After watching the Kashmir Files I came across many articles, write-ups, rants and what not about how the justice was not done with the Kashmiri Hindus even after 32 long years, how we should act now regarding this issue, how this directorial account throws light on what happened in Kashmir on 19th January 1990. I totally agree with all of them even I wrote 2 kind-of emotional rant/article. But on 13th March 2022 I came across one rant which threw light on the then government how they were incapable of handling the situation and even being in a coalition power with Janta dal the Bharatiya Janata party didn’t do or say anything about the situation at the time all this happened.
We all know that BJP has been the flag bearer against article 370 and article 35A who claims that everything that happened in Kashmir is due to the Congress Raj which is just ridiculous because in records it’s clear that during that period Kashmir was under governor’s rule and the Central Government was under the ruling of a coalition government of Janta Dal and BJP so it’s clear that Congress party didn’t have a stick in the burning pyre. But, that’s basically judging a book by its last chapter.
So, let’s try to look it in a way which I found most infallible. Yes I understand it’ll not be something which is gospel but it’ll be something par for the course because nobody can know what went through BJP’s leaders minds and why didn’t they pulled their support from the government exactly after the that tumultuous episode of Kashmir so I just went by connecting the dots about what happened in Kashmir from 1984 to 1990 for the question of how Islamic extremism grew in Kashmir under the rule of congress.
India got independence on 15 August 1947 and soon after the first war with Pakistan broke out on 22nd October 1947 and went on till 5th January 1949. The main result of the war was the creation of POK which we all can blindly give credit to JL Nehru who went to the UN for mediation without discussing it prior with his government’s cabinet ministers. This new land acquired by Pakistan became the nucleus for terrorist organizations to setup training camps for new inductees from India which is the exact situation till today. Now, let’s look at the situation which led to the Anantanag killings of 1986 and the infamous Kashmir exodus.
After the death of Sheikh Abdullah in 1982, the Prince of National Conference Farooq Abdullah was appointed as the president of National Conference and was sworn in as the Chief minister of Kashmir. After 2 years of being in power, his brother-in-law G.M. Shah broke away a faction of National Conference leading to the collapse of his government and his dismissal. Shah became the CM with support of congress. His government was dismissed after the Anantanag killings of 1986 and the governor’s rule was reinstated.After the 1986 killings the then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi “tried” resolve the issue of Kashmir by crediting Farooq Abdullah as his best bet to solve the Kashmir problem and he did so by signing the Farooq-Rajiv accord in November 1986 which reinstated the prior as the chief minister of Jammu & Kashmir.
This accord was opposed not only by the sitting opposition but even the Congress leaders like Mufti Syeed and Arun Nehru. Even the intelligence reports to Rajiv Gandhi mentioned about Farooq Abdullah’s connection to anti-national forces in Kashmir but he ignored all opposition and the Farooq-Rajiv accord was signed. On 7th November 1987 he was again sworn-in as the Chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir. For the time he was chief minister, insurgency and militancy reached its peak in J&K. After becoming the CM as his first landmark move he released 23 hard-core terrorists only to see Kashmir leading to the brink of disaster.
The trite argument was to allow them breathing space to enter main-stream politics. The trained terrorists went on destroying peace in Kashmir, resorting to loot, murder and arson, creating conditions for snapping the ties of Kashmir with India.As it is rightly said by Prof. M.L. koul in his book Kashmir past and present that Farooq Abdullah deliberately ignored the sinister activities and violence of the anti-India forces, which at the very first look appeared working at the behest of a neighboring country. There was no check imposed on the Muslim youth crossing over to the camps set up in POK. Any action proposed to check the outflow was stifled allowing things to happen. That the Muslim youth going in buses operating from Lal Chowk in Srinagar to Bandipora in district Baramulla and conductors crying hoarse that they were on way to POK were not stopped by law-enforcing agencies and bus owners neither arrested nor punished. The central leaders aware of the emerging lethal situation ignored it posing as models of inertia and non-governance.
Weren’t this be considered as sowing of seeds of something gruesome and disastrous for the state of Kashmir under the regime of the government of Farooq Abdullah with a back-end support of the then Congress govt. and can we not deduce that Farooq Abdullah knew about this massacre prior to its occurrence because Farooq Abdullah resigned just one day before the dreaded date and expecting the newly elected govt. of V.P. Singh to understand the Kashmir situation which was at its peak during the last months of December 1989 in a span of 1 month that got built under the Congress govt over a span of 5 years is utterly preposterous. Secondly, expecting the BJP to do something in that situation can never be understandable because BJP provided outside support without holding any role in the cabinet.
Thirdly, expecting BJP to pull its support from the government cannot be justified because if govt. was dissolved at such insurgent times and Congress being the largest party in Lok Sabha might’ve brought them back to power which might’ve helped in worsening the situation in Kashmir’s favor. At last, why didn’t Indian Army didn’t do anything because the army didn’t have carte blanche in Kashmir because the armed forces special powers act was imposed in Kashmir after 10th September 1990, a total of 100000 soldiers were busy with the Sri Lankan civil war commonly known as LTTE and without facts I cannot conclude that the then Home Minister Mufti Muhammad Syeed was involved with the anti-national elements but we can assume that he was scared of those elements due to the recent abduction of her daughter maybe that’s why he didn’t mobilized the remaining army in Kashmir.
Now, I’m at the last dot which is I think is the full stop so, after connecting all the dots and before adding the full stop we call can agree that the seed of Islamic extremism was sowed under the Rajiv-Farooq regime and blaming anybody else for the fruit that the tree gave in 1990 is just laughable.
