The case against Chinmayanand, a three-time MP of the BJP and a former union minister and “guru” to many leading the present UP regime is the most recent example. The details of the case are well known and need not be repeated here. It was believed that after the Supreme Court intervention on the letter petition filed by public-spirited lawyer Shobha Gupta and the setting up of a special investigation team to be monitored by a designated bench of the Allahabad High Court, the young woman from Shahjahanpur would get justice.

But this has not happened. The 22-year-old, who says she is a survivor of rape, is herself in jail. She is accused of extortion under IPC sections 385/ 507/ 201. All of these sections are bailable. Even as her case for bail was listed, the SIT team arrived at her home early on Wednesday morning and dragged her to a waiting jeep, traumatized and terrified. When her case came up for hearing, she was denied bail. It was found that the SIT had deliberately added another section. 67A under the IT Act which is non-bailable.

Yesterday, I travelled with my colleague Subhashini Ali and a team of activists from the All India Democratic Women’s Association to Shahjahanpur where we met her parents, lawyers and the SIT officers. I met the student in jail along with her mother and brother.

What we found was the blatant misuse of power to protect the accused in a rape case. Regretfully, the most well-intentioned orders of the Supreme Court have been used as an excuse to limit the scope of the investigation. It has been a step-by-step process. But the most important fact to emerge is that there has been no FIR filed on the complaint of rape which was registered by the Delhi police on September 7. She was traced and brought to Delhi on the orders of the Supreme Court. In Delhi, she gave a detailed complaint of the horror she underwent from the first time she was raped, reportedly by the accused Chinmayanand, in October 2018 till August of this year. She gave the names of those who had conspired with him to enable the sexual assaults. Her complaint was forwarded by the Delhi police to the SIT which confirms having received the complaint on September 8. However, till today, no FIR has been filed by the SIT on her complaint. In fact, this complaint does not figure at all in the investigations being conducted by the SIT.

When we met the officers of the SIT in their office yesterday, we inquired why an FIR was not filed on the student’s complaint. Surely this should have been the basis of their investigation, we asked. Their reply was “We have no locus standi to file any fresh FIRs. The Supreme Court in its orders has specifically asked us to investigate FIR 442 and FIR 445. So our investigations are only on these FIRs.”

These two FIRs are on entirely different issues and have nothing to do with the charge of rape. One of the FIRs (445) was filed by the father when he found his daughter missing soon after she posted a video alleging that she was being threatened and her life, and those of other young women like her, were being ruined by a “swamy”. At that time, the distraught father, linking “swamy” to Chinmayanand since his daughter was studying in an institution owned by him, filed a complaint that he suspected she had been kidnapped by Chinmayanand. The second FIR 442, was filed by Chinmayanand’s lawyer, alleging that Chinmayanand had received extortion threats on his mobile phone demanding a payment of five crores.

When the Supreme Court was to give its order on September 5, the government’s lawyer informed the court that there were two FIRs registered, 442 and 445. He did not mention that the woman’s complaint had not yet been registered. The Supreme Court ordered that the SIT should investigate both FIRs. Nowhere did the court say that her complaint should not be registered as an FIR or that no fresh FIRs germane to the case should not be registered, but that is the extraordinary interpretation made by the SIT of the court order. In its status report filed before the special bench of the Allahabad High Court, which is supposed to monitor the case, the SIT makes absolutely no mention of the girl’s complaint of rape. On its part, the High Court accepted the status report at face value. In the light of such a blatant omission, the concept of “monitoring” by a bench of the High Court especially set up for the purpose, surely needs clarification.
When we further asked the SIT officers whether, in the light of their interpretation of the limited scope of the Supreme Court order, they had passed on the woman’s complaint to the local police and administration to register an FIR, they said it was not “their mandate.” In other words, neither are they acting on her complaint nor have they asked anyone else to do so. Thus the main issue of the rape of a young woman has been eliminated by the SIT. In legal papers, her voice is silenced, she does not exist except as an extortionist. In the meanwhile in every press conference being held the SIT focuses entirely on the issue of extortion, damning the girl. So, while sabotaging the legal aspect, at the same time public perception is sought to be influenced against the girl.

