Retributions  

It is important to acknowledge that Article 370 is a liberal concern

Writing in the Times of India, Jug Suraiya seems genuinely perplexed by what should be the liberal reaction to Article 370. Well, if intellectual honesty is  valued, then the answer is clear enough. Nevertheless, kudos to Suraiya for at least discussing Article 370 especially with Mumbai drama capturing national headlines.

But defending his “secular-liberal” fellow travellors, Suraiya makes a curious assertion,

The parivar’s game plan which the secular-liberals have so far thwarted has been to ’saffronise’ the Valley through mass Hindu migration and so resolve the so-called ‘Kashmir problem’ once and for all. The liberal quandary now is how to continue to make a special case for Kashmir while siding, however uncomfortably, with the parivar’s assertion that all of India should be equally hospitable to all Indians. [link]

Now, suppose for a moment this was BJP/RSS game plan from the beginning. Considering the population of the valley, to effect such a demographic transformation would require migration of millions of Hindus from rest of the country. Unless Suraiya believes that RSS controls an army of zombies who will move to any geographical location in the name of Hindu interest—family, job, and societal considerations be damned—it is curious how this giant conspiracy was to be effected. Amusing indeed that subsequently Suraiya pats the back of “secular-liberals”—in other words, his own—for thwarting this magnificent product of his overactive imagination! Perhaps, Suraiya should be worried about the demographic shift which actually happened in Kashmir: the ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of Kashmiri Pandits from the valley.

It would have been more useful if Suraiya had acknowledged the intellectual dishonesty, and indeed pusillanimity which allows some to support Article 370 and yet be vehemently opposed to Thackeray’s parochial politics. But that he has even given it some thought is a useful start in it self.