It was a routine, run of the mill, love story. A man and a woman fall in love and decide to get married. Their families opposed the marriage but it didn’t change much for them. Then came the twist.
A political leader with political ambitions found an opportunity and decided to cash the situation. In this case, the opportunity was found by Majinder Singh Sirsa, a political leader based in New Delhi who had ties to the ruling Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) and has ties to Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), two parties with political ideologies rooted in religion.
The crisis that had engulfed two families in Srinagar soon became a political slugfest. Sirsa, deviously, found a conspiracy and fuelled communal fire. He weaved a plot that was based on fiction: a mentally unstable girl forcibly abducted at gunpoint; forcibly made to change religion; forcibly married to a 60-year-old man. He knew what he was doing – dividing Kashmir and consolidating votes in Delhi and Punjab.
While Sirsa went back home to Delhi, he left behind a division. It is now time for the community leaders to undo the damage caused by Sirsa. There is also a lesson in it: people like Sirsa should not be made stakeholders in Kashmir.
