Mohd Yousuf Tarigami’s sense of pain, mixed with anger, was palpable.

“The Paradise on Earth is getting lost. There is still something left to salvage. The people of Kashmir had rejected (Muhammad Ali) Jinnah to embrace (Mahatma) Gandhi and join the secular Indian mainstream. It’s time that the people, not just Kashmiris, protest the unconstitutional coup that is nothing less than a big terrorist act vis-a-vis the Constitution,” the 73-year-old CPM politician, a former four-time MLA from Kashmir, told The Telegraph in a small hotel room in central Calcutta on a chilly January evening.

Aided by a Supreme Court order, Tarigami had in September become the first prominent politician to step out of the Valley after the Centre revoked Jammu and Kashmir’s special status and statehood on August 5 last year and imposed a security clampdown and communication blockade.

Reminded about Amit Shah’s claim that everything was normal in the Valley, an irked Tarigami hit back with a list of posers for the Union home minister.

“I ask Mr Amit Shah, if everything is normal why are you not holding the polls despite all political streams pleading with the Government of India and the Election Commission?” he asked.

“Mr Home Minister, when everything is normal why not release leaders (who) you feel are powerless? Mr Home Minister, we are not asking for big things. We want our students to access scholarship schemes, fill NET (National Eligibility Test) forms, get the advantage of government-run schemes.

“Whether it is the MGNREGA or health schemes, I dare you, home minister, to put it before the country how many Kashmiris have availed of these schemes in the months since the August 5 lockdown? When everything is normal, why don’t you put an end to the lockdown and restore communication networks?

“Mr Shah, these are non-secessionist demands of my countrymen and well within the provisions of the Constitution. You are feeding the population with all sorts of distorted facts. Stop it.”

Tarigami added: “They are changing legislation to arm the authorities and disarm the population. The situation in Kashmir can only be salvaged by restoring Article 370 and Article 35A. They have been unconstitutionally snatched from us.”

The veteran Marxist, who has survived several militant attempts on his life, betrayed a feeling of having been let down by the rest of the country in its response to the Kashmir crisis.

“I must be frank with my countrymen that I am slightly disappointed. Slightly because I still have hope that if not yesterday, today or tomorrow, appropriate responses will emerge,” he said.

He suggested the rest of India needed to urgently stand up for Kashmir. He feared that any delay could prove costly, since the apparent lull in the Valley could be the prelude to an ominous storm.

Cautioning fellow citizens, he said: “Don’t see Kashmir as an isolated incident. If we do that, we will commit a great mistake. The pain of Kashmir is severe but over a period of time other areas of the country will undergo the same torment if the people do not rise to resist it. Before it is too late, we must join hands against the assault on the Constitution to change its basic structure. That is why I see hope in the ongoing student protests.

“Though the crisis of Kashmir is graver, the attacks on protesting students in Delhi and anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act protesters in Uttar Pradesh are the BJP’s way of furthering the agenda of constitutional subversion, (and) terrorising the people. If Kashmir is an extreme case, elsewhere they are policing the population to send the message that they are no more ready to listen to voices of dissent.”

In a warning to the government, Tarigami said: “Don’t muzzle protests. Anger is anger. You don’t know when it will burst (out).…”

Asked why the Valley did not see many protests after August 5, Tarigami said: “All the channels for people to let out their anger have been forcibly shut. When the leaders have been detained and put under house arrest, the entire population has been humiliated into silence, and the media turned into gazettes of the government, what do you expect?

“There has been a huge, organised crackdown politically, constitutionally and administratively. People are silent but their silence should not be misunderstood as acceptance. I’m worried about this silence. If this situation continues, it will have a disastrous impact. My worry is that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Shah are refusing to see (the portents).”

The administration should allow the people to speak up and end the reign of forced silence, he said. If the “unprecedented subversion of democracy” did not end, it would only benefit those who want uncertainty and disturbance to prevail in Kashmir, he added.

