Promise of statehood to J&K is like amputating a person’s foot and offering him shoes: Iltija Mufti

My mother is still detained, not just at home, but under the Public Safety Act. Our house has been turned into a sub-jail. To a layperson it may sound trivial, but it is not. Nobody is allowed to come and she is not allowed to meet anybody, even her own immediate family.

I have been fighting every single day since August 2019 against a majoritarian regime that has gone rogue. They have thrown caution to the wind and they don’t seem to care about the law. They don’t seem to have moral or legal restraint.

This past year has taught me so much. I felt like I was thrown into the deep end. As a Kashmiri, I tried my best to raise the injustice meted to people of J&K on every forum, be it national or anti-national.

Personally, though my mother is my mother, I, oddly, feel responsible for her. For her safety. I think in the last one year, the roles have changed. I feel like I have mothered her. I have had to fight for her safety, for her protection.

For all Kashmiris this has been a collective trauma, a collective punishment, followed by anger, anxiety. It is a sense of just drifting; not knowing where you are heading. The past year has been incredibly hard. When a government is trying to break you emotionally, psychologically, financially, at some point it does take a toll.

For us, it has been a double lockdown. Our lockdown started a year before you started experiencing the lockdown. Our lockdowns are instituted by the police and it is a lockdown where they legitimise repression. We are not even allowed to come out on the streets.

We still don’t have 3G. Kashmiris find themselves in a dark place where they have suffered.

We have people who are trying to eke out a living, their kids have stopped going to school. They have not had a proper academic schedule for a year now. There is nobody in the valley who is not suffering.

If you look at it, individual liberty and freedom in this nation is contingent on whether you agree with the BJP or not. And that is not true of only politicians, but also true of journalists. If you toe their line, you get the ads, sponsors and revenue. In this country they are creating an atmosphere of patronage & fear. They do not want politicians to do what politicians do. My mother is a politician and ideally, she should have been out meeting people and gauging the mood in the valley. She has not been seen in public for almost a year. That is very worrying.

The reason she is not being released is because they know they can’t blackmail her. And that is why even I have been able to talk so freely. If you don’t accept their narrative, they’ll detain or blackmail you.

The government tried various pressure tactics to get her to agree and endorse their stand of abrogating 370. This included orchestrating a split in her party and also humiliating her personally at every level since the past year. Yet my mother’s resolve to fight for the dignity of her people hasn’t wavered and she’ll continue to fight.

This is humiliation. What else is this when the LG says that he would think of giving us 3G on Eid. Since when did 3G become a luxury? Until last year, you fooled the world by telling it that you would bring in development in the region. Look at how they spin the narrative. This is like rubbing salt on our wounds. In the middle of a pandemic, we don’t have 3G. In Parliament, they said that they have demoted the state to a Union Territory, but at some point, it would become a state. That is something BJP will do at their convenience. They have a sullen electorate in Jammu which is extremely upset with the BJP leadership and the BJP knows it. They cannot afford to rub them the wrong way as in Kashmir they will never win.

This whole statehood thing is like amputating a person’s foot and offering him shoes. They have taken everything from us – from a state that used to have its own Prime Minister. From that, they have demoted us. Why should we be pleading for statehood? They are not doing us any favours. They said it themselves that they would restore statehood, only because it suits their electoral interests. That is a political expedient decision for the BJP itself. Also the only thing that changes in such a scenario is the perks and privileges enjoyed by the CM and his cabinet. There is nothing in it for the people. In a UT, a CM is the advisor to LG and on the same level as a chief secretary whereas in a state, the governor is an advisor to the CM and doesn’t have the final say.

It’s a psychological move. They have taken everything we have, so that now we will forget the bigger things and we will beg for the smaller things. They feel that if they hadn’t taken the statehood, we would have been demanding for Article 370. Now, they want to shift the debate. They feel we will say that we will forget Article 370, but give us statehood. They must give us everything back. We are not beggars.

The state of Jammu and Kashmir signed the instrument of accession as equal partners with India. Shamelessly, BJP has violated those terms and now they expect us to go with a begging bowl. They must give everything – the special status, Article 370, 35A, we want our own Constitution and yes, we want to be a state too. This is the first time in the history of this country that a state has been demoted. Usually Union Territories become states. Look at what has happened here instead.

Just because they have a toxic Hindutva agenda to fulfil, they cannot decide to take away our statehood on a whim. They want to demonise Muslims and punish Muslims. Who are they fooling? The masses?

People in Jammu are also highly dissatisfied with BJP and that is why these people are talking about statehood. If they lose Jammu, they lose the entire state. Even people there are disillusioned with whatever is happening.

I think it’s a joke. They should replace the world development with humiliation. They know that in the last one year, no ‘development’ has taken place in the state. Article 370 has nothing to do with ‘vikas’. They have only served only humiliation on a platter to us. Nothing else.

In India, the situation is so bad that people can’t even buy new underwear. In the rest of the country their polices have reduced people to paupers. In Kashmir, people from Bihar and other parts of the country come to work to get a better pay. What development are they going to bring to the state that is better on most indices?

We don’t want BJP’s model of development. They should keep it for themselves.

This government is a joke. They have told the Supreme Court that they can’t restore 3G because of terrorism. What is wrong with the judiciary? They have covered their eyes and are behaving like an ostrich with its head in the sand.

Now, the BJP has stopped the militancy mumbo-jumbo because their own district president was shot in Bandipora early this month despite having security. If anything, infiltration here has only increased. The mainstream which served as the buffer has been completely removed in a deliberate manner. A propaganda has been unleashed to discredit mainstream parties. Who will a young person turn to if they feel let down by the country? Every day they see Muslims being lynched, shamed.

That is for the party to decide. If you are asking for my opinion – I think these elections are going to be a farce. Earlier, people had a belief that Delhi would control everything despite us having special status and statehood. Imagine the sense of control they have now considering they control police and the home department.

We will never know about the transparency of these elections. So, what elections?

They are pushing down the domicile law in Kashmir in the middle of a pandemic. COVID-19 has come as a blessing to autocratic regimes all over the world. India might be a democracy on paper, but in reality, we know we are heading towards a majoritarian rule which wants to impose one religion, one language on us. For a rich and a diverse country like ours, this will backfire.

So, I feel as a country we have lost our bearings. Even internationally, now Kashmir has become a tri-lateral issue. Their need to control the narrative in Kashmir has not been working out.

This government thinks that Jammu and Kashmir is a lab experiment, though this government feels so because they think they have this huge mandate. They couldn’t control China entering our territory.

There is going to be a reaction to whatever this government is doing and there are factors that are already working against them. Kashmir is an unpredictable place. Things will seem calm and everyone will say that people don’t seem to care and then something will happen and it will trigger a reaction.

I think, personally, as a Kashmiri I have tried to be as objective as possible. I think everybody (political parties, trade unions, lawyers) mustcome together. There is a time to fight amongst ourselves and disagree. But now we are fighting for our existence, our dignity and fighting for our future generations. I am fighting for what will be left for our grandchildren. I just hope we all unite as it is for a bigger and better cause. That is the only solution I see. Any kind of fissures at this time will serve only New Delhi’s interest.

Scrapping of the domicile law is not just going to affect mainstream parties, it is going to affect everybody. We really need to shift the questions we are asking. PDP works for Kashmiri people, but if they only cease to exist, who will they be working for. We need to understand that our priority is to save our state and our identity.

Revolutions and protesting don’t happen with permissions. If you are being oppressed, you have to fight against them. We all have to do our bit.