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Omar versus Modi

Kashmir Times. Dated: 11/26/2013 10:52:15 PM

Sheer politicking, tailor-made for vote bank politics

Omar Abdullah’s apprehensions about Narendra Modi’s scheduled December 1 rally in Jammu creating communal tensions may not be altogether misplaced given the BJP’s baggage of trouble making in the region and Modi’s own chequered past. But the question that begs an answer is whether it is appropriate for a head of the state government to talk about these fears while giving his administrative machinery a complete green signal to prepare for the reception of this BJP prime ministerial candidate with all the honours and state protection. If the apprehensions are based on genuine inputs, he is well within his powers to stop the entry of Modi into Jammu and Kashmir and ensure that the man cannot go ahead with his feared agenda of communalising the situation in the most complex and sensitive state of India. Such powers were earlier used by him in ensuring that the BJP does not disrupt peace when as chief minister he stalled the party’s march to Lal Chowk to hoist the national tricolour in the winter of 2011, with the arrest and detention of BJP stalwarts like Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley. On January 26, 2011, as soon as the BJP workers, led by Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley, Ananth Kumar and Anurag Thakur, crossed the Punjab-J&K border, heavy contingents of police arrested them along with 500 of their workers and detained them in Kathua for the day. The rally was expected to peak up tensions within the state, communalise the situation and cause undue provocation in the Valley. Then, what is it that makes things different in a year before Omar Abdullah faces the ballot? Is it simply a ploy to cover up for his previous coveted Modi fascination? Or is it a bid to allow communal divide to hone up for many key players like him to reap the harvest? By the way it is Omar government which is misusing the complex meant for sports activities by permitting BJP for Modi’s rally.
The record of Omar Abdullah and National Conference, a party that has moved a long way in the last six decades, has been pretty dubious. In 2002, when Modi is alleged to have engineered and sponsored the Gujarat communal pogrom, Omar Abdullah was still a minister, cosily sitting in chair, in the BJP led NDA government and there is not a whimper to link him to any objections he raised over Modi’s conduct or the denial of the central government, of which he was very much an intrinsic part, to act against Modi or any of his men. Later that year, he walked out of the NDA government but not because of Modi or any commitment to ideals of secularism that had once been the bedrock of National Conference’s politics. The move was essentially motivated by his bid to shift his political stage to the state and participate in the 2002 Jammu and Kashmir assembly polls and had nothing whatsoever to do with Modi’s or BJP’s communal agenda. That last month, he cautiously chose to admire Modi’s stature by deeming that he was an important factor in the next Lok Sabha elections, is not Omar Abdullah’s sole example of lethargy about communal politics. Last year, his government not only allowed but rather facilitated the entry of a much more hate spinning forebrand Hindutva leader, Praveen Togadia, escorted him to Rajouri, allowed to him to make his vitriolic speech leaving the sensitive border town smoldering in tensions and safely escorted him out, leave alone bother about registering a case against the man for his hate-speech. This even as his government remains excessively obsessed with disallowing Kashmir’s separatist leaders from visiting any part of Jammu or putting them under house arrests, often for no particular reason at all.
Omar Abdullah in his pre-meditative fears about Modi’s forthcoming visit to Jammu also invoked BJP and Hindutva’s role in the recent communal violence in Kishtwar. The footprints of the Hindutva wings in various parts of Jammu have been increasing for quite some time with his government conveniently looking the other way. That things vitiated in Kishtwar is a culmination of various factors including the doings of the Sangh Parivar deliberate and calculated lethargy of Omar Abdullah government. The Kishtwar experience has already shown that this unchecked growth of Hindutva politics has not only sowed seeds of poison it has also led to a competitive race of both Hindu and Islamic fanaticism, which is potentially dangerous for the state. Can he turn a blind eye to the fact that his own minister, whom he later asked to step down, stands accused of fanning the communal fires in Kishtwar? Sure enough, the state can and must do away with the hate mongers operating on this soil and coming from outside. But what is first required is substantive argument and based on it concerted action with a generous dose of political will. This politicking, tailor made for vote bank politics, will certainly not do.