PM Narendra Modi has reduced both Imran Khan and Rahul Gandhi into placard holders from political leaders. (Photo: PTI)
We do not know the truth about Kashmir. We-journalists who have not been to Kashmir after Article 370 was abrogated, journalists who have been to Kashmir since then and walked around with the security forces or been lathi-charged, Bourbon naxals, Champagne socialists, Twitter nationalists, or even Kashmiris who now spend more time in Khan Market than in Kashmir - we do not know what is happening across Kashmir. In this post-truth age, where a WhatsApp forward has far more takers than "ground reports" by serious-minded, bearded editors who have built careers over bombast, facts are the first casualties in times of unrest.
Then there are things we know.
We know former Jammu and Kashmir chief ministers Mehbooba Mufti and Omar Abdullah, who are currently under house arrest, still have no telephone or internet facilities. They do have television and are getting newspapers daily. And schools have opened.
We know that Imran Khan, who till yesterday was the prime minister of Pakistan, is today the Ambassador of Kashmir, a region of the world he cannot even visit, not in the foreseeable future anyway. "We will go to every global forum. We will go to the International Court of Justice. We are mobilising the global community of Kashmiris and you will see a historic number of people come out," Imran Khan said.
We know that before Rahul Gandhi was kissed by a man in Kerala during his Wayanad visit, his desire to roam around Srinagar was thwarted by the Jammu and Kashmir administration. We also know that Rahul blamed the "draconian administration" in Jammu and Kashmir when he and other Opposition leaders were stopped from leaving Srinagar airport and made to go back to Delhi.
We know by saying so, Rahul Gandhi walked right into Pakistan's trap by opposing the Centre at a time like this, even as prominent leaders of his own party like Milind Deora and Jyotiraditya Scindia said the government's move to abrogate Article 370 was the right one.
Dr Arif Alvi, President of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, said, "Detention and refusal of entry even to Indian multiparty delegation of Opposition leaders including Rahul Gandhi into Indian-Occupied J&K, who had to return from Srinagar airport, highlights volatility of the situation. Pakistan demands that India allow international observers and media in IOK."
Maybe Rahul Gandhi should have listened to voices from the past since the present is so muddled.
On June 29, 1952, Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee had said in Lok Sabha, "One naturally would like to speak with some...consideration when one speaks about Kashmir, because we should not say anything or do anything which may strengthen the hands of Pakistan."
Be that as it may, in the times of what public thinker AC Grayling calls "i-bite", where strong opinion of almost about anybody put out on social media through the iPhone or any other phone for that matter can shout down evidence", both Imran Khan and Rahul Gandhi have been had by PM Modi.
Politics is no morality play. It is the art of seizing power and convincing the public to keep you in power. And public sentiment, keeping apart the op-ed columns here, there and in Pakistan, is strongly behind PM Modi. The meticulous planning that went before Home Minister Amit Shah announced in Parliament that Article 370 would be abrogated, the security measures that were put in place to check that public resentment in the Kashmir Valley would not be allowed to spill over as mayhem on the streets, the way PM Modi handled world leaders, with even UAE saying Kashmir is India's internal matter, all that Rahul Gandhi, and Imran Khan, can do is to be reduced to professional protestors.
One tweets his protest but fails to rally his own party leaders to stand behind him and the other calls himself the Ambassador of Kashmir and plans weekly and monthly events highlighting the Valley's plight.
All is not okay with Kashmir. All cannot be okay when you are under lockdown. We do not know the public sentiment there. We do not know when things will be normal again. But we do know politics in the time of PM Modi where the "i-bites" are firmly behind the Indian Prime Minister is a tough ask. And both Imran Khan and Rahul Gandhi are left wanting. Like placard holders desperately seeking a podium.
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