The Abdullahs must introspect, not abuse Modi

Of all the preposterous charges that Mr Narendra Modi's rivals have been dishing out, Mr Omar Abdullah's contention that Mr Jagmohan was responsible for the flight of Pandits from Kashmir valley is the most laughable. Enough has been written and known in the public domain about the real reasons why the Kashmiri Pandits fled their homes and to date continue to live virtually as refugees in parts of the country. Neither the Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister nor members of his National Conference can hope to succeed in twisting the reality at this stage. It is a matter of history that as the Centre's representative in the State in the mid-1980s — who later became a Minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee regime — Mr Jagmohan did the best he could to contain the crisis that had erupted out of the battle cry of the militants against the Pandits. It is equally a matter of record that the National Conference as a party had done precious little to come to the aid of the targeted Pandits and had failed — like so many other supposedly secular organisations — to stand up to the militants who wanted to purge the valley of the Pandits. The Chief Minister wants to escape the brunt of the attack by claiming that his party was not in power when the Pandits were forced to leave the valley in huge numbers. What explains the failure of the National Conference-Congress regime in the State over the years to win over the trust of the Pandits and persuade them to returnIJ The answer is that neither the State Government nor the party has been able to create a helpful environment for their return. On the contrary, the party and the Government have been on many occasions bending before the very elements that had terrorised the Pandits into leaving. The Government has been soft on militants, has lobbied for the removal of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act which hasworked as an effective restraint on militancy, and failed to assuage the hurt and anger among local self-Government leaders such as the panchayat members who have become sitting ducks for the militants. There is not one step that the Government or the National Conference has taken to demonstrate that their concern extends beyond the valley. Both ladakh and Jammu continue to nurse serious grievances against the step-motherly treatment they have been receiving.

Mr Modi is, therefore, not off the mark when he ridicules the National Conference for boasting about secularism when it had failed to address perhaps the most communally-driven purge in the country. The National Conference does not have a credible response to the allegation, which is why even its tallest leader and Union Minister Farooq Abdullah has frustratingly retort that Mr Modi's supporters must jump into the sea and that his State would never be part of a “communal India”. By ‘communal India', we assume he has in mind a country with Mr Modi as the Prime Minister. The people are wise, and if they give a mandate for the BJP and Mr Modi as Prime Minister, it will be for a genuinely secular India. Does Mr Abdullah plan to take Jammu & Kashmir out of India in such an eventualityIJ After all, the party has had a political history of allegedly fomenting trouble in the valley when it suited its petty interests.