Sarpanch Killings, Elections, Pandits: What Modi Did Not Talk About in J&K

Things seem under control, but militancy and corruption continue – and there's too much focus on PR.

PM Narendra Modi visited Jammu recently. 

(Photo: The Quint)

Let’s first look at what Prime Minister Narendra Modi didn’t say during a much-publicised visit to Jammu on Sunday.

He said nothing about Assembly elections. Many politicians and aspirants in the Union Territory have fondly speculated that elections could be held this autumn, but I don’t see that happening.

The Prime Minister spoke primarily to panchayat members, not only from the Union Territory but also from other parts of the country. His talk of empowering them is an oft-repeated theme, though it has not really been implemented on the ground.

Indeed, for some panchs and other residents of the Kashmir Valley, there was a bitter irony to this talk of strengthening panchayats, coming as it did in the wake of attacks on and the killings of several sarpanchs in the Valley.

Power Crisis, and Bitterness Over Arrangements

In fact, for many Kashmiris on social media, the viral message about the event that made the most impact was the video of a sarpanch sleeping on the roadside in the heart of Jammu, along with some companions.

The somewhat older man complained to his interviewer that no proper arrangements had been made for their stay, even though bureaucrats had promised (when they were sent for the Prime Minister’s programme) that they would be well looked after.

Modi stressed in his speech that the village community had voluntarily fed those who arranged his function, pointing to grassroots enthusiasm. However, many in the erstwhile state are used to payments for attending political functions – and privileges for participating in politics at all.

The power crisis was highlighted—in that video and in social media commentary. For many citizens in the Union Territory, relatively continuous power supply is shorthand for the real delivery of ‘development’. For, on the whole, the place has a great deal of visible wealth – at least in the Valley.

No Big Investments, Nor a Message for Pandits

Some businessmen and others had hoped that the Prime Minister would announce big private investments and employment generation plans. There has been much talk in recent months of massive investment from the Gulf, but nothing seems to have actually emerged.

Given the sharp focus recently on the ethnic cleansing of Pandits, highlighted in a recent feature film, some expected that the Prime Minister might announce a plan for their rehabilitation in the Valley. But such hopes, too, were dashed.

The Lack of Interest in What Modi Had to Say

The general lack of interest in the Prime Minister’s speech was remarkable. The number of people who tuned in to hear it was negligible compared with how many Kashmiris used to be glued to TVs when former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee addressed a gathering in the state – as in April 2003.

No wonder. The award of land deeds to a few individuals at the hands of the Prime Minister (a highlight of the event) could hold little interest among people whose grandparents’ lives were transformed by very radical land reforms between 1949 and 1975.

Bureaucrats’ Swamitva

What did intrigue at least one leading politician was the announcement of a `Swamitva’ scheme to aerially map and register afresh rural land ownership. That could potentially revamp land ownership in the states where it is to be implemented. It would naturally spark interest, and concerns.

But that leading politician, who happens to control a great deal of land, was publicly told not to worry about the scheme, since it did not concern him. That was a District Collector’s response when the politician asked what the scheme was, after the collector announced that his district had already implemented the scheme ‘100 per cent’.

To some observers, that exchange demonstrated the current power balance between the putative politicians of the place and its officials. Clearly, bureaucrats rule.

What Prime Minister Modi COULD Have Said

This speech could have been an opportunity for the Prime Minister to take the high ground by focusing on the big picture of geopolitics. That might have found an eager audience among Kashmiris, who tend to be untiring commentators on politics and geopolitics.

He could, for example, have made at least a tangential reference to how recent visits by international dignitaries demonstrate how much India is valued by all sides in the current Ukraine war. Even without his explicitly saying so, that would have highlighted former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s public statements lauding India’s independent foreign policy. It would also have underlined Khan’s allegation that interference, even to the extent of regime change, is easily accomplished in Pakistan by foreign powers.

Is the Govt Getting Complacent?

That Modi didn’t tap into that theme suggests complacence. The government evidently does not feel the need to address gradually abating separatist aspirations – or the prospect of elections, which would re-empower once-established politicians.

Even some of the most demonstratively patriotic Kashmiri Muslims seem to be on the back foot. A couple of those who went out of their way to hoist the national flag at Lal Chowk on Republic Day complain that there has been no response to their repeated requests that a flag mast be permanently fixed on the clock tower.

Perhaps such patriotism doesn’t fit in the road map on which the government is tightly focused. As things stand, bureaucrats rule. The police have a firm grip. Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) men work at the micro-level. And the state apparatus is weeding out employees that it considers undesirable in various departments – a process that has progressed in stages.

Meanwhile, militancy continues to spurt; corruption remains on even keel. All this while key arms of the state, including the forces, expend energies and money on publicity and projection.

(The writer is the author of ‘The Story of Kashmir’ and ‘The Generation of Rage in Kashmir’. He can be reached at @david_devadas. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)