What of the man she has accused? Chinmayanand was arrested on September 20 on the charge of 376c This concerns the abuse of a position of authority to “induce a person to have sexual intercourse” not amounting to rape. The SIT came to this conclusion in the course of their investigation into the charge of extortion. In the words of a senior officer of the SIT, “In one case, the girl is the victim and in the other, the accused. We have taken into account both cases.”

Many decades ago, when we were fighting for justice in the Mathura rape case, the guilty police personnel claimed that the girl had no marks of injuries on her body which proved that it was not rape but consensual intercourse. At that time, the Supreme Court had upheld this perverted reasoning which takes violent sexual assault out of the context in which the victim finds herself. It took several years of hard struggle to get the law changed. Today, in 2019, the Chinmayanand case shows that de-contextualisation of rape and sexual assault and a total ignorance or insensitivity of the condition of a rape victim and her subsequent actions remains deeply ingrained in the minds of those expected to bring justice to the victim.

Even if we accept the case of extortion against the girl, can rape be equated with the accusation of extortion as done in the approach of the SIT? What was the context in which a young woman denied justice acts in a particular way? If she is guilty of extortion, does it mean that she was not a victim of violent rape? We asked these questions of the SIT members. They did not have much to say on this aspect. They did reiterate that they had consulted the legal department before filing the cases.

A grave injustice is being committed right before our eyes. Eight years ago, Chinmayanand was accused of rape by an inmate of one of his ashrams and a case of rape was filed against him in November 2011. The complaint was that he had held her captive and she had been assaulted for several years. When the Adityanath government came to power, it made a request before the CJM of Shahjahanpur to withdraw the case of rape against Chinmayanand. The CJM refused and issued a warrant against him. The case went to the High Court which granted a stay on Chinmayanand’s arrest.

In the current case, the woman was just 21 when she was first assaulted. She did what she did to save herself. She showed courage in taking him on, knowing that the system was in his support. Today, she is being taught that you cannot challenge a rapist when he is a VIP. Everything is being done to break her spirit. What is the message being sent to other victims of rape and sexual abuse and assault? Stay silent, otherwise you will end up in jail. She wept on the shoulder of her younger brother when we were permitted to meet her in jail. She showed him bruises on her arms when she had been grabbed by the policewomen who had come to arrest her. She said she felt humiliated. What about me, she said, what about what I have suffered. He consoled her with the news that there are many people who support her struggle for justice. She brightened up and reiterated her resolve to get justice.

Brinda Karat is a Politburo member of the CPI(M) and a former Member of the RajyaSabha
 
 

The post I feel humiliated, says jailed student fighting Chinmayanand appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Image Courtesy: PTI

BJP president Amit Shah claims that 250 terrorists were killed in India’s air strike in Balakot while his colleague SS Ahluwalia, a minister in the Modi government, informs the country that in fact the aim was precisely to avoid human casualties in the Balakot strike; that it was meant to send a message to Pakistan. Who then is the liar? While the Foreign Secretary claims terrorists, their trainers and infrastructure were destroyed, the Air Force chief snubbed this kind of talk with his statement that it is not the job of the armed forces to count casualties. The international press has questioned the veracity of the figures of casualties and damage. But Prime Minister Narendra Modi skipped the meeting of opposition parties and even today, the government not just refuses to share information but also wants to silence questions with bullying, intimidation and accusations.

The post-Pulwama strategy of the ruling party for the forthcoming elections is clear enough. For the BJP and the cohorts of the Sangh Parivar, the effort is to convert the great exercise of parliamentary democracy into a platform where jingoism parades as nationalism, where national security is reduced to the size of the chest of the strongman and where all debate is damned as being “anti-national”. This is very convenient for the ruling party as it faces mounting public anger against its five years of rule, which has established records in promises betrayed. Now, instead of unemployment, agrarian distress and other issues of urgent importance to the citizens of India, the ruling party wants to shift the narrative. But for a few – very few – honourable exceptions, the satellite media has done everything it possibly can to support this strategy and to whip up war hysteria, to glorify government claims, to repeat vile accusations against opposition parties, to peddle lies and fake stories without even the pretense of an impartial check.
 

