NOWHERE TO HIDE
THE KATHUA RAPE-MURDER CASE HAS BACKED THE BJP INTO AN EMBARRASSING CORNER AND IS TESTING ITS CREAKY RULING ALLIANCE WITH THE PDP IN KASHMIR
The Kathua rape-murder case has backed the Modi government into an embarrassing corner
TThe swelling public outrage and protests nationwide against the brutal gang rape and murder of an eight-yearold girl in Jammu and Kashmir is what it took for Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to swing into damage control, if only to salvage its increasingly tenuous alliance with the Mehbooba Mufti-led People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the state.
On April 14, when Ram Madhav, the BJP general secretary in charge of J&K, flew in to Jammu to execute the high command’s directions on sacking Chaudhary Lal Singh and Chander Prakash Ganga, the two BJP ministers who reportedly rallied support for those accused of perpetrating unspeakably horrific violence against the child, he clearly wasn’t happy about it. After dispatching the resignations to Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti in Srinagar, Madhav claimed his ministers were innocent and, at worst, guilty of “indiscretion”. According to him, Ganga and Singh joined the Hindu Ekta Manch’s rally in Kathua on March 2, only to “dispel misgivings about the [police] investigations and reassure people there will be no harassment of any innocent”.
Madhav hinted at a grudging political compromise: “We have done our bit to address or allay fears and misconceptions in the minds of people not only in Jammu or Kashmir but the entire country.” But he insisted that his leadership hadn’t acted under any pressure: “Nobody dictates any agenda to us. We are both equal and responsible partners.”
In an apparent bid to minimise any adverse impact the climbdown might have on the party’s following in Jammu region, it later (on April 17) emerged that Madhav had secured the resignations of all 10 BJP ministers to allow for a portfolio reshuffle. Analysts, however, suggest the move was driven by political optics—to demonstrate that the BJP in J&K functioned beyond the PDP’s control.
Meanwhile, in Srinagar, Mehbooba took the high road in commending the country’s political leadership, judiciary, media and civil society for standing with her government to ensure justice in the Kathua case. Describing the minis-
ters’ resignations as a “significant confidence-building measure that would strengthen the [PDP-BJP] alliance”, PDP minister and spokesperson Naeem Akhtar ruled out any threat to the coalition government.
But the truce between the partners remains fragile. There was no word from Madhav or his party bosses in Delhi on other issues raised by Mehbooba and other PDP leaders, particularly the chief minister’s brother and state tourism minister Tassaduq Mufti, who sparked rampant speculation of a rift in the ruling coalition after an interview with The Indian Express on April 13. “We [PDP and BJP] were supposed to be partners in rebuilding this place (J&K),” he said, “but we have ended up being partners in a crime that an entire generation of Kashmiris might have to pay [for] with their blood.”
Not surprisingly, Madhav, while in Jammu, refused to react to what he referred to as “the rest of the bayanbaazi we have been hearing on a daily basis”. He said he would “wait for the PDP to take a view and convey it [to the BJP leadership in Delhi]”.
And in the capital itself, on April 16, Union home minister Rajnath Singh was a trifle less standoffish. Describing the Kathua incident as “deeply sad, unfortunate and shameful”, Singh acknowledged the deteriorating security situation in the Valley and, rather feebly, reiterated he “was ready to talk to every stakeholder who wants to talk”. On Mehbooba’s pleas to open talks with Pakistan, Singh insisted that “there has been no gap in our efforts”. “Pakistan has to understand that terrorism and dialogue cannot go together,” he said.
Barring the gentler tone, it was not very different from what Madhav stated in February: “Mehboobaji can have a view, because she feels that if the two governments [India and Pakistan] talk to each other, there could be de-escalation of violence. But the alliance cannot take a view [on this matter]; its [writ] is limited to the affairs of the state.”
On April 13, a day before Ganga and Singh were given the sack, PM Modi finally reacted to the growing public disgust and anger over Kathua and Un-
nao (the case in which Uttar Pradesh BJP MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar is accused of raping an underage girl). At a public event in Delhi, Modi said, “The incidents in the past two days are an embarrassment to the civilised society. We bow our head before the founding figures of the nation. No culprit will be spared, justice will be delivered. Those daughters will get due justice; all of us have to fix the problem together. The guilty will not go unpunished and the Government of India will not leave any stone unturned to ensure that happens.” Curiously, Modi chose not to specifically cite either Kathua or Unnao.
