Hon’ble Prime Minister of India,
Sirji, I am enthralled by the developments since your historic telecast to the nation on August 8 on abrogation of both article 370 and 35A of our constitution and bifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir state into two centrally ruled union territories four days earlier. Now that you have killed two birds with one stone; Kashmiri pride and Pakistani greed, our enemies, both external and internal are at their wit’s end. With the state itself stands abolished, there will be no more clamour for independence or maximum autonomy based on special status vide that silly article of faith of Nehru era. It’s a great feeling of wish fulfilment pervades the land that now Kashmir Ki Kali will blossom in my garden too and usher me into a pigment revolution. Moreover, we may inherit a chunk of ‘heaven on earth’ through in-law connections if we lag behind more resourceful compatriots.
Jiski Lathi Uski Bhains!
With Kashmir forced to be on silent mode, it’s fascinating to watch our homegrown 007 sharing snacks with commoners on the valley streets amid a standstill public life or counting the sale of sacrificial lambs on the eve of Id festival. The habitual dissenters may dismiss it as choreographed optics for propaganda to prove efficacy of the new normal pointing to the complete shutdown of all communications under a massive military-civil machine for more than a week. The foreign media and few of their Desi collaborators may try to tarnish your image by recording impromptu protests by few stone-pelter boys and their enraged sisters and mothers. But our forces’ quick dispersal of them under a cloud of tear gas and denial of the very existence of no-sayers by our professional media managers are really inspiring.
The anti-nationals here and there may have missed the surreal setting of your latest Man Ki Baat and called it a Kafkaesque horror. But who will deny that your regime has gone ahead of ‘Z’ years of Costa Gavras film in muting the voices of troublemakers without much wastage of bullets and payment to hired killers. So what most Kashmiris could not watch you live or exchange opinions about their changed fates? After all, It was not primarily meant for them but for us and the world outside.
It’s nice to notice that you have learnt much from your buddy Netanyahu who has not only succeeded in swallowing the spoils of 1973 war but also in dividing and annexing residual Palestine. If our influx is planned meticulously, we may not need to wait for long for the suitable demographic change there as Jews are doing in the Cannan and Chinese Huns in Tibet and Xinjiang. We know you still can’t afford to be as blunt and revengeful as your Zionist friend. So you have dangled your carrot by promising return of statehood to J&K sans Ladakh in future. The Candy-flossing of your stick was admirable as you have assured a land of milk and honey to commoners and more cash to buy the loyalty of local policemen and sarkari babus. What more you can offer? They must believe in you despite those pathological cynics calling it another spell of Jumlas. Have not we enjoyed our Acche Din during your first coming?
It’s another matter that our Motabhai as well as the guardians of our great Parivar in Nagpur have always felt that that Kashmiris do not deserve any level of self-rule, at least, till their brains are sanitised properly and permanently. They deserve our boots and bullets, at least pellets since they have refused to buy our narrative of their history and our freedom as their freedom. Instead of appreciating the benevolence of Indian people and beauty of our democracy, these ungrateful have increasingly fallen prey to the canards spread by those ‘Muttibhar’ pro-Pak or pro-Azadi rabble-rousers.
Who cares for history?
So that the last King of Jammu and Kashmir, Hari Singh, the Hindu Kultitak had wanted an Independent realm in 1947-48 and signed the instrument of accession only after Pakistani raiders had reached close to Srinagar? So What if Sheikh Abdullah, the leader of Kashmiri Muslims had refused to buy Jinnah’s two nation theory and opted to join India? How much matters now that both the Hindu king and his Muslim challenger were keen on maximum autonomy within India, albeit for different reasons? Are not these insignificant details of history that their bargaining with Mountbatten and Nehru-Patel ultimately led to the separate constituent assembly for the state and formulation of its special status later? Who cares whether Sarder Patel was reluctant about inclusion of Muslim-majority Jammu and Kashmir in India unlike Hindu-dominated kingdoms of Hyderabad and Junagarh? What matters now even as he ultimately supported Nehru on article 370 and stood by him on plebiscite in Jammu and Kashmir since India had a huge support on the ground? Is not it a blasphemous act to believe that even Shyamaprasad Mookerjee, Nehru’s minister and Bharatiya Jana Sangh leader who became iconic martyr of RSS Parivar on Kashmir did not oppose the valley’s special status but asked for full integration of Jammu and Ladakh ? How much it is pertinent today that Mookerjee had agreed for unity of the state but demanded autonomy to non-valley regions before his unfortunate death in Kashmir? For that matter, the BJS, the precursor of BJP changed its tune following the frowns from RSS? Why the hell we need to understand the complex tug of war between Nehru’s composite Indian nationalism Vs Abdullah’s secular Kashmiri nationalism at one hand and between the regional aspirations of valley and Jammu? Why bother about the clashes between idealpolitik and realpolitik of the two leaders and their descendents who ruled India and Kashmir respectively for decades? Particularly, when a more familiar and simple communal narrative is handy for religious polarisation between the valley’s Muslims and Jammu’s Hindus who had always been instigated by BJS-Praja Parisad combine to deny the existence of all-faith Kashmiriyat based on its Hindu- Budhhist-Muslim-Sikh parampara?
Our Parivar Vs their Parivars
Have not our Parivar waited too long for the triumph of its vision of Hindu Rashtra; a majoritarian rule under a unitary state at the cost of all the pluralist traditions and regional aspirations that guided our constitutionally recognised federal principles, at least in theory? It’s a pity that the cry babies are mourning the death of federal and secular democracy. They have missed the bus long ago when they had hardly uttered murmurs of protest on the gradual erosion of J& K’s special status when they protested dismissal of elected state governments elsewhere by Nehru-Gandhi family.
Jammu and Kashmir
Can they deny that loyalty to the government in New Delhi and Indian nation have been made coterminous for all people at the margins of the nation-state, especially in J&K? The intermittent use of coercive police-military force and temporary concessions to regional sentiments have become an accepted paradigm of our polity before your rise on the Raisina Hills. You have only nailed the coffin. The opportunism of Abdullah and Mufti dynasts and others in between who played musical chairs for long made room not only for explosion of pro-Azadi sentiments but also for Pakistan’s proxy war through sectarian and Jihadi forces in the valley. The consequent expulsion of Pundits and killings of minorities have only legitimised and popularised our Sangh’s position. It’s another matter that you had slept with these regional dynasts in turn to keep away the national dynasts. Now that you have outfoxed both kinds of dynasts and promised a new Kashmir free from Pak-sponsored Aatankwad, Algavad and Parivarbad, we can not wait for similar surgical strike at the heart of India against those who still focus on social-political diversity as the guarantee for unity.
Gandhi will be buried finally
Dear Motabhai, I can’t adore you more for your telecast on the 77th anniversary of another historic speech by a fellow Gujarati,incidentally known as father of the nation, launching Quit India movement against the British Raj. Now that you have renewed our second freedom struggle by achieving almost a Congress-mukt Bharat with microscopic red and green tinges across the saffronised map, I am sure soon you will replace that Ramdhun-loving, lanky old man who fell to the befitting bullets from one of our Parivar’s heroes and paid the price for his crime of appeasement of Muslims and Pakistan. We were forced to paying lip-service to his values, particularly the obnoxious idea of non-violence at the cost of our martial glory. Thank God, we will finally get rid of his legacy. I can’t conclude my words of admiration without hailing your Chotabhai who is poised to replace another no-nonsense Gujarati whom you have already cast in huge stone. I am looking forward to the fulfilment of his vow to wipe out all termites and parasites which are eating up the vitals of our state and society.
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