The opposition has accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his party, the BJP, of politicising the Balakot air strike
 

The strategy has an even darker side. Kashmir is also to be the centrepiece of the fake nationalist discourse, to contrast the “strong” measures taken by the Modi government as opposed to the opposition parties who talk of peace and dialogue. This was seen in the immediate aftermath of Pulwama, when Kashmiri students and traders in different parts of India were targeted and attacked. These were not spontaneous actions. They were led by members of the Sangh Parivar. Vicious statements against Kashmiris by those holding constitutional posts, such as Arunachal Pradesh Governor Tathaghat Roy, or by other BJP ministers, went without a reprimand, let alone sacking.

While the campaign will run its course, the impact of the toxins injected into the polity by it will have caused much damage to India, both at the international level and internally. And as for the electoral and political benefits that Modi ji and BJP president Amit Shah hope to gain from such a campaign, they may be in for a surprise as there are many uncomfortable questions, even within the framework they want to set, which will dog them in their campaign.

Take the Prime Minister’s recent tall talk about terrorism. He declared in Ahmedabad that he would “settle all scores with terrorists” and “hum unke ghar mein ghus ghus kar maarenge (we will go into their homes and kill them)”. Using the same invective and aggression, he targeted the opposition parties, accusing them of helping Pakistan. He then went on an exercise of self-praise, describing himself as a man who thinks only of the country, whose nature is never to wait long and to give replies immediately. Waving his hands around, he declared that “India is in safe hands”. He has even referred to his government prefixing his name – the Modi government – surely a first in India! I, Me, My. Someone should caution him that he is in danger of tripping over what seems to have become a rather oversized ego.
 

The Balakot air strike was India’s response to the suicide bombing by Jaish-e-Mohammed in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pulwama

What is the record of his government?

Pulwama occurred when Jammu and Kashmir is under President’s Rule, directly under the central government. In January 2016, when the Pathankot attack took place, the BJP was in the state government too.

The Parliamentary Standing Committee for Home Affairs, which reviewed the security arrangements, had visited the airbase where the attack took place. It said in its report on May 3, “The committee is unable to understand how despite a terror alert (having been) sounded well in advance, the terrorists managed to breach the high-security airbase and subsequently attack it.” It declared that the “security cover at the airbase was not robust.” It mentioned that the perimeter wall was poorly guarded and the base did not have a road around it for patrolling.

Eight months later in September 2016, there was another attack in Uri and once again, the issue of intelligence agencies was raised. Modi ji used the same language as he does today and conducted what is referred to as a surgical strike, claiming to have inflicted serious damage to terrorist camps in Pakistan. But it is clear from the increase in terrorist attacks that it had no significant impact in either reducing or preventing such incidents.

Now once again in the Pulwama attack there are serious questions. How is it that a vehicle loaded with deadly explosives could escape security scrutiny? Who is responsible for this lack of intelligence information? Why were the minimum precautions of road clearance not maintained for such a large convoy of trucks carrying CRPF jawans? Why were proper arrangements for security not made? The Modi government wants to escape these questions with its rhetoric.

It claims it killed more terrorists than under any government.
 

The BJP wants to turn the armed forces into an electoral ally with the blatant politicisation of their actions, says the opposition
 

But what the BJP conceals is that it is on its watch, both in Delhi and as a partner in the coalition government in Jammu and Kashmir, that the number of terrorist incidents went up by 176 per cent and the loss of lives also increased.

In February, in a written reply to the Lok Sabha, Minister of State for Home Affairs Hansraj Ahir gave the information that there were 1,708 terrorist incidents between 2014 and 2018.

From 222 incidents in 2014, the figure decreased in 2015 to 208 incidents and then shot up to 614 terrorist incidents in 2018. The minister also informed parliament that in the same period, the number of civilians killed in Jammu and Kashmir was 138 – an increase of 35.71 per cent – and the number of security persons killed was 393, an increase of 93 per cent.

