A sense of realism is integral to politics. Unfortunately, this is not the case with the parties of various hues here. The result is that even when a government is seen to be taking action in national interest, support for it comes only or mostly from the ruling party. An example is the abrogation of Article 370 thereby removing the special status of Jammu and Kashmir by the NDA government in 2019. Former Union minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, a seasoned Congress leader who quit the party and formed his own Progressive Azad Party some time ago, has admitted that the abrogation has helped “end the scourge of terrorism and stone-pelting” in the harried Valley. This is well-known but it is quite uncommon for an opposition political party leader to acknowledge such things, let alone support such actions. Azad means well for his own people in Kashmir and means well for the nation as well. This is the reason why he has qualified this statement with an observation that this administrative change brought about by the Centre is, however, not “good” for the people in the Valley.
Admittedly, the entire opposition did not stand against the abrogation in 2019. Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, for one, backed the historic government decision. To the common eye, this decision on the part of the Modi-led government was a master-stroke. The decision was taken shortly after it won the parliament polls for a second term in office and Amit Shah took charge as the new home minister. The Congress party, principally Rahul Gandhi, had opposed the move along with the rootless, visionless-leadership of the Left. Most other opposition parties remained silent on this count. They chose to play safe. Admittedly, Kashmir is not still back to the level of a fabled ‘paradise on earth’. Stray acts of terrorism are occurring, but the terror outfits have obviously lost steam. Stone-pelting by belligerent youths on the security forces is certainly an old story.
More importantly, the youths in Kashmir have begun minding their business of studies or finding jobs. Concurrently, the Pakistani establishment and its mischief-mongering military have begun lying low vis-à-vis their vicious engagements against India. Fact is, it is difficult to sustain terrorism for too long. The LTTE ended up in a whimper after its assaults for a quarter of a century; so with Al Qaeda and the ISIS or the outfits in Europe like Sinn Fein; so with the militant outfits of the past in the North-East region, though Manipur has emerged as a new worry now. By their very nature, such outfits have an expiry date. State power cannot be neutralized with violence.