In Kashmir, both BJP, PDP have lost ground

Scaremongering and communal narratives have compromised normal life in Jammu and Kashmir

The horrific rape and murder of a child in Kathua continues to make noxious waves. The rage being evinced in increasingly unrestrained stone-pelting in the Valley is partly fuelled by what happened in Kathua. So is the unceasing stream of youth joining the ranks of militancy. Students have barely allowed classes for several weeks. Many seem convinced that the dead child will never get justice in a Hindutva-dominated India. And yet, voices suggesting a biased and motivated investigation are getting louder, mainly in the Jammu region.

National outrage drove the ruling BJP to an extended round of changes, culminating in a constitutionally inappropriate exchange of the Speaker and deputy chief minister. This has not helped. Trying to brush the matter aside may have made things worse. The outcome is that the situation is deteriorating in both Jammu and the Valley. Many Kashmiris view India through the prism of hate towards Muslims, which the crime at Kathua seemed to demonstrate. Meanwhile, several Hindus in Jammu have the impression that an antiHindu agenda prevails, despite the BJP, and that those who are sympathetic to antinationals are in the driver’s seat.

The main coalition partners in the state have long argued that the basis of their alliance was that the BJP won Jammu, and the PDP the Valley. That would have been a fair enough argument if both parties stuck by the logic of coalition — respecting, engaging, negotiating, and compromising. An alliance cannot mean one steamrolling the other. In this case, it has been more like trying to blindside the other.

Both parties have lost ground. Cynical game-players might calculatedly sacrifice social stability for political gain — as LK Advani did with his rath yatras — but it takes masterful incompetence to compromise both together. The crime in Kathua has excited national horror, but many of the BJP’s local backers focus on demographic shifts. That is a cleft stick, for the party and its mentors have gained political support by painting dire scenarios of Hindus being overwhelmed by demographic shifts of seismic proportions. Now that that sort of paranoia has become part of the discourse with regard to the gang-rape and murder of an eight-year-old child, allegedly in a sanctum, the party is hoist with its petard. When a wave of horror swept the country after the charge-sheet was filed, the BJP made changes, beginning with the two ministers in the state government who had joined public protests (against the arrests). Their resignations will cost the BJP a few more votes than the many it has already lost in the past three years. So will the ongoing round of crime and punishment that has become intertwined with perceived demographic change.

The 2008 agitations against the transfer of land to the Sri Amarnath Shrine Board had polarised Jammu. Those agitations, which included ugly rhetoric in some places in the vicinity of Jammu, reopened the scars of the violence in 1947-48. Further, the 2008 agitations reduced the extraordinarily social complexity of Dogra, Gujjar, Kishtwari, and other kinds of linguistic-ethnic cultures to a monochromatic antagonism. Even after that, most Gujjars in the state (generally Muslim) spoke proudly of fraternal feelings for Hindu Gujjars of places like Haryana and Rajasthan, with whom they share gotras. And Dogra Muslims identified with Dogra cultural and territorial identity, not with Kashmiris. These longstanding sociological nuances have been repeatedly jarred by narratives that have prevailed since 2008. The ineffectiveness of the government’s response to the Kashmir floods in 2014 added grist to that mill. Anger over beef vigilantism and attempts to tamper with the state’s special status have wrought further havoc since 2015.

A tragic aspect of the Kathua crime is that it targeted a community that has largely stayed away from the welter of geopolitics. Many Bakarwals continue to live nomadic lives, herding sheep and goats, even while some Bakarwals have settled down to professions such as law and management. The community has barely complained when militants’ and soldiers’ camps have blocked their traditional mountain routes. Not only for targeting such a peaceable community but also for its catalytic role in shaping and polarising perceptions, this crime against a child has had far-reaching effects.

A TRAGIC ASPECT OF THE KATHUA CRIME IS THAT IT TARGETED A COMMUNITY THAT HAS LARGELY STAYED AWAY FROM THE WELTER OF GEOPOLITICS