An Open Letter to Chief Minister Jammu and Kashmir From Sajad Lone (X) handle

GNS ONLINE NEWS PORTAL

Dear Chief Minister Sahib,

It is time to apprise you of the changelessness that this government is identified with.

During the election period, Your body language and utterances were aggressive. Your whole campaign was customised against the BJP. Your electoral script was a blend of escalation and scapegoating.

And it worked for you. A massive mandate you got.

After elections we have seen you descending from the peaks of escalation to language of temperance. The aggression is gone. The utterances have been watered down. The belligerence has been replaced by humiliating visuals of you gifting shawls to the top BJP leadership.

What was the hurry to go to Delhi and gift shawls. From a rebel with a sword in his hand mounted on a horse to a minion grovelling on his knees, sword replaced by a shawl. What a comedown.

The Kashmiris thought they taught the BJP a lesson during the elections by voting for a person who they perceived as being most opposed to BJP. Your shawl draping visuals of surrender meant that BJP had actually taught the people of Kashmir a lesson. The BJP had the last laugh.

You displayed a rookie enthusiasm to attack them during elections and are now displaying a rookie enthusiasm in surrendering to them. So desperate you seem to get a ‘foot in the BJP door’, unable to hide your yearning for Boundary-crossing. And your shawl gifting spree, your desire to be the BJP good boy, your evident discomfort in having to take on the “Congress Excess Baggage”—- is a kick in the teeth to all those Kashmiris who were tricked into believing that you are the ultimate secular warrior to take on the communally depraved BJP.

There is an elected government and the parallel LG government. There are no business rules in sight. Business rules are in essence demarcation of respective competencies.. And there is total confusion. You have been ring fenced.

You come across as a horse shot through the legs. Where is your anger that you displayed during elections. All that monkey faced anger, wild gesticulation of arms— was it all for local Kashmiris like us. Why don’t you use the same language against the BJP now or for that matter the LG. What you are doing today sets the rules for future engagements between Delhi and Srinagar. The UT is a ticking bomb. As long as statehood eludes us, the process of erosion of whatever little identity is left will continue unimpeded.

Are you scared. Or are you compromised. Whose side are you on ??

The Kashmiris have given you the mandate. Go out there and fight for them. Where is the roar that you threatened to roar. Why am I and many more like me hearing a meow.

Not a single day passes when the elected government is not undermined. And now two employees have been terminated. Again you are quiet.

They say, “When the tide goes out, you find out who is swimming naked”. We all know who was swimming naked.

And while you don’t dare speak against the LG or the BJP, your Toadies are at it making list of small level government employees who they believe have not been politically favourable to them. And single transfers will yet again become a norm. Again it is the Kashmiri you will punish. You don’t have the guts to fight Delhi. But you will fight and punish the Kashmiri. That you have been doing for decades.

This feeling of being overprivileged and you being some precious cargo which India or Delhi can’t do without —- Get off that high horse. They let you prosper because you are pliable. And may I say Shawl-able. And in Kashmir’s destruction and erosion of their identity, you are Delhi’s best bet.

I don’t know Urdu that well but I know a phrase in Urdu. “Jab Khuda husan deta hai nazakat Aa he jaati hai.” I tried searching for an English equivalent in your context. I couldn’t find one. But what I did find was the following.
“A bull does not become king just by entering the palace, but the palace becomes a barn.”