Reaping his first, slender electoral gains by means of divisiveness in the 2024 general elections, Congress scion Rahul Gandhi is pushing the envelope in a place where history is written with blood. Addressing a public rally at Sangaldan, in Banihal Assembly constituency of Jammu and Kashmir’s Ramban district, Rahul accused the Modi government of giving the benefits meant for the people of J&K to “outsiders”.
This is politics at its most immoral, most cynical.
That ‘outsider’ word has taken the lives of hundreds, if not thousands, in the state. The entire Islamist narrative in J&K is that anybody other than Kashmiri Muslims is an ‘outsider’ and fit to be converted, driven out, or killed. One does not have to delve into history for examples.
On April 17 this year, terrorists shot a trader from Bihar, Raja Shah, in Bijbehara, Anantnag district. On April 8, terrorists shot at and injured Delhi-based taxi driver Dilranjit Singh in Padpawan, Shopian district. On February 7, terrorists shot dead Amritpal Singh, a labourer from Amritsar in Punjab in Habba Kadal, Srinagar. Another non-local worker, Rohit Mashi, from Amritsar, was injured and died a day later.
Data compiled by South Asia Counter Terrorism Portal (SATP) shows there have been eight attacks on civilians resulting in eight civilian deaths till May 26 this year. The toll in the corresponding period in 2023 was the same, with ‘outsiders’ or non-locals bearing the brunt of the violence.
The attacks on ‘outsiders’ are also prompted by nervousness among Islamists regarding the nearly 70 lakh domicile certificates issued to those living and working in J&K who have come from across the country. The separatists feel their stranglehold on the state’s demographic is slipping away, with the Centre also settling families of security forces and displaced Kashmiri Pandit families.
Article 370, which the Narendra Modi government scrapped on August 5, 2019, barred outsiders from settling permanently or buying property in Kashmir. The Modi government also brought delimitation in the state which has increased the total number of seats in the state by seven. Six seats were added in Jammu, and one in Kashmir to take the total number of assembly constituencies to 90.
Islamist lobbies and parties like the National Conference and the PDP have been upset by the added weightage given to Jammu over Muslim-majority Kashmir. They have stoked Islamists’ feelings over both delimitation and domicile, making the environment ripe for violence against ‘outsiders’.
Now, Rahul Gandhi has directly fed into the insecurities of jihadis and put a target on the back of every man or woman who is not a Kashmiri Muslim. As the leader of India’s main Opposition party, it is both irresponsible and sinister.
Abhijit Majumder is a senior journalist. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
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