THERE have been many audacious experiments in Jammu and Kashmir since the 29-year-old insurgency first erupted in the late eighties. But perhaps none has been quite as unlikely as the coming together of the Mufti Mohammed Sayed-led People’s Democratic Front (PDP) and the BJP in 2015.

Mufti Saheb, a man whose eyes were bright and twinkly despite the burden of all that he had seen over the decades, was relaxing in a pair of blue polka-dotted pyjamas, having just finished a round of Bridge with friends in Bombay, on the morning he first told me about the decision he had taken. ‘It’s like a meeting of the North Pole and the South Pole,’ he said, laughing at the look of disbelief on my face. The two parties were ideological opponents. One had grown its political roots in borderline separatism, with demands for self-rule and an independent currency. The other set itself apart from other mainstream parties with its emphasis on aggressive, hard line nationalism.

Mufti Saheb explained that given the unclear numbers and sharp divisions of the 2014 assembly elections, a dangerous line had been drawn between the regions of Jammu and Kashmir; there was simply no other option. Any other combination, he argued, would leave Hindu dominated Jammu out of the government and that would be suicidal for the social cohesion of the state and its assimilation with India.

I was convinced. I thought the coming together of two parties that had absolutely nothing in common was an act of rare statesmanship. Sure there was a degree of political opportunism but the chance for change also seemed limitless. The two extremes would create a brand new middle ground for the volatile Kashmir Valley. Or so I thought. Hyper-nationalism and soft-secessionism would moderate each other to create a centre that both parties would have to keep strong and alive. That was my hope.

When an ‘agenda of alliance’ was crafted by the BJP’s Ram Madhav and the PDP’s Haseeb Drabu, it agreed to status quo on Article 370, the framework under which Jammu and Kashmir acceded to the Indian Union and which gives it a special status in the Constitution. This was a big deal. For decades the BJP had insisted that the provision must be scrapped. The Jan Sangh’s ideological mentor Syama Prasad Mookerjee had thundered: ‘Ek Desh Mein, Do Vidhan, Do Pradhan, Do Nishaan Nahin Chalega’ in the context of Kashmir which by law has its own state constitution and flag – and till the fifties called its governor and chief minister sadr-e-riyasat (president) and wazir-e-azam (prime minister).

 

Here was the BJP doing a somersault on its most strident Kashmir position and conceding that as a coalition partner it could not push for the state’s special status to be altered. Equally, Mehbooba Mufti – by now chief minister after her father’s death – was compelled to soften many of her more extreme positions. Mehbooba, who as opposition leader openly visited the families of militants killed in police operations – ‘Why should we punish their children,’ she argued with me – was now under pressure to be more restrained in her statements and actions. The alliance agreement reached a consensus on pursuing talks with all stakeholders, including secessionists of the Hurriyat Conference and Pakistan.

This was an extraordinary opportunity for Kashmir. Yes, during the Manmohan Singh years, the governments of India and Pakistan almost agreed on a Kashmir accord. But the internal turmoil in Pakistan and the dwindling fortunes of the Congress party made it impossible for it to be taken forward. Here was a party headed by the most powerful Indian prime minister in 30 years in partnership with a group that it had once dubbed ‘anti-national’. If ever there was a chance for change, this was it.

Three years later the coalition has collapsed and I have to admit that my initial endorsement of it was misplaced. Instead of both parties playing a moderating influence on the other, in government the BJP and the PDP were pulled in absolutely different directions, emboldening their more extreme voices. The ideological dissonance of the alliance became so acute that it only sharpened the polarization within the state, both regional and religious, so that on every issue there was either a Jammu versus Kashmir separation or – worse yet, a Hindu-Muslim one. Factors outside the state also played a role. Hard line Hindutva politics in the rest of the country, especially targeted lynching of Muslim cattle traders, only deepened a creeping Islamism in the Kashmir Valley.

Mehbooba Mufti, otherwise a strong, unconventional single mother who single-handedly built the cadres of the party her father founded, showed an intriguing absence of courage and instinct by not breaking off the partnership and waiting instead to be summarily dumped by the BJP. The first cue to move out came as early as October 2015, when two Kashmiri Muslim truck drivers were assaulted with petrol bombs by a right wing Hindu mob on the Jammu-Kashmir national highway. As before, the pretext for the attack was fake rumours of cow slaughter. The truck was static and the men were asleep when the throng of murderers came for them. That there was a dangerous polarization brewing was obvious right then.

 

In Srinagar a few days earlier, independent MLA Engineer Rashid had organized a ‘beef party’ at the local MLA hotel adding to the building tension. Ironically there is no significant beef consumption among Kashmiris who historically prefer mutton. Laws against cow slaughter and beef eating enacted during the maharaja’s time were adopted by the state’s constituent assembly as well. Beef had been a non-issue all these years. In fact until Jagmohan’s governorship in the ’80s, no administration had made much of an effort at implementing the ban. But in response to Jagmohan’s public diktats – seen as a capitulation to Hindu extremist groups – a little-known cleric from South Kashmir, Qazi Nisar, slaughtered two sheep to defy the order. He went on to join the Muslim United Front that contested the 1987 elections along with Syed Salahuddin – who is now the Hizbul Mujahideen chief – in polls that were widely considered rigged. The rest as they say is history.

