BJP will now target Kashmiris as “anti-national” to win elections, says CPI(M)

After bringing down the PDP-led government in Jammu and Kashmir, the BJP will target Kashmiris as anti-national and harbourers of terrorists, the CPI-M has said.

"The BJP decision to bring down the government is a conscious political move keeping in mind the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections in 2019," said an editorial in the CPI-M journal "People's Democracy".

"The BJP is going to target the Kashmiris as anti-national and harbourers of terrorists. It has already accused the PDP-led government of having failed to tackle terrorism."

The Communist Party of India-Marxist said that the issue of Kashmir was necessary for the Bharatiya Janata Party for its political platform for the Lok Sabha elections in the whole country.

"It wants to project a communal campaign that while it has relentlessly sought to suppress 'terrorism' and protect national security, it was thwarted in this effort by the PDP and the Kashmiri Muslims who are soft on terrorism and Pakistan."

The reality, the editorial said, was the reverse.

"The BJP has done the most damage to national unity and national security by alienating the Kashmiri people as a whole and driving hundreds of youth to militancy and taking up the gun... All told, the Modi government's Kashmir policy has been a disastrous failure.

"For the BJP, Kashmir is expendable, for the larger design of mobilizing Hindu sentiments around the country," it said.

The CPI-M said that now that Governor's rule had been imposed in Jammu and Kashmir, the situation in the Valley had never been as bad as it was now.

"The bulk of the people, especially the youth, are not only alienated but do not want to have any truck with India.

"The reason for this lies squarely with the brutal repressive policy pursued by the central government and by its dictates to the state government."

It accused the Modi government of consistently refusing to initiate a political dialogue with all the political forces, including the separatist leadership of the Hurriyat.

"All this has resulted in hundreds of young men joining the militants. In the last year, there were more locally recruited militants than those who had infiltrated into Kashmir from across the border."