PROMISES TO KEEP

A manicured buoyancy of hope marks visits to Jammu and Kashmir by political grandees from New Delhi.

- MOAZUM MOHAMMAD and PRADIP R. SAGAR i

That’s often a sign of stasis rather than movement. But there are times when things pick up pace and purpose beyond protocol utterances. One such moment came during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s two-day visit to Srinagar on June 20-21. That he was there just a fortnight after assu ming charge for his third term was already a sign of intent. Underlining that, he gave two assurances that are sure to get the lifeblood flowing in Kashmir’s frozen polity: the conduct of long-overdue assembly election and the restoration of statehood.

Not that it’s entirely unexpected, for the Supreme Court’s direction to the Centre imposes September 30, 2024, as a clear deadline for assembly election—one that looms larger every week. As if in preparation, political life indices have seen a positive uptick of late. In the recent Lok Sabha election, J&K had seen a 58.4 per cent turnout, the highest ever in the past 35 years. Modi’s BJP had thought it wise to recuse itself from direct contests in the Valley, but signs are even that party may shed its tack of avoidance for the assembly polls.

In June 2021, during the Centre’s maiden formal engagement with the Kashmiri leadership after the abrogation of Article 370 and the state’s bifurcation into Union Territories in 2019, Modi had spun an aphorism: he wants to remove, he said, both ‘Dilli ki doori’ and ‘Dil ki doori’ (distance from Delhi, and distances of the heart). Some of the miles that lie between statement of purpose and its fulfilment will hopefully be traversed in the coming three months, before the Valley’s chinars reach their full autumnal bloom.