Reminded that contrary to his claim of protests not being allowed in the Valley, there had been intense anti-US demonstrations in Kashmir against the killing of Iranian commander Major-General Qassem Soleimani, the CPM central committee member said: “For that you need to understand the politics of the administration. It is selective when it comes to allowing protests. They will allow protests against (Donald) Trump, but not against Modi.”

He added: “I have been through the Emergency. There have been authoritarian and unilateral subversions of the Constitution regarding Kashmir, but I have never seen anything like this.

“There was a time when Kashmir went through a bad phase. Contact with the people had been damaged. A lot of people got killed. Kashmiri Pandits had to migrate and went through great suffering. There were attempts to disturb the situation from across the border. In the midst of all this, the mainstream political leadership risked their lives and managed to revive the lost contact. A political process was started and democracy revived. The bond between the Union and Jammu and Kashmir was repaired. The Modi regime has destroyed what took us years to achieve.

“The Prime Minister had promised ‘sab ka saath, (sabka vikas,) sabka vishwas’ but ended up crushing whatever little trust had been restored.

“When Atal Bihari Vajpayee was Prime Minister, his home minister L.K. Advani had initiated a dialogue even with the separatists who wanted the talks to progress outside the framework of the Constitution. I remember Atalji’s response to their demand — that ‘We will talk within the framework of jamhuriyat, Kashmiriyat, insaniyat (democracy, syncretic Kashmiri culture, and humanity)’. Those were the days.... Unfortunately, the Modi government has closed those options as well.

“Amit Shah claims there is normalcy in Kashmir. The government had told the Supreme Court in an affidavit that Tarigami was not in custody. But ask former BJP leader Yashwant Sinha. He wanted to meet me in Srinagar but the administration denied permission. And the government claims I am free.”

Why aren’t the other mainstream leaders following him in securing freedom through the courts? Or are they happy with the arrangement?

Tarigami defended his fellow Kashmiri politicians. “I have differences with my friends from the National Conference, PDP and the Congress but I don’t believe or have enough evidence to agree with your proposition. They are in jail — even Sajjad Lone, who was very close to the BJP and was a minister in the PDP-BJP government, is under custody.”

He added with a mischievous smile: “Here, I cannot accuse Amit Shah of discrimination.”

Resuming his serious tone, he said: “By imprisoning leaders, he has blurred the lines that distinguished mainstream from separatist. Now, no one knows who is who.

“I for one do not see why I have been punished. Is it because I have faced bullets from extremists and lost friends and relatives (to terrorists)? Why has Farooq Abdullah been put under arrest? Is it because he had been shouting the slogan ‘Bharat Mata ki jai’ here, there and everywhere?

“Why (is) Mehbooba Mufti (imprisoned)? (Is it) because she had sided with the BJP? The only reason I see is (that it’s meant) to attack the relationship, evolved through a long struggle, (between) the people of Jammu and Kashmir and the rest of the country. This enabled us, despite being a Muslim-majority region, not to side with the Muslim League of Pakistan but listen to the appeal of Gandhiji that here is a secular India where we can march together. That hope lies shattered today.”

Tarigami played down the global community’s muted response to the Kashmir crisis.

“Our own house is in disorder. Our Constitution has been violated.… The citizens of this great country should come (together) to express concern about the situation. It must be the people of my country who should speak about whatever is happening in Kashmir, UP and elsewhere,” he said.

“We must speak. They (the Centre) have brought the CAA, NRC, NPR to divide the people. The (Modi) government is eroding the basis of our secular democracy. They are doing it at the cost of the common citizen. I am not concerned how the world reacts, I am more concerned about the reaction of my countrymen.”

Asked whether he was ready to reach out to Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee in this moment of crisis, he said: “I appeal to all political shades that the republican Constitution of India is in danger. The crisis I visualise as a student of politics, as a concerned citizen, is that the very structure of the secular democracy of our country, the very idea of India, is endangered today. All of us must defend the Constitution.”

'If Kashmir is an extreme case, elsewhere they are policing the population to send the message that they are no more ready to listen to voices of dissent' said Yousuf Tarigami