{"id":12748,"date":"2018-10-02T07:49:15","date_gmt":"2018-10-02T02:19:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kashmir.today\/?p=12748"},"modified":"2018-10-02T07:49:15","modified_gmt":"2018-10-02T02:19:15","slug":"understanding-fall-government","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/?p=12748","title":{"rendered":"Understanding the fall of a government"},"content":{"rendered":"

To understand the knockout punch delivered by the BJP to the PDP months ago, we must dig deep<\/strong><\/i><\/h3>\n

Siddiq Wahid<\/i><\/strong> <\/i><\/p>\n

The first business of politicians is to acquire power. Usually their second errand is to build an edifice to retain power. Their third and crucial task, often neglected, is to regulate the use of power to prevent abuse. So, to say that a government collapsed because \u2018politicians are interested only in power\u2019, as some analyses have done, is to state the self-evident. And stating the obvious fosters tolerance for the merely acceptable, as opposed to the search for what is right.<\/i>
\nTherefore, to understand the knockout punch delivered by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to the People\u2019s Democratic Party (PDP) a month ago, we must dig deep. The so-called coalition became dysfunctional almost immediate after it was born and turned out to be a treacherous mismatch. Why? <\/i><\/p>\n

Because on the one hand the BJP is the synthetic outcome of an organizational network that has been cultivated for a century with a clear vision of a territorial, literalist and puritanical Hindu India. The Muslim-majority State of J&K has been a threat to all these claims. The PDP, on the other hand, is an infant political party. Its vision was drafted to nuance divide-and-rule. Its mission was crafted to clip the wings of the National Conference (NC). Its politics is defined by individual guile rather than collective wisdom. It underestimated the BJP\u2019s potency.<\/i>
\nIn coalescing with the BJP, the late Mufti Mohammed Sayeed\u2019s stated ambition was to \u201cchange the politics\u201d of the state. But it was delusional to think that this could succeed in alliance with a party that is diametrically the opposite of the PDP in historical maturity, stated creed and tactical prowess. And, also, a party that the PDP vilified during the 2014 campaign. Consequently, both PDP Chief Ministers were forced to swallow the uncertainty of several ups and downs and the indignity of repeated affronts and insults. In advancing a tactic that was a colossal miscalculation and a cynical gamble, the PDP overestimated its capability.<\/i>
\nIt is normal to overestimate oneself at times and, at other times, to underestimate others. But to do both at the same time is to fall prey to hubris, false pride. <\/i><\/p>\n

A predictable fall<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n

The formal collapse of the government was predictable, especially after the death of the architect of the PDP\u2019s strategy and tactics. There has been a lot of finger-pointing between coalition partners, but common sense tells us that both parties are equally to blame.<\/i>
\nThe BJP\u2019s motives for initiating the final fall are not difficult to discern. It desperately needs to consolidate its strategy for the 2019 general elections. J&K, as a Muslim majority state, has always rankled the BJP-RSS combine. Short of decreeing demographic flooding (as is openly advocated by its more radical family members) the BJP is doing all it can to foment Hindutva-centric politics in Kashmir. The PDP has provided it with a toehold in the state that may become a permanent platform for it in the astonishingly short span of three and a half years. To start Campaign 2019 in the J&K state is to strike at two birds \u2013 the state and the general elections \u2013 with a single stone.<\/i>
\nA second BJP inspired reason for bringing down the government is the failure of the military\u2019s Operation All Out, which was designed to not let human rights violations be a hindrance to policy. The Report of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights was a stinging rebuke. The BJP cannot be seen as weak by its base, so the world\u2019s bulkiest democracy has resorted to stone-walling and its brazen denial of human rights violations. In this approach, it panders to that audience.<\/i>
\nThe PDP\u2019s role in the fall is simpler: weaknesses in its individual and collective leadership. At the start of her political career, Mehbooba Mufti distinguished herself with a startling instinct and capacity for political mobilization. She sympathized with individuals, stirred crowds and protested cruelty, of which there was plenty, as there is now, between 2000 and 2014. It served her well as an opposition leader. Then, during the 2002 \u2013 2008 coalition with the Congress, it was helpful as a good-cop-bad-cop routine between mentor and mentee. But in power the second time around, especially after her father\u2019s passing, she has proven herself unable to sit at a table to dialogue and negotiate with her party colleagues or with the BJP. She became untenable as the Chief Minister of a state that is all about negotiating, both internal and external.<\/i>
\nTo be fair, Ms. Mufti was emotionally blackmailed by the loss of her father and political mentor. She believed that her father\u2019s political legacy was his role in the formation of the party. In truth, his legacy was his ability to compromise and cobble coalitions for a party without a history. His daughter was not required to acquire such dexterity. On becoming Chief Minister, it was too late to learn these skills for herself and she was unable to them in those in her ambitious coterie who possessed it. In their turn the coterie, rather than compensate for the void in her political skills, used the vacuum to further their own personal ambitions.<\/i>
\nIt resulted in the PDP becoming a party of ambitious individuals rather than a party with an ambitious vision.<\/i><\/p>\n