Many commentators have described the PM’s words as “anodyne” and carefully chosen to circumvent the slightest direct reference to the ‘lunatic fringe’—such as the sloganeering lawyers in Jammu and Kathua—who seem to have an inordinate influence in shaping saffron politics, especially in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections next year.
But that said, why did the BJP, which has consistently spurned Mehbooba’s pleas to implement the Agenda of the Alliance and initiate dialogue with Pakistan and Hurriyat separatists, so easily agree to drop ministers Singh and Ganga?
After all, the coalition in J&K, most analysts say, was never in any immediate peril. “With nearly three years to the end of its term, neither the PDP nor the BJP would actually pull the plug on the coalition,” says a former civil servant who’s been at the helm in the state. Mehbooba’s been progressively distancing her party from the BJP and many believe it’s only a matter of time before the chief minister pulls the plug on the alliance. But not just yet. While the PDP is loath to give up the spoils of power too soon, the BJP doesn’t want to be saddled with an endless stint of governor’s rule with no imminent prospects of holding fresh elections.
The answer to the mystery of the BJP’s sudden tractability lies in the unprecedented national outrage over what was done to the eight-year-old Bakarwal child. Besides the storm on social media, which even the saffron trolls couldn’t tackle, the unconscionable depravity brought citizens out onto the streets, in protests that recalled the events of December 2013, after the brutal gang rape that killed ‘Nirbhaya’. Besides rescuing their alliance in J&K, with barely 12 months to the general elections, both PM Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah were alert to the danger that their party would be tarred as the communalist refuge of depraved child rapists.
The real tipping point for the BJP followed the chilling revelations in the 18-page chargesheet that the special investigation team (SIT) submitted to the trial court in Kathua. The eight-year-old child was taken against her will, sedated, denied food and raped repeatedly while unconscious. Her alleged tormentors—former state revenue official Sanji Ram, his son Vishal and a juvenile nephew, besides several others, including police personnel responsible for investigating the case—apparently showed the girl no mercy or shred of humanity (see timeline A Tragedy in Slow-Mo).
For several days and nights, she was held captive inside a devasthan, or a shrine in Kathua’s Rasana village, of which Sanji Ram was priest and custodian. One can only hope that
“WE [PDP-BJP] WERE SUPPOSED TO REBUILD THIS PLACE, BUT HAVE BECOME PARTNERS IN A CRIME...” TASSADUQ MUFTI J&K tourism minister
the sedatives her tormentors force-fed her numbed her frail body to the extreme pain she was repeatedly subjected to. When she was eventually found lying face down in the forest, she was mercifully long past feeling any pain.
The monstrous crime was seemingly methodically planned, with the aim of evicting the nomadic Bakarwal shepherds from the Jammu region. The chargesheet details how Ram, head constable Tilak Raj and special police officer Deepak Khajuria were “against the settlement of Bakarwals” and had often discussed “strategies of dislodging them from the area”. Last December, Ram had forced the girl’s adoptive father to pay a Rs 1,000 fine for grazing his horses in the forests behind his house. According to the chargesheet, Ram and the others accused the Muslim nomads of cow slaughter and drug trafficking.
Delhi University professor Apoorvanand says the Kathua case was “an act of ethnic cleansing”. Both the Hindu Ekta Manch, floated in the wake of the arrests of Ram and others, and the protesting lawyers, who brought Kathua and Jammu to a halt on April 11, had common cause. Besides demanding the transfer of the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation, they wanted the immediate eviction of some 7,000 Rohingya Muslim refugees allowed to settle in and around Jammu city, and the rollback of an unconfirmed state government decision on giving the nomadic Gujjars and Bakarwals rights to forest land.
Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh had earlier stated that Rohingya refugees were “prone to the designs of terrorist groups [active in J&K]” and constituted “a threat to national security”. And before being sacked, minister Singh had vowed to retrieve all encroached forest land and ban cultivation inside forests—a move that would put nomadic livelihoods in peril.
The nationwide outrage over the Kathua rape and murder has allowed for a pause in the long troubled Kashmir Valley. Not only did ordinary citizens stand up in solidarity with the girl, even the rabble-rousers among the national media turned indignant at what the BJP and its ministers in J&K seemed to be supporting. So, for the first time in years, a message has gone out to the Valley’s alienated youth that a large section of India does care—for Muslims and Kashmiris. It could be, as Mehbooba said, an opportunity. But is New Delhi prepared to respond?