Jammu Kashmir: BJP, PDP unveil coalition gov’t

By Zahid Rafiq

SRINAGAR, Jammu Kashmir

After 10 weeks of deliberations, India’s rightwing Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Jammu Kashmir-based People’s Democratic Party (PDP) on Monday managed -- for the second time -- to form a coalition government.

PDP leader Mehbooba Mufti, 56, was sworn in as the disputed region’s first female chief minister, along with 21 other ministers that will form her cabinet.

Mehbooba replaced her father, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, as chief minister, following the latter’s death in January.

After Mufti’s death, his daughter and political heir had voiced reluctance to be sworn in. Instead, she tried to put pressure on the PDP’s coalition partners, the BJP, which is also in power in India, to make a handful of concessions.

The BJP, however, refused to bend, forcing Mehbooba to enter into a coalition with the party on the same terms that her father had agreed to for the last BJP-PDP alliance.

Leading BJP official Ram Madhav said the party had refused to entertain the PDP’s demands before the formation of a coalition government.

The PDP’s alliance with the BJP has been widely criticized in Jammu Kashmir, with some observers saying it has further discredited pro-Indian politics in the region.

Jammu Kashmir’s pro-independence leadership, for its part, has voiced its refusal to participate in any electoral process held under Indian rule, calling it a "masquerade" intended to give the impression that democracy exists in the region.

Kashmir, a Muslim-majority Himalayan region, is held by India and Pakistan in parts and claimed by both in full. A small sliver of Kashmir is also held by China.

Pakistan and India have fought three wars -- in 1948, 1965 and 1971 -- since the partition of the latter in 1947. Two of the conflicts were fought over Kashmir.

Since 1989, Kashmiri resistance groups in Jammu Kashmir have fought Indian rule to demand independence or unification with neighboring Pakistan.

Tens of thousands of Kashmiris have reportedly been killed in the violence, most of them by Indian forces.

India currently maintains an estimated 500,000 troops in Jammu Kashmir.