Disappointment in J&K

Prime Minister Narendra Modi was in Srinagar last Saturday, but he didn’t set the Jhelum on fire, although he announced a package of `80,000 crore for infrastructural development — physical and social. This PM likes to impress with “packages”. A close examination of the Kashmir package is yet to be done, but similar gifts have raised questions before. For instance, in respect of the pre-poll Bihar package of `1.25 lakh crore, it was said that mainly old proposed expenditure streams were packaged anew.

It was known of Mr Modi, even when he was CM in Gujarat, that he often just re-named Congress-era schemes and re-branded them, and some of the present Central schemes appear to be similarly recast.

However, the real concern the Valley had was that the PM did not say anything about his political plan for Kashmir, and in that respect he was seen as being vastly different from former PM Atal Behari Vajpayee, also from BJP ranks, who had set the ball of talks rolling with Pakistan, and the Kashmir separatist elements.

While talks with Pakistan are a matter of calibration, there is rarely a bad time for probes about talking to local separatist groups, although they do take their cue from Pakistan.

There is great disappointment over the issue of flood relief in Kashmir. The only political point the BJP has made in the Valley — and the PM did it too — was of resettling the exiled Kashmiri Pandits back. This is a silly idea for which there may be few takers.