As always, emotions are being roused that this act of revocation of land is an "anti-Hindu" move. The argument forwarded is that if the Muslims can be subsidised and facilities provided for the Haj pilgrimage, then why are Hindus deprived for the Amarnath yatra. This is a pure and simple Goebellisian (Goebells was Hitler's minister for propaganda) (sic) method of spreading disinformation. As argued in these columns last week, the issue of this land transfer aroused fears of altering the demographic composition in that area and also transgressing on the powers of state governments. The annual Amarnath yatra has, unfortunately for some years now, been the occasion for the communal forces to whip up passions by shouting provocative slogans during the yatra. This is completely contrary to traditions of religious harmony in Kashmir. The RSS/BJP is clearly making the yatra hostage to its communal politics.
The BJP's prime minister hopeful LK Advani has clearly spelt out that following the Ram Sethu controversy and the issue of the hanging of Afzal Guru, the Amarnath yatra will be the third of their communal planks to be exploited for electoral gains.
As noted earlier in these columns, the BJP national executive has resurrected its hard-core communal agenda of building the temple at Ayodhya; uniform civil code and abrogation of Article 370 as the foundations of its electoral campaign. Additionally, the BJP president has called for the replacement of dharma nirpekshata with panth nirpekshata in the Hindi translation of our Constitution.
For these elections, the BJP has identified three