Srinagar, July 18: PDP President and former J&K Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti has declined the invitation to join the proposed protest at Jantar Mantar seeking restoration of statehood to Jammu and Kashmir, saying a protest limited to statehood alone would “legitimise the BJP’s narrative” and “whitewash” the events of August 5, 2019.
In a letter dated July 18 addressed to National Conference president Farooq Abdullah, Mehbooba said that after deliberations with senior colleagues, the PDP concluded it would “not be in the fitness of things” to participate in a protest whose sole demand is statehood.
“Not only does this half-hearted demand echo and legitimise the BJP’s odious narrative of relegating Article 370 to the back burner, but it also risks whitewashing the illegal and unconstitutional harakiri carried out in stealth on 5th August 2019,” she wrote.
Mehbooba reminded that both the PDP and NC had promised restoration of Article 370 as a core agenda in their 2024 election manifestos. She said people voted for the NC in overwhelming numbers on the assurance of a peaceful struggle for special status and residuary powers.
“Yet, even after two years of forming the government, I have witnessed with deep concern how the NC has begun to normalise and whitewash the BJP’s agenda by reducing J&K’s larger political struggle to the narrow and diminishing narrative of statehood,” she said, adding that the government had become a “mute spectator” and “equally complicit” in disempowering decisions including dismissal of employees, harassment of Jamaat and its schools, arbitrary detentions, and environmental damage.
Referring to her earlier suggestion for unity among regional parties on the lines of the Ladakh leadership’s engagement with Delhi, Mehbooba said she had not received even an acknowledgement to her letter. She recalled walking to Farooq Abdullah’s Gupkar residence in 2019 to press for a common platform ahead of the abrogation of Article 370, an effort that later shaped the PAGD.
*Calls For All-Party Meeting*
Mehbooba urged Farooq Abdullah and Chief Minister Omar Abdullah to take the lead and convene an all-party meeting including civil society representatives. She said the agenda should include release of political prisoners, revocation of the ban on socio-political organisations including Jamaat-e-Islami, and a “workable roadmap” to be presented before the Government of India.
“Even the restoration of statehood cannot be treated as a one-time event, it requires sustained political effort and engagement, which Chief Minister Omar Abdullah Sahab should initiate,” she said.
She warned that protesting “in unison solely for statehood would only legitimise and sanitise the illegal act of revoking J&K’s special status” and could be seen as an endorsement of August 5.
“Demanding anything shorn of Article 370 would amount to a shameful surrender of our rights and dignity — an unforgivable footnote that will condemn each one of us in the annals of J&K’s history,” Mehbooba wrote.
She, however, extended her best wishes for the Jantar Mantar protest. (GNS)
