 Hello, and welcome to NewsClick. The alliance between Bahatia Janta Party and People's Democratic Party in Kashmir is on shaky grounds again as Haseeb Drabu has been sacked. Haseeb Drabu was the finance minister and a senior leader in the PDP. His sacking comes after he made a statement last week saying that Kashmir is not a political issue, but a social one. So to discuss the implications of the statement and what it would mean for the alliance going in the future, we have with us today Gautam Tablaka, who is a democratic rights activist. So Gautam, the first thing that comes to mind is that, of course, the statement made by Drabu is against the very core ideology of PDP, but it's nothing new. It was known before also that these are his views. But so why does his sacking come at this point of time? First is, of course, the PDP's claim that it was contrary to their core ideology, which believes that this is a unresolved political dispute that has to be resolved peacefully. And they have their own position on what the solution is. The question is that PDP, BJP alliance itself is an alliance of two opposite poles, so to say. Because whereas PDP believes that it's part of its core ideology and the Kashmir is a political dispute, not a religious conflict, PJP in particular insists that there is no political dispute, that the only thing that it's a religious conflict, the religious fundamentally is meaning the Islamic fundamentalist and radicals are behind it. And as far as they are concerned, it's Pakistan's hand, and therefore the only issue that remains to be tackled is to get the land back from so-called Pakistani control. But the point is they knew this position of the BJP, and despite that they came together. In so far as Haseeb Drabu is concerned, well, Haseeb has been known, I mean, for a long time from his own writings before he became a finance minister this time around in 2015 when Mufti reached an agreement with, Mufti Saab reached an agreement with BJP in March 2015 and formed the alliance with the agenda of alliance and the common party program of the two things. See, he was the main architect of that. He was also the main architect of reworking and ensuring the succession of Mahbubah Mufti as chief minister with BJP and the central leadership of the BJP in particular, and a lot of reservations about. So he played a very critical role. But his positions have been pretty consistent. As Yassin Malik also pointed out last time. Yassin Malik and his Facebook post has pointed out, but more than Yassin Malik, everybody knows that he has been writing. He used to write a column in Greater Kashmir where he expanded and explained what he believed. He espoused, in fact, and he articulated this position about fiscal autonomy. His argument was that all Kashmir requires this fiscal autonomy to develop, to use, to tap its own resources much better. That is the central government which comes in the way of this fiscal autonomy and that if fiscal autonomy was granted to all the states, not just Jammu and Kashmir, and in particular to Jammu and Kashmir given its specific position, that things would be very different. That's his view. Of course, that we've seen has changed. Well, his position now is it's much closer at one level to BJP, but that was clear when he became the main architect of this agenda for alliance. And BJP also trusted. I mean, he was a person who was known to have a direct access not just to BJP's general secretary, Ram Madhav, but to the president, Amit Shah, as well as supposed to have a direct contact with Prime Minister's office, which even Mahbubah didn't enjoy. So he was very important from the point of view of BJP. So virtually, people used to regard Hasid Rabu as actually the most powerful voice for BJP inside PDP itself, the senior coalition partner. So from that point of view, it's a timing which is interesting. If you look at what has happened in Kashmir, it becomes clear why PDP felt compelled. In the last, since 2016, July, the killing of Buran Mazzafarwani and the protests and agitation that began in Kashmir, you would have noticed that PDP has been losing ground, not just all over Kashmir, but particularly in its main core area, for instance, like South Kashmir, from where it won maximum seats. And that campaigned very loudly on an anti-BJP platform. Yet they signed it. But what happened after 2016, July, is that whatever doubt people may have entertained about PDP, those were removed and there is now a conviction that the PDP has completely betrayed and gone over to the BJP side. Now with National Conference sniping and the main pro-India party sniping at PDP for this and for letting a person like Hasid Rabu get away with the kind of statement that he made at this ambassador's meeting. This event which was held in New Delhi on Friday, March 9th, PDP had no choice but to demand an issue at Show Cause notice. And then they found that since he insisted that he had been misquoted and that whatever he has said is nothing different from the core ideology of the PDP, which the PDP leadership was not willing to concede this time. I think he had no choice but to... We also saw that there was one leader in particular in PDP, Sajid Loan, who did come out in support. Sajid Loan is not a member of PDP. He's a coalition partner. He's part of... He has... He leads his own faction of people's conference, which his father had started. So it's... He's not a member of PDP. And Sajid Loan's credibility in any case in Kashmir is rather poor. I mean, nobody... It's not taken very seriously. So we can't say that his statement taken out of context doesn't really hold for much. It may be. It may be for all you know that, I mean, as far as from what I've read of the speech, it's more or less on the along the same lines that he has been articulating for a long time. So for me, I don't find that surprising. It's the timing. It's the context right now that makes it the same views problematic for the party. And they can't accept it because it's like virtually then giving up, at least in the public projection, they'll have to concede that they've moved resiled from whatever they believed in if they were to let this pass. Because after all, what did he say? I mean, it's also very interesting to find out what he actually said and which created this controversy. When he mentioned that Kashmir is not a political issue or that there is no conflict, that it's a societal issue, that the people are trying to come to grips with. If you read carefully and if you read his speech, it seems that what he believes is that all that people need to do or all that is happening in Kashmir that people slowly reconciling themselves to living without any change on the ground, without any political shift, without any settlement or any political settlement of the issue that people are gradually reconciling themselves to whatever is the nature of relation that New Delhi has decided or foisted on them. And that is something extremely problematic, even for a, and especially for a politician to articulate such position, I think it doesn't, it won't cut Macha's anywhere. But obviously there is a section and Mahaseeb Drabur represents that section of that faction, which actually I feel may draw closer to BJP in the near future because their positions are not very different from what BJP has been. So the future of the alliance, where do you think this will go now if things have become this weak now? Look, this alliance was based on self-interest, on self-gratification, attraction of power and dispensing of patronage was the way in which the pro-Indian parties have survived in Kashmir. This is no difference. So this was, when people say that this was an alliance of opposite poles, virtually, well, we have seen it also in the past. It's not as if it's something very unique. In Jammu and Kashmir or elsewhere in India, I mean, look at Nitesh Kumar's turnaround or look at what happened with the National Conference when they were alliance party with NDA during Atal Bihari Bajpayee's rule. So it's not as if these kinds of alliances don't take place. The point is that so brazen has BJP become and the polarization between Jammu and Kashmir along religious lines has become so deep that in a context like that to come out and say that it's a societal problem and not a political problem is like brushing aside whatever is happening elsewhere, looking at things actually in isolation, precisely what he critiques in his short speech, but he himself is guilty of because he's looking at cutting it off from everything else. I mean, he's also ignoring what is happening I mean the same state in another region and completely unmindful of it. There is not even an ayaata of concern expressed about it. That makes it extremely problematic for anybody to take seriously. So even if one believes that he is saying something very profound, the point is it's been closer reading you discover that actually it's not as it appears closer look. It's an extremely problematic remarks that he has made and there it's completely dismisses and is indifferent to the main issue that still influences people and they're still troubled by it. You got him. So that's all the time we have for today. Thank you for joining us. Thank you. Thank you for this discussion. Thank you for watching this look.