While the revolt in Karnataka of BJP bigwigs like Jagadish Shettar has been a major setback for the party, the remarks by Satya Pal Malik in an interview to Karan Thapar for The Wire on April 14 are perhaps the most stunning setback not just for the party but for Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself. Because Malik, still a BJP member, was not just the governor of four states between 2017 and 2022, including of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir, he was also at one time the vice-president of the BJP.In the Thapar interview and in an earlier interview to DB Live aired on April 11, the full force of Malik’s attack is only on Modi. His categorical withdrawal of a comment he had earlier made about home minister Amit Shah has raised eyebrows in a section of the media. He is careful, despite his laid back style, to project an unbiased view by cleverly praising Modi here and there, for example on the issue of reading down Article 370. Let’s look at some important excerpts from the interviews.The chargesOn corruption# He says he was approached by the CBI to give a ‘background’ on the alleged bribe of Rs 300 crore that he could have received (‘teesre din mil jata,’ according to Malik) for sanctioning a hydel power project and an insurance deal from a Reliance company for government employees in J&K.# Speaking of the people involved in these two deals, he said he told the CBI that they were ‘pradhan mantri ke log’. In the Thapar interview they were clearly identified as Haseeb Drabu, ‘Ambani’ and Ram Madhav.# He said he had left Goa because the prime minister was supporting a corrupt chief minister in Goa.# He claimed ‘Pradhan mantri ji ko corruption se koi bahut nafrat nahin hai’!On Pulwama# He said Pulwama was the result of ‘laparwahi’ and incompetence and that if the home ministry had given the aircraft asked for by the CRPF to transport their personnel from Jammu to Srinagar, the Pulwama incident would not have happened.# He emphasised: “I told the prime minister same evening ki ye (Pulwama incident) hamari galti se hua hai, agar hum aircraft de dete to ye nahin hota, to unhone (that is PM) ne kaha ‘tum abhi chup raho’”.# And significantly he says: “Mujhe lag gaya tha ki ab ye saara onus Pakistan ki taraf jaana hai to chup rahiye.”# Giving an example of the ‘laparwahi’, he claimed that none of the 8-10 link roads to the route were manned even by a Gypsy. “Nothing was done,” he says.# Making common cause with the CRPF demand for airlift, he said if he had been approached he would have provided the aircraft to ferry the CRPF personnel. There was, according to him, no conspiracy angle.Also read: After Malik’s Revelations, Kin of Jawans Killed in Pulwama Terror Attack Demand ProbeOn J&K generally# The main cause of anger in J&K is the taking away of their statehood and not the dilution of Article 370.Referring to PM Modi’s knowledge about Kashmir, he said: “He is very ill-informed person, unko koi jaankari nahin hai …mast hain apne mein, to hell with it”.On Adani issue# He maintained that Rahul Gandhi should have been allowed to speak in Parliament and that Modi had not answered Gandhi’s accusation/query regarding the source of Rs 20,000 crore. He said the Adani matter had become a public issue. He quoted a song by a Dalit woman Prabha Maurya: “Ye na chaiwala hai, na gaiwala, Ambani, Adani ka ye lagta saala hai, isne desh bech dala hai”.# Referring to Modi’s statement on a supari to tarnish his reputation, he said, “Inki supari agar di gayi hai to ye Adani ko di gayi hai, uski wajah se wo badnaam ho rahe hain.” He advised the prime minister not to defend Adani and predicted that it will adversely affect the BJP in 2024.On opposition unity# He said that if one opposition candidate is fielded against each BJP candidate in 2024, BJP will not get over 150 seats.On the presidentThe president of India has been made a puppet of the prime minister, he said.The defenceThere has been relative silence from the BJP top brass, which apparently is busy in the Karnataka elections. It also suggests possible backchannel negotiations with Malik to calm him down. It appears that the government is worried more about the accusation that Pulwama happened because of the denial of aircraft to airlift the CRPF jawans and the insinuation that BJP harvested Pulwama for electoral gain in the 2019 general elections, than on the accusations of corruption and incompetence. The justification for the Union government’s refusal to provide aircraft has come in a YouTube video titled: ‘Major Gaurav Arya Exposes Ex – Lt Gov. Satyapal Malik and Atique Ahmad’ which is high on theatre and low on substance. The core argument is as follows:# Movement via road is essential for area domination which he calls ‘rikt sthan ki poorti’, and concomitantly movement by air disregards area domination which then gets dominated by terrorists etc. And so he claims that 95% movement was by road only. Answering Malik’s remark that Modi ‘is very ill-informed person’, Major Arya referring to Malik, says ‘Aap ko Kashmir ke baare mein kuch nahin pata’.