The Kashmir Monitor
For the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), which is ruling at the centre, anyone and everyone who does not subscribe to its ideology or point of view is a Pakistani agent. In the given political scenario it is the most powerful weapon to demonize others. On Wednesday when PDP, Congress and National Conference got together to form the government in Jammu and Kashmir the Pakistan ghost in the BJP woke up and the party leaders began to shout..Pakistan, Pakistan. Ram Madhav, the BJP general secretary, was first to see the Pakistan hand in Congress, PDP and NC togetherness. Though he, after a serious bluff from Omar Abdullah withdrew the Pakistani taunt, other BJP leaders and activists continue with their campaign. It is quite ironic that the BJP is calling Pakistan agents to those very people who till yesterday were BJP allies.
Omar Abdullah was the post boy of the BJP during five year rule of Vajpayee. BJP was in alliance with the PDP till a few months back. That time neither PDP nor NC had any Pakistani tag. PDP president Mahbooba Mufti is quite right in her ‘hit back’ to the BJP saying credentials of PDP and NC were never questioned when they were in alliance with the BJP. Somebody needs to tell the BJP that India was not born in 2014 with the emergence of BJP to power. India existed before 2014 and it was run by those very people who, for the BJP, are Pakistani now. In Kashmir NC, PDP and Congress are the real flag bearers of India. It is these very parties which are not only protecting but promoting India’s interests in Jammu and Kashmir. In 1990 when armed movement erupted in Kashmir against India rule, it these very parties who fought and died for India. Hundreds of National Conference, Congress, PDP and other pro India groups were killed by armed militants for their allegiance towards India.
Several leaders, legislators and ministers including Abdul Ahad Kar, Mohammad Subhan Bhat, Ghulam Qadir Nelora, his son Nazir Ahmad Nelora, Shiekh Mansoor, Hisamuddin Banday, Peer Mohammad Shafi, Ghulam Hasan Bhat, Abdul Majeed Banday, Ghulam Qadir Mir, Abdul Aziz Mir and Abdus Sattar Ranjoor included among hundreds of leaders and supporters of pro India parties—National Conference, Congress, PDP and Communists who took bullets on their chests for India. The killing of lower order cadres of these parties continues without count. Some years back Ali Mohammad Sagar of National Conference said that around 2000 party cadres, functionaries and leaders of the National Conference were killed in militant attacks. In 1996 when nobody was ready to contest the elections, it was National Conference that accepted the challenge.
It is not going overboard to say that if India is still in Kashmir it is just because of these parties. All this have made these parties and their leaders villains for a vast majority of people of the state who believe in separatism and want Jammu and Kashmir to segregate from India. The grim reality however is that their “sacrifices” are not counted and respected in the country they fight for. Branding them as Pakistani agents is the worst kind of insult to them. This insult is hurled at them every now and then. Mahbooba Mufti as chief minister was time and again called as “pro Pakistani” and “pro separatist”. This should make the leaders of these parties think that they are doing a thankless task. Their position in the eyes of the masters in Delhi is nothing more than agents. That is the price one has to pay when going against one’s own people.