These figures reflect the result of the disastrous policies pursued by the Modi government in Jammu and Kashmir based on the ideological and political agenda of the Hindutva platform of Sangh Parivar. The refusal to accept the special status of Jammu and Kashmir granted by the Constitution of India, the refusal to open a political dialogue with all stakeholders in spite of the assurances given by Home Minister Rajnath Singh on the floor of parliament and the utter failure to implement a single programme of development for the people of the state are the hallmarks of this policy. There are no jobs and a total lack of opportunity; there is a serious agrarian crisis with low prices for agricultural products; the conditions of workers and employees are precarious. Where people’s frustration with their plight was high, the centre and the coalition government were totally insensitive to these requirements. On the contrary, instead of development, the people were met with state repression, leading to an unprecedented alienation of a very large section in the Valley.
 

Pulwama occurred when Jammu and Kashmir is under President’s Rule, directly under the central government
 

In 2014, the people of Jammu and Kashmir registered a high percentage of over 65 per cent in the vote for the state assembly, in spite of the threats of the separatists. The militants were isolated from the people who voted with some hope of development and peace. In five years the situation has changed so much so that in the Lok Sabha by-elections for the Srinagar seat, just about 7 per cent of people voted and the by-election for the Anantnag seat has still not been held.

Today, instead of an elected government, the people suffer under direct rule of Delhi, which makes matters worse. In these five years there has been the growing influence of Islamic fundamentalists destroying whatever remains of Kashmiriyat, and on the other hand, the increasing recruitment of local youth into the ranks of the extremists. The Modi government talks of Kashmir as a piece of territory, but never of the Kashmiri people.

It is well-known that Pakistan is providing the logistics in every sphere for terror attacks including the horrendous Pulwama attack. There is unanimity in supporting all government efforts to get Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar on the global terrorists’ list. But what of the battle to win back the minds and hearts of the people of Kashmir? The five years under the Modi government have highlighted the spectacular failure to do so.

Brinda Karat is a Politburo member of the CPI(M) and a former Member of the Rajya Sabha.

(This article was also carried on ndtv.com and is being published here with the permission of the author)

The post When National Security Is Reduced To Chest-Size And Debate Is “Anti-National” appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Image Courtesy: Reuters

But true to the BJP’s sectarian politics, its president Amit Shah breached this united resolve with a wholly partisan speech in Assam, in which he said, “The sacrifices of our jawans will not go in vain since it is not a Congress government at the Centre but that of the BJP.” To seek to make electoral gains from the killing of jawans – as the BJP is doing – gives India’s opponents a handle to promote the theory that all this is part of the electoral strategy of the BJP.

What is worse, the government and the BJP have remained silent in the wake of the most atrocious statements and acts of violence being orchestrated by constituents of the Sangh Parivar in different states against people from Kashmir.

When Meghalaya Governor Tathagata Roy calls for the boycott of Kashmiris and Kashmiri goods as revenge, is he acting in “defence of the unity and integrity of India” or is he directly helping those who wish to see India disunited? The president should immediately take suo motu notice and initiate action against him. The man should be sacked without delay. A Governor can make such comments and get away with it, but an employee of the LIC (Life Insurance Corporation) in West Bengal’s Asansol, who criticised the government and the role of the armed forces in Kashmir, was suspended and his social media post was termed anti-national. Double standards such as these blow a hole in the government’s pretensions of being concerned about national unity.

Reports of Kashmiris being targeted have emerged from different parts of the country. It is the Bajrang Dal and its cohorts who are organizing mobs against Kashmiri students as in Dehradun. Here in Delhi, too, just yesterday, three young men from Kashmir narrowly escaped death when they were attacked by a group of men on a local train.

Two years ago, a Muslim teenager, Junaid, was similarly attacked on a train by men who picked on him because he was a Muslim, accused him of being a “beef eater,” shouted at him to go to Pakistan, and then beat and stabbed him to death, throwing his bleeding body off the train.