Fallout \u2013 the local dimension<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n

The coalition\u2019s collapse has had many fallouts \u2013 personal and party; state and national; local and global. Some thoughts on the two spaces paired in the last category.<\/i>
\nThe security approach in J&K has not been different through several governments in Delhi. Today, it has an overtly stated Kashmir policy. To understand it we need to travel to the other end of the Himalaya. In Assam, the government has a proposal to \u201cdelete\u201d (digitally speaking) millions of Muslims from the electoral roles. In Kashmir, such a brazen policy will not succeed. But the restructuring of the polity through Hindutva assertion, \u201cmilitarized pilgrimage\u201d and the recruitment of snollygosters are already in play as tactics.<\/i>
\nStrategically, the PDP may have \u201cchanged the politics\u201d of J&K state since 2002 but it has also helped Delhi restructure the polity to disable any homegrown party from forming a government singly. Logically, this suggests that the task of the regional political parties must be to foil (\u201cundo\u201d, again digitally speaking) this practice. Instead, the two PDP Chief Ministers have stoically borne the many ups and downs and the indignity of affronts and insults during the 42-month life of the coalition. It should give pause for thought.<\/i>
\nFor the every-person in Kashmir the mask has been off since 2008. But between 2016 and 2018 she has had to bear the costs of a murderous muscularity that the numerically senior partner in the coalition, the PDP, was unwilling to protest and unable to reject with any conviction. Its non-action has revived armed rebellion and confirmed Kashmiri apprehension about Indian intent. <\/i><\/p>\n

The global dimension <\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n

Delhi\u2019s stated policy on the State of J&K has enhanced the dispute\u2019s international dimension. We have already mentioned the 2018 OHCHR Report. The Government of India\u2019s knee jerk denials and self-righteous responses have only underscored its false reasoning, which was aptly rebutted by the UN Secretary General. It is a tactical defeat for India on the global stage.<\/i>
\nThere may be strategic set-backs too. New Delhi and Washington have drawn closer to each other since the collapse of the Cold War regime. Almost immediately after 1991, the United States saw Delhi as a counterweight to Beijing\u2019s assertiveness in South Asia. By 2014 Narendra Modi\u2019s charm offensive (his invite to the South Asian states for his inauguration, for example) and self-confident (56-inch chest) personality were also cause for hope in Washington\u2019s relations with a presumed democratic government. However, the charm and democracy quotients have both been belied. Delhi is hugely isolated in its neighborhood and an irrational Indian Islamophobia has sharply raised doubts about India\u2019s democratic robustness. This is not lost on the United States. An insulated and nominally democratic India is no match against a \u201cChina-Pakistan Axis\u201d, to cite Andrew Small\u2019s book of that title, in the emerging Asian geopolitical order.<\/i>
\nIt would be facile to suggest, on the strength of the above, that the India-US \u201cstrategic partnership\u201d is under any imminent threat. South Asia as a marketplace for corporate wealth interests is still a strong argument. But that too is strained. A Washington based think-tank\u2019s recent analysis of the collapse of the J&K state government observes that although South Asia is \u201chome to a fourth of the world\u2019s population\u201d, it is economically stunted by the India-Pakistan discord. The region, notes the analysis, is not all good news with only \u201c5 percent trade integration, the lowest rate in the world\u201d.<\/i>
\nBut for the \u2018internationalization\u2019 of the troubles in J&K state to be of benefit to its citizens we must recognize this: that it is not a localized problem nor a global non-event. It is a part of globalization, the process, which has rapidly complicated the dispute since the 1990s. Its resolution must be framed in the context of globality, the idea. If we ignore these facts, South Asia\u2019s future will be politically, economically and environmentally disastrous.<\/i><\/p>\n

Tailpiece<\/strong><\/i><\/p>\n

The failures of the coalition government also had a positive effect: namely, greater articulacy in the resistance. This is epitomized by the eloquent, logical and internally conciliatory treatise of the scholar-rebel, Manan Wani. First published by CNS, but taken down several times since, it is an essay that illustrates Kashmir\u2019s place as \u201cone of the most politically mature nations of the world\u201d. We must believe it and act accordingly.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To understand the knockout punch delivered by the BJP to the PDP months ago, we must dig deep Siddiq Wahid The first business of politicians is to acquire power. Usually their second errand is to build an edifice to retain power. Their third and crucial task, often neglected, is to regulate the use of power […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12751,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12748\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}