Going the distance

A fresh beginning has been made in Jammu and Kashmir with Mufti Mohammad Sayeed taking over as Chief Minister for the second time, but without any role of the Congress. The ruling alliance between his Peoples Democratic Party and the BJP, that was considered unthinkable going into the elections, gives a new construct to the hyphenated relations between the two regions that both claim to represent. The government formation has taken a long time coming, considering the completely divergent stands of the partners on issues such as AFSPA and Article 370. After over 50 days of Governor's rule, a 25-member Council of Ministers has been sworn in, including one-time separatist leader 

Sajjad Lone.

Though a common minimum programme has been chalked out, it would be almost impossible to have leaders not speaking their mind on contentious matters and their seamless transition to one unified team. Mufti Sayeed himself attracted controversy on his first day as CM with his remarks, leading to an uproar in Parliament. Reading too much into individual utterances and that too on deeply-held contrarian views at this stage would be akin to missing the wood for the trees. That there is a Hindu Jammu, a Muslim Kashmir and a distance punctuated with distrust, which even an ambitious railway line can't easily bridge, are now the accepted starting points, not the sub-text or underlying positions, of the parties in power.

The PDP-BJP coalition is a challenging experiment, full of possibilities but with equal chances of not working out. It gives both a chance to test each other's flexibility on how to do justice with the perceived sense of injustice felt by both Jammu and Kashmir. When prejudices run deep, any bold move promises the hope of taking things forward. The PDP and the BJP pitching their soft separatism and hyper-nationalism tendencies together and not against each other points to an interesting phase. How their union plays out and how it shapes the Union of India's approach to not only the state and the minorities, but also Pakistan, is something to watch out for.