In the current case, the three men from Kashmir were sellers of woollen garments travelling to Sapla in Haryana by train. One of them is an MA with a teaching degree but only has a temporary job, so he travels to Delhi in the winter months to earn an income. He, along with the other two, carried the garments and shawls they were selling in three bundles. On the train, they were accosted by two men in civilian clothes who claimed to be in the armed forces. They started abusing the Kashmiris in filthy language, calling them responsible for the killing of the jawans in Pulwama. They set upon them, shouting loudly for other passengers to join in. 15-20 men from neighbouring compartments rushed in and started beating the three with belts.  As the train slowed down, the Kashmiris were able to escape by jumping off the train. They suffered head and face injuries in the attack. Their bundles of garments worth around two lakh rupees were stolen by their attackers. The police have registered an FIR but the young men remain traumatised.

Apart from the totally inhuman nature of these attacks on innocent people, the BJP and the Sangh Parivar are doing India a great disservice by encouraging and promoting such acts of violence. It will lead to a further alienation of the people of the Kashmir valley. The kind of policy adopted by the BJP in Kashmir has led to this alienation, which plays into the aims and goals of Pakistan. In these five years of BJP rule, the situation in Kashmir has further deteriorated. The large-scale repression of Kashmiri youth, the use of pellet guns against protesters who are then blinded or maimed, the absolute refusal to initiate political dialogue in spite of the Home Minister making repeated assurances to Parliament that the government would initiate such talks, has intensified the alienation.

India requires strong international support to isolate Pakistan on the issue of terrorism, to ensure that Masood Azhar, the head of the terrorist group Jaish-e-Mohammed, is placed on the United Nations’ global terrorist list, and to take strong action to punish those responsible. But internal policies must match diplomatic efforts. Policies based on the “Kashmir is an integral part of India, but the people of Kashmir are not” approach can only defeat the bigger goal to successfully meet the challenge posed by terrorism. The BJP and the Sangh Parivar have proved themselves incapable of meeting this challenge.

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BJP men in Tripura heard their leaders loud and clear.

The day after the election results in Tripura were announced, a wave of attacks were orchestrated by the BJP against the Left specifically targeting the CPI(M). Till the evening of March 5th, 514 CPI(M) cadre and supporters were injured in assaults by BJP men, 1,539 houses were attacked, 196 houses were set on fire, 134 party offices were attacked and 208 party offices were captured. Many mass organisation offices also were attacked and captured. The attacks are continuing. These figures were given to the police authorities in Tripura and to the central government. In the 25 years of its governance, there is not a single instance of any office of an opposition party being burnt or captured or the kind of mass attacks on supporters of the then opposition as Tripura is witnessing today. It shows the hollowness and hypocrisy of the claims made by BJP leaders that while they believed in democracy, the CPI(M) did not.
 

Two statues of Lenin were demolished in Tripura, allegedly by workers of the BJP
 

The BJP-IPFT has won a big victory in Tripura with 43 seats. While the BJP has around 43 per cent of the vote, along with its ally the IPFT, it is around 50 per cent. In spite of its being able to retain only 16 seats of the 50 it had won last time, the CPI(M) and three Left parties, who fought one seat each, got 45 per cent of the vote. The CPI(M) will have to introspect and review the reasons. But it is to subdue and subordinate this substantial pro-Left base in the very initial phase of its rule that the BJP-RSS is resorting to such attacks and the use of methods to intimidate, bully and create an atmosphere of fear. The use of violence against communists is one method of achieving “Communist-mukt Bharat” – or so the BJP thinks.

The ideological victory claimed by Modi over communists was sought to be sealed by bulldozing the statue of Lenin which had been installed in Belonia town in South Tripura in 2013. It was not a spontaneous action. A group of BJP men used a bulldozer to bring it down. It was beheaded and it is reported that these men kicked the head around like a football. Those educated on texts written by their ideological forefathers like Savarkar and Golwalkar who glorified Nazi Germany and considered it a model worth following, acted as they were trained to, knowing that such loutish acts had the support of their leaders. The first to tweet his approval was RSS leader Ram Madhav. This was followed by the Governor of Tripura who said “one democratically elected Government can undo what another democratically elected Government did and vice versa.” So according to a person who holds an important constitutional post mandated to uphold the law, the hooligans who brought down the statue were representatives of a “democratically elected government”. What further evidence is required that their are patrons behind this action?
 

