Long Distance Relationship

The distance from Delhi to Srinagar is not just 818 km by road or 643 km by air. The travel time is not 24-hours by road or an hour-and-a-half by air. The real distance cannot be known using a distance calculator or Google Maps. The GPS technology is of no use either. The distance is long. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s statement on Thursday during a rally at Sher-e-Kashmir Stadium in Srinagar is the acceptance of that fact.

On June 24, 2021, PM Modi said he wanted to end ‘Dil Ki Duri’ (distance of heart) as well as ‘Dilli Ki Duri’ (distance from New Delhi) with Jammu and Kashmir.

Fast forward to September 19, 2024, PM Modi reiterated that he would remove ‘Dil Ke Duri’ and ‘Dilli Ki Duri’.

A question that needs to be asked is what the government did in the past 3 years to bridge this distance or to be precise 1184 days since the statement was first made.

On June 24, 2021, PM Modi made one of those statements that make political speeches fascinating, if only for sheer flagrancy. Declaring a desire to “end the distance between New Delhi and Jammu and Kashmir”, he reflected an ambition to bridge not just geographical gaps but also the proverbial “distance between hearts”.

After the PM’s statement on September 19, 2024, one could be forgiven for wondering if anybody in the government has examined a map or even a thesaurus for ‘distance’ since those declarations.

Taking the PM’s word one assumes that J&K is just some quaint little hill station waiting for a bit of government transport. Yet for the people of the region, the reality is anything but snug.

Three years since this pronouncement, one can see a paradox as the distance between New Delhi and the people of J&K has only grown with policies that have turned bridges into barricades.

Let’s walk down memory lane to revisit those words. On that fateful June day in 2021, the PM seemed to be actually acting under an illusion to dissolve decades of mistrust and disenfranchisement through words. However, his government decided to double down on constitutional changes that effectively deprived J&K of its special status. A master move in Indian politics, no doubt, but not exactly the bridge-building exercise that he would have even before imagined.

September 2024 rolls on, and the slogan is back from the dead.

People of J&K have been faced with the heavy cost of New Delhi’s policies since then. And what happens when constitutional overreach becomes the norm and laws are imposed? Local governance is significantly eroded. Any person won’t fail to notice the irony the government promises to bridge distances by uprooting the very framework of regional federalism.

What’s next? A ballad on democracy by the very people curtailing it!

And then, of course, there’s the Big Boss that seems to have been deployed for the management of dissent. The irony, once again, is delicious. The Big Boss speaks of connection even as it ensures that the people live under the omnipresent cloud of surveillance. The sort of love that might have made Orwell raise an eyebrow.

Such brazen contradictions do leave one wondering whether the government has been through a crash course in irony or they just continue playing a well-rehearsed tune irrespective of the discordant notes coming from the ground. It must be heartening for the people of J&K to see such delicately ignored aspirations in their favour, weighed down under political posturing. Such is the gift beautifully wrapped, which turns out to have no substance.

Even as another round of PR exercises is undertaken, perhaps it is time for New Delhi to introspect on what “bridging distances” really means. And until and unless the equation includes genuine dialogue, respect towards the local governance, and an end to surveillance on citizens, people of J&K are going to keep on feeling this deepened alienation.

Perhaps then there is still a vision of connectivity, but the reality is hard: between words and actions, distance unbridgeable through rhetoric. If only promises made by politicians came accompanied with maps and plans in hand, then perhaps we did hear some real progress instead of declarations that echo through the valleys of Kashmir, unfulfilled and forever to the fore.

Till then the distance of the hearts and the distance with Dilli will continue to remain hard to bridge and the relationship will remain a long distance one.

 The author is Senior Editor,

Greater Kashmir