Fax Indica: How to Lose Friends

Amazing how things can take on a life of their own.
soumyadip sinha
soumyadip sinha

Amazing how things can take on a life of their own. Currently, from Srinagar to Chennai, a fax machine has become famous as a villain or victim, depending on who’s peddling the narrative. The intriguing role of this old-style communication tool, or its refusal to be communicative, is helping lighten the toxic air. Governor Satya Pal Malik may or may not be a footnote in Kashmir’s thorn-filled history, but his unresponsive fax machine would be remembered in the anecdotes of Indian politics.

For the present, it has certainly brought together two arch-rivals of state politics—the National Conference and the People’s Democratic Party—over a few choice words of repartee on a rather ‘partisan’ machine. Their attempt to cobble up a grand alliance along with the Congress may have been aborted. But PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti and NC’s Omar Abdullah have been united in angst, potentially auguring future camaraderie. 

Whenever elections happen—the date becomes a pertinent question after December 19, when Governor’s rule ends—one thing is sure: another unusual alliance has been forged. Two possibilities loom ahead. Either J&K has elections, or Article 356 beckons.

Even so, Lok Sabha polls can’t be avoided in Kashmir—regardless of whether Assembly polls are timed with it or not. So the mainstream political template in Kashmir is going to come into play sooner or later. The newly minted grand alliance of J&K already created enough panic in New Delhi that it got the Assembly dissolved. That in fact might have been the intention, as a tweet by former CM Mehbooba Mufti implied. Why then blame the poor fax machine?

Well, everybody has heard about the comedy of ‘errors’. It was Eid, so the fax was ‘off’. Mehbooba had to resort to Twitter to stake claim. And the pro-Centre Sajjad Lone sent his letter via WhatsApp. Two hours later, magically, the machine whirred into life to announce the dissolution of the House! Governor Pal cited security concerns as the reason for not inviting an ‘unstable’ grouping to have a go at government formation.

Anyway, the Centre’s discomfort in having normal democracy play out in the state became apparent, an unspoken policy that breaks the old consensus among national parties that put primacy on having a popular government installed in the state to show Pakistan down on the international stage.

The knee-jerk dissolving of an Assembly that had 25 BJP MLAs for the first time may not just have been a self-goal, it has ensured the PDP and the NC have achieved a comfort level. Ram Madhav, the BJP’s political pointsman for the state, may have backtracked after Omar Abdullah’s offensive on being called puppets of Pakistan, but a BJP alliance with either of the two big Kashmir parties now looks remote. Even the lone Ladakh MP left the BJP fold a week ago. If Jammu is secured in the process, it would not suffice to have a footprint over the entire state, even in the company of Sajjad Lone. 

If there’s any positive outcome here, it’s that suddenly the irrelevance of the two big parties there is reduced, and J&K politics looks integrated with the Indian mainstream. With both the PDP and NC playing victim and projecting their alliance as the only way to safeguard the ‘special identity’ of the state, as a legal-political fight for Article 35A plays out, they could very well be on a revival path. It’s almost as if a heavy political hand from New Delhi accomplished the opposite of what it intended. This is not unique. Not so long ago, a hyperactive Governor’s office brought the opposition together in reaction, again in an unusual alliance, in Karnataka.

The idea of Deve Gowda’s JD(S) aligning with the Congress was till then just as unbelievable as the new PDP-NC entente. People may have had to pinch themselves seeing Siddaramaiah and H D Kumaraswamy fighting elections on the same side. The BJP may well try to ratchet up a farmer’s agitation against the HDK regime to wrest back some space, but that won’t avert a chain of unusual alliances against Modi-Shah in Karnataka and elsewhere for 2019. 

Again, had it not been his suspicion, rightly or wrongly, that Governor E S L Narasimhan was plotting to topple his government, Andhra Pradesh CM Chandrababu Naidu would not have taken it upon himself to craft an anti-BJP alliance in state after state. He seems to have streamlined one between the DMK, Congress, CPI and Vaiko’s party in Tamil Nadu, and it won’t be surprising if he attempts to pull off the next unthinkable tie-up, a TMC-CPM-Congress one in West Bengal. Unless Didi decides to prioritise her own ambition of securing maximum seats in her state. Or the CPM politburo thinks standing on prestige is more important than playing for survival. 

The only thing that could come in the way of all this is the Congress’s current propensity to flaunt its new Hindu-Shaivite identity too enthusiastically, like in Kerala. That would ensure the BJP goes even more aggressively rightward, building up Yogi Adityanath as Lord Ram’s divine representative in UP, going for broke in Ayodhya and perhaps even in Kashi-Varanasi. But again, that would make it impossible for Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawati not to align. Unusual alliances, therefore, are likely to be par for the course in 2019.

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