Irrespective Of Supreme Court Verdict, Kashmir Remains An Unsettled Issue

By Sushil Kutty

Is Kashmir now settled issue? The Supreme Court verdict says ‘Yes’ and National Conference Chief Farooq Abdullah put his seal of approval to the Supreme Court verdict on the abrogation of Article 370. Nobody could have put it more succinctly than Farooq Abdullah, not even his son Omar Abdullah. In King’s language, when asked to sum up the top court’s verdict, Abdullah said, “To hell with Jammu and Kashmir”.

Wrapped in a Kashmiri shawl, Abdullah, whose family’s affinity with Article 370 is legend, appeared unhappily reconciled to the fait accompli, resulting in the denouement “let Jammu and Kashmir go to hell”. The Supreme Court verdict on the abrogation of Article 370 will never be bedtime story in the Abdullah household. The fact that Farooq did not shout his defiance underlined how lost Article 370 has become to the Abdullah family in the five years since its abrogation.

Of course, Farooq Abdullah does not agree despite his clipped diatribe. “They betrayed people. They want to win people’s hearts. How’d you win that if you’d do such things to push people farther away?” the one-time strongman of Kashmir sought to explain the current thinking on Kashmir in the Valley.

Farooq Abdullah believes the yawning gap between ‘Kashmiryat’ and ‘Bharatiyat’ has grown since the abrogation of Article 370. The BJP, of which Union Home Minister Amit Shah is a valued member, says “Abdullah’s true face” is showing. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party is having a grand run and doesn’t need to present a bold face.

As far as the Bharatiya Janata Party is concerned, the party is in the midst of “achche din” with more to come. But naturally, India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru came in for criticism and the BJP attacked him for the decades of violence in the Valley, which accounts for the persistent instability there, as well, notwithstanding Article 370.

Some believe that thanks to Nehru, and his soft corner for Sheikh Abdullah, Pakistan remained the elephant in the room as far as Kashmir went. And because it is the BJP which is running the show nowadays, saffron icon-ideologue Shyama Prasad Mukherjee isn’t far from the discussion. In fact, but for Shyama Prasad, the BJP wouldn’t have had anything to say on and about Kashmir. Whether or not Kashmir needed Article 370 and all that it brought to the state, which now is a Union Territory.

Farooq Abdullah, for one, cannot be more generous to Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the man behind J-K’s special status, which caught Amit Shah’s jaundiced eye much to the grief of Farooq Abdullah, whose fondness for Nehru never eroded. “When Article 370 was brought, Sardar Patel was in Parliament and Pandit Nehru was in America,” he said, stressing that Shyama Prasad Mukherjee was also party to the imposition of Article 370.

The only hope now is for immediate elections in Jammu and Kashmir. The Supreme Court has asked this of the Election Commission. The apex court has also stressed on a return to “state-status” for J-K ASAP, but whether the executive will step forward is uncertain. The Supreme Court has set a September 2024 deadline for a return to statehood and elections. Farooq Abdullah would have liked immediate return to statehood and elections and he asked, “The Supreme Court gave them time till September, where’s the justice?”

Across the LoC there’s Pakistan stewing in the juices of its own expectations shattered by India’s Supreme Court. Pak media is all about “colonization of Kashmir” and how India’s Supreme Court has dashed the hopes of “innocent Kashmiris” who, say Pakistani commentators, are being hounded, abducted and killed in what Pakistanis call “held-Kashmir”. The reality is, Pakistan cannot intervene.

And, if it does interfere, that will be the end of the Pakistan Occupied Kashmir.

Meanwhile, “Kashmir’s struggle for the right of self-determination” and “exposing India’s sinister designs at international forums” are the talk of Pakistani towns. Fact is, India cannot talk of justice for Palestine and at the same time push the Kashmir issue under the radar. As long as there remains Pakistan, from the river to the sea, the Kashmir issue will remain unsettled business. (IPA Service)

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