Bharatiya Janta Party General Secretary Ram Madhav has said that mainstream leaders of Jammu and Kashmir are trying to inject “dangerous Islamist discourse into state politics.”
“Sadly, out of desperate political expediency, the very same mainstream leaders, forgetting their own history, are trying to inject a dangerous Islamist discourse into the state politics today,” Mr. Madhav said in an opinion piece for a local daily.
He further termed the “exploiting of Kashmiris by mainstream politicians as obnoxious”, “It is true that radical Islamism is growing in the Valley. Terror groups with that narrative are trying hard to gain currency. Turkey and Erdogan are increasingly finding space in this new narrative. But to exploit it for political ends by mainstream leaders is most obnoxious,”
Adding that the ordinary Kashmiri still largely believes in syncretism and abhors communal agendas, “Hendis te Musalmaanas” is the phrase ordinary Kashmiri uses even today while seeking the God for good health or good life. It is like praying: “God save Hindus and Muslims”.
Mr. Madhav while talking about the 1990s said, “When radical Islam dominated the Valley the last time in the 1990s, the Pandits became its victims and forced to leave the Valley. It didn’t spare the Valley Muslims either. Pakistani Jihadists like Mast Gul had burnt down the sacred shrine of Charar-e-Sherif. Even Farooq Abdullah had to stay away from the Valley and cool his heels in London. Those trying to inject that dangerous discourse into Kashmiri mainstream politics once again must remember all this and the immense harm Gilani and the Jamaat have done to the Kashmiris themselves,”
“People of Kashmir have seen this expediency and deception in the past. When Sheik Abdullah was jailed by Nehru for sedition in 1953 and the Constitution (Application to Jammu and Kashmir) Order, 1954 was issued a year later, the Plebiscite Front was formed by the Sheik. After selling separatism for twenty years, Mirza Afzal Beig, the chairman of the Front, became a signatory to a compromise formula worked out between Indira Gandhi and Sheik Abdullah in 1975 accepting the sovereignty of Indian Constitution over the state,” Mr. Madhav wrote.
While taking a dig at the recent meeting of Kashmiri unionists at Gupkar, he said, “The Gupkar leaders are resorting to dangerous game once again, this time in the name of Islam,”.
