manoeuvre in Jammu and Kashmir, calibrated to address security concerns and political requirements in the run-up to 2019. It is banking on harsh measures to crush militancy and establish street order; it is equally banking on reaping electoral dividends for its battles to secure national integrity in the rest of the country. The BJP is persuaded that there exists "overwhelming national and nationalist sanction" for administering "strong medicine" to Kashmir. Cordon-and-search measures, locate, pursue and eliminate operations are set to mount, especially across the troubled districts of south Kashmir. A hindrance security forces have increasingly faced is robust and unruly civilian obstruction, but a new regime has been spelt out from the highest quarters in the military and the paramilitary: those who impede security operations can no longer be treated as civilians. The favoured term for such crowds places them on a par with militants - they are called over-ground workers (OGWs) or collaborators with militants. Harsh, even inhuman, treatment of Kashmiri civilians has become accepted strategy with the establishment, even a subject of applause and reward. When Major Leetul Gogoi tied a young civilian to the bonnet of his jeep as shield against trouble in Budgam last May, he received official commendation for his widely deplored act. "When former defence minister Arun Jaitley has already described Kashmir as a war-like zone, we know the armed forces have a spoken or unspoken licence to treat this as enemy territory and most Kashmiris as enemies, that is what has been happening with us but that is not going to help the situation, it will only worsen it," a People's Democratic Party (PDP) minister in the dismantled Mehbooba government told The Telegraph. The Kashmiri heartland could well be in for redoubled tumult as hard boots gear up. It will not be an easy run, especially because the Kashmiri street too has become hardened as never before and will most likely resort to violent confrontation rather than submission. As the father of one young slain militant told me in Shopian recently, "Earlier when we heard the army was moving, we would go hide. Now we run towards security columns in all our numbers, that is the terrible change that we have been driven to." The mainstream players in the Valley - the PDP and the National Conference - must remain worried alike over what play or space they get, if at all, to shore up support on what's a daily battlefield. They will be worried too that with the governor (effectively New Delhi) in the saddle, even the frayed fig leaf of democracy has been chucked; such a vacuum is something Kashmiri separatists have heartily fed on. -The Telegraph Calcutta