Srinagar: A video of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) cadre dancing at a rally in Budgam, in which a worker is waving toy guns and wearing the party’s green flag as headgear, has triggered a debate in Jammu and Kashmir about the radicalisation of mainstream political parties in the ongoing election campaign.
Many who have seen the video here say that the PDP worker was imitating Kashmiri militants who are often seen waving guns at funeral processions of other insurgents.
Some PDP detractors and politicians speaking to ThePrint saw the video as a performance that signals sympathy for the insurgents while others termed it as just a political gimmick ahead of the elections.
There are, of course, those who believe that the image of the man holding a toy gun in a public rally is somewhat the perfect analogy for the beleaguered state of mainstream politics in Kashmir.
Changing vocabulary
The narrative of the political campaign in this election does not quite glorify the insurgents but also does not condemn them unequivocally. It treads a tightrope of avoiding glorification of violence but sympathising with militants who are being killed in anti-insurgency operations.
The statements issued by the mainstream political parties and the overall tone of the rallies indicate that mainstream political parties, which advocate electoral politics in the state, are comfortable with this narrative.
Suhail Bukhari, the media advisor to former J&K CM Mehbooba Mufti, however, said the PDP’s stance hasn’t changed since its inception, even during the time it was in an alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
“Whatever we have been saying is no different from what we had stated before, for example in the body of content that forms the foundation of our agenda of alliance with the BJP,” Bukhari said.
But in an unprecedented speech in March, Mufti extolled her party workers as “real mujahideen (holy warriors)”. This had prompted some people to superimpose faces of PDP leaders, including Mufti, onto images of militants.
The National Conference (NC) has fared no better. A senior NC leader and former J&K law minister, Ali Sagar, said that it was his party workers who were the “real mujahideen”.
NC spokesperson Imran Dar later added that Sagar’s words were taken out of context. Dar also told ThePrint that there has been no change in the “political language” of the mainstream parties, even though his leader Omar Abdullah had said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is threatening the people of Kashmir.
When asked if he thinks that the posturing of local parties has become aggressive in the past few months Dar disagreed, saying, “If there is anyone who has become aggressive it is the Prime Minister who has attacked NC in all his rallies.”
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‘Marginalisation of the mainstream’
Kashmir-based political expert, professor Dr Noor Ahmad Baba, said that there has been the marginalisation of not only separatist politics but also of the mainstream, a phenomenon, he added, not witnessed in the Valley before.
“The space for idioms used by mainstream politicians here is shrinking,” Baba said. “Earlier, there was scope for discussion over self-rule, autonomy and a certain kind of nationalism that could be accommodated within the Indian Constitution but all that is gone. The posturing by mainstream politicians here is their last resort.”
BJP leader and Lok Sabha candidate for Srinagar constituency, Khalid Jahangir, says that the space for the mainstream has shrunk in the Valley.
“The truth is that both PDP and NC leaders are afraid of going amidst people. There is a lot of anger and the PDP and NC are still trying to hoodwink the public by giving such statements,” Jahangir said. “They don’t realise that the people of Kashmir are not aligned to such statements, they want roti, kapda and makaan.”
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