# Then comes his important lament that after Pulwama, jawans have started going from Jammu to Srinagar by air, implying that no one is listening to him! His point is that the reality (jawans travelling by air post Pulwama) is neither correct nor rational. By extension of this logic, the governor was wrong to support the CRPF’s demand that CRPF jawans be allowed to travel by air even in the circumstances of February 2019. The central fact that it was the CRPF, and not the governor, who is said to have asked for and was refused airlift by the MHA is deliberately obfuscated.Also read: It’s Time the Veil of Secrecy Is Lifted Off the Pulwama TragedyThe repeated indignities heaped on the then governor for saying that he would have provided airlift had he been asked, are actually an unfortunate critique of the CRPF, for it was they who asked for the airlift. Arya sidesteps the colossal failure to act on alleged intelligence inputs referred to by Frontline in an article dated February 21, 2021 titled ‘Eleven intelligence inputs warning of Pulwama attack were ignored’. He considers movement of a CRPF convoy travelling from Jammu to Srinagar as proof of ‘area domination’ of the areas traversed, and casualties due to failure to act on intel inputs possibly justifiable at the altar of area domination, which is a thoroughly debatable approach.The falloutIt appears that Malik was/is seething with rage at being insulted. His lament, “Kashmir ki advisory committee ne likha tha inko serious threat hai Pakistan se, inko makaan milna chahiye, Z+ security milni chahiye” should be heard and acted upon according to rules and threat perceptions.The sledgehammer approach, which is available with the Modi government, is not likely to work with Malik. Even if he is proceeded against under the Official Secrets Act, he can cause more damage to the party, of which he is still a member, and indeed to the country by unrestricted revelations even in in-camera proceedings, which will ultimately come out in the open.To seek to incarcerate a former vice-president of the BJP and governor could be seen as vengeful and may have costs in the people’s court, because his reputation as an incorruptible politician is intact. The trial can go on well into the 2024 general elections.There are other problems. The revelation of the alleged advice – ‘chup raho’ – does not appear to be a violation of the OSA. The revelation that the CRPF asked for airlift which was refused had echoes in the media reports of 2019. A report of The Print dated February 17, 2019, ’Convoy to Kashmir can’t be stopped even if aircraft are available...’ showed that the media was cognisant of some demand for airlift. So since it was in the public domain, and it is also so stated by Malik in his interview to Thapar, it is difficult to prosecute Malik under the OSA insofar as the airlift issue is concerned.The other accusations are mostly in the nature of alleged corruption, alleged high handedness and incompetence, which can be addressed in a defamation case. A long-drawn-out proceeding for fastening the charge of defamation is a non-starter. A court-monitored inquiry into charges levied by him, which could be asked for by Malik, would be disastrous for the BJP.Given the ferocity of the attack on the prime minister and Malik’s refusal to back off, the BJP leadership is caught between a rock and a hard place. However, if Modi could withdraw the three farm laws despite calling the agitators ‘andolan jeevi’, if he could shake hands with President Xi Jinping despite Galwan, if the government could give up some of our land (even if temporarily) in the buffer zone despite Amit Shah’s claim in Parliament – “Kya baat karte ho, jaan de denge iske (POK and Aksai Chin) liye” – and if heavy security can be provided to a film star, then the BJP leadership could certainly take a practical approach here too. It could beef up security around Malik and give him some respect that he deserves as a former governor.It is important for the BJP leadership to realise that after all, he was the governor of J&K at perhaps the most crucial juncture in the erstwhile state’s history, and that he was a BJP leader of high stature. And damage to him is also damage to the BJP and possibly to our country as well, in the context of Pulwama and Balakot.Rahul Singh is a former civil servant who retired from the Ministry of Defence, Government of India.