PM Narendra Modi with senior BJP leaders after the party’s victory in Tripura by-polls
 

Some BJP leaders have justified it on grounds that Lenin was a foreigner, a terrorist.

The Russian revolution in 1917 led by Lenin which overthrew the despotic regime of the Tsar and challenged the might of imperialist powers who almost strangulated the revolution in its infancy had the most profound influence on all nations striving for their freedom including India and its freedom fighters, from Gandhi to Nehru, from Bhagat Singh to Rabindranath Tagore. Bhagat Singh was deeply influenced by the Russian revolution, reflected in the manifestos of the several organizations he led from the Naujawan Sabha to the Hindustan Republican Association which later transformed into the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association. A biographer of Bhagat Singh wrote that at his last meeting with Bhagat Singh, the freedom fighter said that he was reading about the life of Lenin and that he would like to finish it before he was hanged (“The Man and His Ideas” by Gopal Tagore) Rabindranath Tagore visited Soviet Russia after Lenin had passed away. He was a great admirer of Lenin. “If I had not come to Russia,” wrote Tagore, “life’s pilgrimage would not have been complete.” Nehru wrote of the “great Lenin” that “although under the leadership of Gandhi we followed another path, we were influenced by the example of Lenin.”

The RSS and the political fronts it set up have never been part of this history, never been part of the national freedom struggle to know what the Russian revolution had meant for those dreaming and sacrificing their all for India’s independence.
 

A statue of Periyar was vandalised in Tamil Nadu’s Vellore last night, after a BJP leader suggested it in a controversial Facebook post
 

But even so, the destruction of Lenin’s statue signifies more than the anti-communism which is the RSS’ DNA: it shows up once again the extreme intolerance of the Sangh Parivar to any other ideology which challenges or is in opposition to the Sangh. This act should dismay not only admirers of Lenin and his legacy but anyone who believes in the freedom of expression and political debate. If the outrage is not strong enough, it is not going to stop at Lenin. Already BJP leaders elsewhere are taking the cue. In Tamil Nadu, BJP leader H Raja posted on Facebook “Today it is Lenin in Tripura, tomorrow in Tamil Nadu (it will be) casteist Periyar’s statue.” The legacy of Periyar, the social reformer and ideologue of the Dravidian movement, represents a challenge to the Manuvadi-based Hindutva ideology of the Sangh, thus this aggression.

We know the kind of statues that the ruling regime prefers. Those of men who pledged their loyalty to the British pleading for mercy from a jail term, those of men who preached that India could never be one in the name of a fake humanism, and most recently, the statue of the man who killed Mahatma Gandhi. Did a single BJP leader publicly oppose the atrocious plan of the Hindu Mahasabha to put up statues of Nathuram Godse in their offices and temples under their control?

The newly-elected BJP government in Tripura should repair Lenin’s statue and put it back from where it was removed. It should put an end to the violence unleashed against Left supporters. Statues can be destroyed by force, not an ideology.

(Brinda Karat is a Politburo member of the CPI(M) and a former Member of the Rajya Sabha.)

This article was first Published on NDTV

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There is also legitimate concern as to how such a terrorist attack could take place in spite of the heavy security measures which were said to have been made for the annual pilgrimage to Amarnath. It is reported that intelligence agencies had issued an alert about terrorists plan to attack the yatris. There are also reports that the bus disregarded the rules laid down for all participants of moving in a convoy, the times for movement and so on. The government must conduct an urgent inquiry into these issues including  whether there were any security lapses and take appropriate measures.

There have not been such direct attacks on the Yatra for the last fifteen years. The last time such horrific attacks took place on the Amarnath Yatra were in the three consecutive years of 2000, 2001 and 2002 when the Vajpayee Government was ruling at the centre and its then ally, the National Conference, was ruling the state. The worst attack in terms of numbers of those killed was in 2000 when the base camp in Pahalgam was attacked and over 80 people were killed.
 

Seven pilgrims were killed in the Amarnath Yatra terror attack
 

While it is yet to be established as to which terrorist group is behind the present attack, the role of Pakistan in promoting, patronizing and sponsoring such dastardly attacks has been well established.  

