Aadil Salam
Four years ago today, on February 14, 2019, the Pulwama suicide attack changed the course of the situation in Kashmir. Following this assault, the most despised rivals India and Pakistan came near atomic conflict, plus, the political circumstance in Kashmir went ahead, the impacts of which are plainly noticeable on the ground even today. It would not be preposterous to say that the circumstances following the Pulwama assault manufacture ways of dissolving the unique status of Jammu and Kashmir.
In his book Never Give an Inch: Fighting for the America I Love, former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has claimed that he was “awakened” to speak to his then-Indian counterpart Sushma Swaraj who told him that Pakistan was preparing for a nuclear attack after the Balakot surgical strike in February 2019 and India is preparing its own escalator response.
India-Pakistan at the edge of War
It is noteworthy that Indian warplanes attacked Pakistan’s Balakot on February 26, 2019 in response to the Pulwama attack in which 40 CRPF jawans were killed.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi responded to the attack by immediately deploying the country’s army against rival Pakistan. The world was on edge fearing an escalation of conflict between the two countries, which are bitter rivals and have nuclear weapons in their arsenals.
As much of India was bathed in blood, a war hero emerged, Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman of the Indian Air Force. His MIG-21 fighter jet crashed in bordering Pakistan and he was trapped in other side of the territory for more than 60 hours. He was released at the behest of Imran Khan, the then recently elected Prime Minister of Pakistan.
The tide turned in favor of Modi
In mid 2019, when political spectators were examining the chance of a balanced parliament in the impending general races, the stunner of the Pulwama assault detonated on the Indian political scene. Modi had an opportunity to reestablish his picture as a resilient man who later considered fighting back against Pakistan. In the span of a month of the assault, the BJP won an unmistakable greater part. And Modi won an even bigger mandate—already the best for any party/alliance in 30 years in 2014.
The BJP wasted no time
When the BJP returned to power, it wasted no time in raising issues that other political parties, even previous BJP governments, had failed to touch for decades—the election results came in May, and in August 2019—to the surprise of all its rivals—the Modi government decided to suspend the “special status” granted to Kashmir.
Revocation of Kashmir’s special status has always been part of the BJP’s ideology and election manifesto, but in their wildest dreams, one would have thought that any political party would dare to take such a controversial decision.
Ban on local parties of Kashmir
After such mammoth activities of BJP banned Kashmir-based separatist groups and local parties including JKLF, Jamaat-e-Islami, and many others. Educational institutions of Jamaat-e-Islami and other parties were also closed and most separatist leaders were arrested.
The fact remains that the BJP took these decisions on Kashmir without fear, given its overwhelming power in the country’s parliament. According to experts, this unexpected approach could have been considerably reduced if the attack on the soldiers in Pulwama had not happened.
