PDP-BJP ALLIANCE - The Best Thing for J&KAmitabha Pande

There is much agonising about the `fractured verdict' in Jammu and Kashmir.

The BJP-baiter gloats about the Modi magic not having really worked. The Modi

supporter derives comfort from the huge increase in the party's vote share. The PDP

is seen as being in a catch-22 situation: damned if it aligns with the BJP and damned

if it doesn't. The National Conference (NC) is a gleeful voyeur and the Congress is

neither here nor there. Is it possible, however, to treat this `fracture' as the best

thing that could have happened to J&K?

Political parties in India are not ideology-driven. The core agenda for everyone is

simply to get into government. Ideological postures are a means to woo specific

constituencies and matter little once power is captured.The PDP did not lose

anything when it combined with the `agents of Delhi' the last time it was in

government when separatist sentiments ruled.Those sentiments are weaker now.

Coming together with the BJP is a political risk that a maestro like Mufti

Mohammad Sayeed can easily take.For the BJP, the removal of Article 370 or

resisting the removal of the Armed Forces Special Protection Act (AFSPA) is just

political claptrap, not an article of faith.

Like the Ram Mandir or the uniform civil code, these posturing have limited

propaganda value to keep the party hard core appeased. So, making heavy weather

of the BJP and the PDP coming together is naïve.

Ironically , no one seems to reflect on how much more divisive and wounding the

situation would have been if either of these two parties had achieved a majority on

its own. The BJP would have interpreted it as a mandate to steamroll the Kashmiri

identity into its own version of homogenised Hindutva. The PDP would have ended

up alienating the rest of India further by harping on the exclusiveness of the

Kashmiri identity and the need to give it specific expression. The fact that neither

can pursue their separate agendas is a huge blessing, and not just in disguise.

There are some remarkable features of this verdict that make a possible coming

together of the PDP and the BJP a very healthy proposition. First, the verdict has

come out of possibly the freest and fairest elections in J&K's history . Second, the

voters have turned out in unprecedented numbers. Third, it is a vote for all parties to

respect the diversity of J&K. It opposes the hegemony of any one region, community

or political credo and compels them to strike a balance and revisit their unilateral

positions.

Much is made of the irreconcilability of the stated positions of the BJP and the

PDP and how their marriage, if it takes place, is foredoomed. In actuality , not only

does Narendra Modi's BJP -as distinguished from the traditional BJP elements in

Jammu have more in common with the PDP than with any other party , but their

marriage presents an opportunity that has a revolutionary potential not just for

Jammu & Kashmir but for the country as a whole. It is doubtful whether the two

actually see this potential themselves, but it deserves to be highlighted

nevertheless.

That potential lies in the BJP using the alliance to redesign the architecture of

federalism and devolved governance around the concept of self-rule elaborated by

the PDP in 2008. The document is one of the most well-crafted political documents to

ever come out of an Indian political party and can form the basis for a complete

revamp of India's federal architecture.

It also provides an opportunity to channel the `azadi' discourse into the larger

federalism debate across the country -particularly in the northeast -and

accommodating a diversity of forms of sub-national governance. In one stroke, it

accommodates the yearning for separate regional identities within this larger

discourse, taking away the stigma of separatism and relating the `Kashmir issue' to

similar aspirations for devolution elsewhere.

What's more, it provides the means by which the vexed issue of Pakistan

Occupied Kashmir can also be brought within the ambit of the federalism

confederalism discourse. This could provide the means for an IndiaPakistan

rapprochement on the lines envisioned by Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Prime Minister Modi has loudly championed the need for redesigning governance

along federal lines. The PDP provides him with just that opportunity . Can we expect

him now to seal the pact and have Muzaffar Hussain Baig, the author of the self-rule

document, head a Federalism Commission tasked to redesign a bold, new federal

architecture for India in which J&K will have a special place?

The writer is former secretary, government of India