The politics behind this attack and steps to defeat the nefarious aims of the terrorists is as important to understand and address as are the administrative measures the government must take. This in turn is linked to the turmoil in Kashmir and the widespread disaffection and alienation of the people of Kashmir from the Indian establishment and its policies.

The smooth conduct of the Amarnath Yatra with the support of local people along its route has symbolized the pluralist culture of Kashmir and Kashmiriyat. There have been numerous examples when it is the locals who have come to the assistance of yatris. Even last year, when the Valley was riven with militant protests, firings and curfew in the wake of the killing of Burhan Wani, the example of locals helping out yatris caught in a tragic bus accident, even as the rest of the convoy sped past, was an example of this culture. The political aim of those who mastermind and who carry out terror attacks on innocents, targeting religious beliefs, is precisely to destroy what remains of this culture. The difference between 2000 and 2017 is the harsh reality that religious extremists owing allegiance to the most sectarian Islamist ideologies, far removed from the culture and way of life and traditions of Kashmir, are gaining influence, especially among a section of the youth.
 

Family members mourn the victims of the Amarnath Yatra terror attack

But instead of understanding the different dimensions of the issues, instead of initiating a political dialogue the present central government and its coalition government in the state have gravely erred by looking at Kashmir only through the narrow prism of "security" while refusing to address the political dimensions. The Modi Government has turned its back on what Vajpayee-ji had said as Prime Minister in his Independence Day speech in 2002. "For us, Kashmir is not a piece of land…it is a test case of secularism. India has always withstood the test of a secular nation. Jammu and Kashmir is a living example of this."

But today we are failing this test, we have ignored the needs and voices of the people of Kashmir, we have reduced the entire issue to one concerning Pakistan, thereby strengthening and helping their goal of keeping Kashmir in a state of permanent turmoil and disaffection while the anti-Kashmiriyat forces gain support. The very same population which today is so alienated had created history just three years ago when it turned its back on the militants' call for a boycott of the assembly elections with the largest turnout in each of the five phases of the elections: from the lowest at 49 per cent to the highest at 72 per cent and an average voter turnout in all the phases of around 65 per cent. The Prime Minister had visited the Valley as part of the election campaign several times and in his speech at the Sher-i-Kashmir Stadium in Srinagar had declared, "I have come to share your pain and sorrow. Your sorrow is my sorrow, your pain is my pain, your problem is my problem…"  The people gave his government a chance. The sense of betrayal therefore is all the greater.
 

According to reports, intelligence agencies had issued an alert about terrorists plan to attack the yatris (File photo)

Equally tragically, the aim of the terrorists to decimate the culture of Kashmiriyat gets a big boost when, in the rest of India, the ruling party patronizes and promotes politics to divert the attention of the people from the failures of the government in their day-to-day lives with slogans and actions to deliberately polarize and divide people on communal lines. In the name of nationalism, the worst kind of jingoistic, chauvinistic and communal politics is propagated day after day, the target being all those who oppose the Hindutva agenda of the ruling combine. Kashmiris in particular are soft targets when they migrate in search of a livelihood to other parts of India, or when as students they seek better educational facilities than are available in the Valley. When Kashmiri shopkeepers in Mussoorie are threatened with eviction, or when Kashmiri students in Delhi or Rajasthan are beaten or viewed with hostility and suspicion on the understanding that every Kashmiri is a terrorist, it fuels the alienation in the Valley. It is most welcome therefore that at this time, the Home Minister of India, Shri Rajnath Singh, has reiterated that the job of his ministry is to maintain harmony. Each form of fundamentalism and communalism strengthens the other. 

While mourning for those innocents who were brutally shot down on their way back from a pilgrimage to Amarnath, while committing ourselves as citizens to fight terrorism, our resolve to fight all those forces who divide people in the name of religion, whether we are in Srinagar or in Delhi, must be strengthened.

Brinda Karat is a Politburo member of the CPI(M) and a former Member of the Rajya Sabha.

This article was first published on NDTV, Republished with Authors Permission.

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