 

But when Mehbooba Mufti saw that it was back to the future in the Kashmir Valley she should have been alarmed and alert to the widening fissures. Meat that had never really been a preferred option in Kashmiri homes now became a symbol of ‘interference in religious affairs’. The state high court upheld the ban but there was pressure on the state government to pass a new law to rescind it, something the BJP as coalition partner obviously could not be party to. What should have naturally been a non-issue became a flashpoint.

Even if one argues that it was far too early in the alliance for Mufti to walk out, what can possibly explain what happened three years later? In January 2018, an 8-year old girl was repeatedly raped and murdered in Kathua near Jammu. She was strangled and her body dumped in the woods behind Rasana village. The child was from the Muslim Bakerwal community, nomadic shepherds who would temporarily use some village land for grazing their cattle. What unfolded was a grotesque and openly communal attempt to protect the men who had gang raped the little girl. When two special police officers were among those arrested for her rape and murder, a group called the Hindu Ekta Manch was created as a platform to declare the accused innocent. The Manch took out marches and protest rallies, where the national flag was waved and chants of ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’ were raised in defence of the alleged rapists.

As cynical local politics played out, a slew of politicians from different parties endorsed the Hindu Ekta Manch. Prominent among them were the local BJP MLA of Kathua and two state cabinet ministers of the BJP. A few months later, when the full horror of what had been done to the child was revealed in the police charge sheet, there was a national outcry. The Modi government was put on the defensive. And though Mehbooba Mufti took to social media platforms to express her disquiet at the support the accused rapists were receiving, she took no visible action. This was the time for her to sack the ministers and dare the BJP to walk out of the coalition.

 

Those close to her insist that she made that a precondition for her continuance. But if that were the case, Mufti kept it so private that none of her constituents knew that she was fighting hard. What followed was farcical. The two ministers were sacked and submitted their resignations. But in a few weeks, the BJP doubled-down, possibly with one eye on the Jammu vote, where there was a backlash to the national media narrative and while the ministers were not brought back, Rajiv Jasrotia, the Kathua MLA was elevated to the post of minister. Mehbooba Mufti still did not walk out of the coalition. Not even when her own brother Tassaduq Mufti called the two parties ‘partners in crime’ and warned that Kashmiris would have to ‘pay with blood’.

She suddenly seemed entirely diminished as chief minister, and in her weakening was the weakening of every Kashmiri politician who has dared to contest elections and be part of the electoral mainstream. Ironically, at a conference in Delhi, while she was still at the helm of the state, Mehbooba Mufti warned that any tinkering with the special status of the state would leave no Kashmiri politician who would be ready to carry the national flag. She could see the writing on the wall; the growing irrelevance of mainstream Kashmiri parties. Had she marched out on her own terms, the political players in Kashmir might have retained some relevance. Instead, she retreated into a shell, surrounded herself by a coterie of advisors who would not tell her the truth and stopped talking to the media.

Mehbooba virtually surrendered her own narrative to the BJP, her coalition partner. In parallel, as the street grew more and more violent, and local militancy saw a surge, electoral participation levels precipitously declined. Eight deaths and the lowest ever turnout in three decades (7.1%) marred the parliamentary by-poll elections in Srinagar. The election in Anantnag, in South Kashmir, in Mehbooba’s own seat (vacated after she became chief minister) has still not been held. It has now become India’s longest delayed by-poll since 1996.

 

The floundering of the Kashmir policy – made worse by a hate-mongering television news media – is terrible news for those in Delhi who have devoted their energies to convince more separatists to join the mainstream. On the one hand is the obvious existential threat; over the years Pakistan’s covert agencies have eliminated every major secessionist and militant who has engaged in dialogue with Delhi, whether Abdul Gani Lone or Abdul Majid Dar. But on the other hand, a social and political environment within India where it is evident that Kashmiri mainstream politicians have no effective authority is hardly conducive for new recruits. A coarsened public discourse that reduces every new idea to the pejorative of ‘anti-national’ is not going to encourage any fresh thinking or willing participants.

I have long argued that those who are the most bombastic about nationalism in Kashmir are the ones who commit the most anti-national act of all – they make soldiers and men and women in uniform carry the cross for their failures. After all the absence of political progress in the valley and a continued volatile security situation comes at no cost to policy makers in Delhi. But it is the army, the police and the paramilitary who have to confront increasingly aggressive crowds of protesters every day who have to pay this cost.

