Grand convulsions of our politics

If art-of-possible means all is fair, then politics is a filthy game with dangerous consequences for people. If making a compromise is a definitive indicator of the absence of moral anchor, that is no less a dangerous proposition. It makes politics a rotten organism. In both the cases people suffer. And we have suffered both ways.

If the depth of character and the capacity to negotiate are applied as standards to measure the performance of our political parties, we have very little to celebrate. This is not a cynical comment, and not at all a moral judgment. It is only a rational appraisal of our political parties, we should always do, without condemning the people associated with these parties. Politics is a work in progress. If, as a society, we improve our political behaviour, existing political parties can be made more responsible and smart than what we find them right now. This society can also think of having a fresh political gathering in the years to come.

The political journey of modern Kashmir starts with Muslim Conference. Muslim Conference was a short-lived organism; Kashmir suffered a bereavement soon, and suffered long time. National Conference was born, and many would believe that it was an outcome of an in vitro fertilisation.

Whatever, it is the National Conference around which the politics of the post 1947 Kashmir revolves. Once again our politics looks like circumambulating this pillar of the past. Given the situation, National Conference looks like a political inevitable for Kashmiris. That is how it is, and that is how politics behaves. There are no surprises in it, though we find it too much for our belief.

So what is National Conference to us? A political party that stands for our political needs, whatever those are right now, or a soft trap that sticks without pricking us too much this time. In fact it feels like a silky touch after the abrasions of August 5^th. One really doesn’t know how, and what, to write about NC at a moment when we are in a state of political disintegration; even NC cannot escape that fate if, God forbid, it happens as an aftermath of the current J&K assembly elections.

But certain things remain. National Conference should someday organise an honest conversation on this within itself, if it has to recover itself as a credible political party that people can trust even when there is no threat of some BJP to devour us.

The mega disillusionment at the level of political leadership is almost permanently cast in our mind and soul because of what the leadership of National Conference did to attain, or retain power. Ghalib has something to say that probably leaves nothing for anyone to say on this subject, anymore:

Kya Kiya Khizr Nai Sikandar Sai

Ab Kisai Rehnuma Karay Koi

Why should people trust National Conference on what it says now about the Muslim majority character of Kashmir, when the narrative of NC, throughout, was quite the contrary.

The symbolism and rhetoric of NC was shaped up by its decision to adopt a secular-nationalist character. Now that the Indian politics turned upside down, is it time to change in substantial ways? How would NC explain to the people all the flip flops it did to be on the ‘right side of Delhi’? How would NC re-create a moral anchor for itself, and retain the capacity to negotiate with the changing political realties? It is a very tough job, a very serious undertaking, and it is way beyond an electoral campaign. This may not be the right time to press for these questions, but certainly not the the wrong time to underline these points for a meaningful discussion, just after the elections.

The other extreme of our politics can be, for the sake of explaining, be assigned to Jamat e Islami. Here also we have earned a grand disillusionment, may be of a varied character. Jamat e Islami is a strange creature. It is inherently incapable of doing politics, yet stuffed with the belief that this party alone can provide political leadership. It is a party that always sniffed treason in a political negotiation. It is a party that always demonised others, and sanctified itself. For any Muslim society, like ours, the understanding of politics as reflected by Jamat-e-Islami, is an affliction. This party is not only itself incapable of doing politics, but it will, whenever it has any power, disallow others to do politics.

This time when we see its cadres and the leadership claim that they believe in ‘Democracy’, in ‘Constitution’, and have faith in ‘Elections’, one can only take refuge in Ghalib:

Thee Jo Ruswayee to Ghurbat main Uthaa laita Asad

Meeri Dilli main hi hooni thee ye khwari hai hai

If NC, as one extreme of our political leadership, symbolises total disillusionment, Jamat e Islami epitomises downright disgrace. The parties like PDP fit somewhere in the middle, neither here nor there.