Two former professors of Jammu and Kashmir universities have urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to immediately severe all ties with BJP alliance partner Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the interests of the nation and the party.
“The preconditions set by Mehbooba Mufti for an alliance with your party are humiliating, unsettling and divisive. We sincerely urge you to make the stand of your party and the government public and clear about these conditions. The decisive step in this direction is obviously the withdrawal of the Agenda of Alliance and severing of all kinds of ties with the PDP,” a letter written to the Prime Minister by Prof. Hari Om and Prof. M.K. Teng says.
Prof. Om is a former head of the history department at Jammu University and has served also as BJP spokesman in J&K. Prof. Teng, a Kashmiri Pandit, is a former head of the political science department at Kashmir University, Srinagar.
The letter, a copy of which was sent to this newspaper, says that being students of history and politics of J&K, having taught and written on the issues pertaining to J&K and the nation extensively, and being fully aware of the dangers which have been looming large for quite some time over the political future of the state as an integral part of the country, “we once again chose to bring to your notice the dangerous implications of the policy which your party has followed after coming to power at the Centre and in the state of Jammu and Kashmir”.
“This is our last attempt to confide in you with an earnest hope that your party will correct the course of its policy in Jammu and Kashmir which otherwise has led it to an abyss from which no political maneuver can retrieve it in the near future. The correction of this course is an imperative necessity because the future of the integrity and the unity of nation depend on what happens in the state of Jammu and Kashmir,” the letter says.
It alleges that the BJP’s policy vis-a-vis J&K can be described as one of accommodation of separatists and retreat.
“This has been so right from the times of Vajpayee as the Prime Minister of India,” the letter says, adding, “Using variants of separatism and communalism seemingly to douse the separatist and fundamentalist fire in the state and ignoring as well as marginalising the national constituency in the state has emerged as a hallmark of the perverted tactical and strategic vision of your party.”
It also alleges that the BJP’s think tanks have been responsible for the emergence of the PDP as a political pole in the state.