 

To establish firm, yet human, standard operating procedures is getting increasingly complicated. Now, women often form the first ring of defence around agitating crowds and do not even hesitate to walk up to a security post and snatch the weapon of personnel. Social media has become a ready, easy and inexpensive tool of propaganda. And none of the conventional ideas – more education, more jobs – is stopping a new generation of local militants. The valley’s most Islamized terrorist, Zakir Musa who has joined the Al-Qaeda, was sent far away to Chandigarh to study engineering. His father, a government civil engineer hoped the distance would stand between his son and dogma. Even that failed. When I met Musa’s brother and asked if the family might urge him to come back home, he flatly refused. He sounded admiring of his younger brother. This is the New Kashmir we now have to contend with. And yet, every initiative at building conciliation has come from local army commanders and serving policemen; save the Ramzan ceasefire, I am yet to see a significant peace initiative from the government in Delhi.

We also continue to make the same mistakes of marginalizing moderate voices and painting them as treacherous extremists. That lesson came home in the most frightening way when senior journalist Shujaat Bukhari was assassinated, the police believe, by the Lashkar-e-Toiba. Just a few weeks before he was killed, I met Shujaat at the book launch of India’s former spy chief, A.S. Dulat. Farooq Abdullah, the National Conference leader, and former chief minister of the state was also on the panel, which I was moderating. Farooq made a characteristically emotional plea to the well heeled Delhi audience to end the propaganda of hatred that had been unleashed against the ordinary Kashmiri. He emphasized that if the rhetoric changed, so would things on the ground.

 

When the floor opened for Q&A, Shujaat jumped to his feet and said he disagreed with Dr. Abdullah. ‘Kashmir has reached a point,’ Shujaat said, as the crowd shifted uncomfortably, ‘where this generation of men and women hate Delhi and hate Indians.’ Bukhari did not hesitate to do plain speaking. If he spoke the unvarnished truth about what the Indian state was doing wrong, he also condemned dogma and violence of separatists and militants. He may not have fit the classic Indian framework on Kashmir, but among Kashmiris he was a voice of reason and moderation. Yet, all the paeans were preserved for him only in death – when they were worthless. People like him should have been engaged with when they were alive and striving for a sustainable dialogue process.

Less than a week after Shujaat’s assassination, the expected and the inevitable happened. The BJP summarily abandoned Mehbooba Mufti and left her scrambling to hold together a party that is in serious danger of splitting. She lost one of her most efficient colleagues when she sacked her finance minister, Haseeb Drabu. Now she stands virtually isolated, as her own legislators attack her for running the party like a family firm. ‘Mehbooba reduced the PDP to a party of uncles and aunts,’ said Imran Ansari, a former colleague of hers told me. The PDP has not splintered yet, but there are serious realignments as a third political force galvanizes around Sajad Lone, separatist turned mainstream politician.

You could argue that this is normalization of a kind. The splitting of parties, the cobbling together of numbers, the flip-flops of politicians – this is what democracy looks like in other states, so why not in Kashmir? I wish that it were that simple. What has happened in the state is much more dangerous. There is no party that is able to straddle the regional divide of Jammu and Kashmir. In other words, for the most part, you are either a party that wins Hindu votes in Jammu or Muslim votes in Kashmir. That in itself communalizes the conversation beyond repair. And worse, Kashmiris have understood, that irrespective of whom they elect, the chief minister will have only cosmetic powers, especially if she or he is dependent on any national party for support.

 

Third, there is a serious fatigue factor with the two family-driven parties – the National Conference and the PDP, both of which are run by leaders who have inherited power instead of earning it. That is not to take away from the very tough and often life-threatening jobs that both Mehbooba and Omar do. But the truth is that the people of Jammu and Kashmir deserve a wider array of options if democracy is really to take roots. I am told that Shah Faesal, the Indian Administrative Service topper and Shehla Rashid, the Jawaharlal Nehru University student activist, are both readying to join the National Conference. How I wish they would form their own party instead; a new force, with a new beginning, that makes a break from the establishment politics that have steered Kashmir to a sorry dead end after all these decades. What is tragic is that political workers have paid with their lives to make elections possible in the state. But today a mountain-high stack of lost opportunities confronts us.

 

What is really needed is a recognition in Delhi that we are playing with fire in Kashmir. It has slid into the worst phase I have seen it in during the 29 years of turmoil. Security agencies will find a way to contain militancy. But the tougher consequence of all that has happened is the delegitimization of the two main Kashmir parties. While Mehbooba and Omar can rightfully claim that some of the fault lies in the denialism and inconsistency of Delhi, they must take their share of the blame for the unravelling of state politics. Both leaders have responded to the biggest crises of their tenures by shutting themselves off from all public communication and retreating into an ivory tower of silence. And neither has been ready to own the more contentious security related decisions in the state, preferring to put the onus of those on the police and the army.

Kashmir stands at a precipice today. Ahead is a steep fall, behind is just more of the same. For decades the mistake Delhi made was to try and ‘manage’ the problem instead of addressing it. Now, with the unmaking of mainstream parties and their growing irrelevance, things are so grave that even a holding pattern is tough. The writ of the state needs to be restored before we can even talk about politics.