BJP goes the Cong way in Kashmir polls

Naeem Akhtar
Former Minister, J&K

With exceptions, elections in Jammu and Kashmir have historically remained a part of the problem rather than leading to peace and resolution. Polls to panchayats and urban local bodies have been a class apart even in Kashmir's very own banana republic election lore. Even their periodicity can be counted not in constitutional terms, but as being associated with generations. 

In 2000, Farooq Abdullah, enjoying an unprecedented majority in the Assembly, was enthused to hold panchayat elections after many decades. 

Once on a visit to my village, out of curiosity, I enquired from the folks there who the Sarpanch was. To my amusement, it was a person who had the least suitable qualifications for being a village head. Persisting with my query, I expressed the desire to meet him at his home. But I was told that he was working in the city. Working as what? "Jinab, the Sarpanch is working as a cook at the residence of the MLC." 

The MLC was a dreaded police constable-turned-militant-turned renegade who was rewarded by Farooq with the membership of the Upper House of the state legislature after having been accused of the worst kind of atrocities, including murders. The instance illustrates the kind of results generated by electoral exercises sans people's involvement in a conflict area.

Eighteen years down the line, the BJP, by electing itself to urban local bodies, has brought Kashmir to a worse situation, where, unfortunately, the amusement element of yore is missing. It actually is leading to a head-on collision of residents with the state. 

The BJP leaders have announced that their party will have its own Mayor in Srinagar even as its only local ally, Sajjad Ghani Lone, has made a similar claim. In public perception, there is hardly any distinguishing line between the two and to that extent, both could be correct. Governor Malik, even before the polls, created a furore by indicating the possible Mayor who he claimed "with his foreign education could give the main political stakeholders in the state, the PDP and NC, a run for their money." The two parties, in fact, between them account for a majority in the state legislature.

While the BJP can claim to have swept the local polls, one wishes democracy in Kashmir was about numbers, as elsewhere. It may celebrate its councils in places like Shopian, the epicentre of armed insurgency with all non-resident corporators living at a minimum distance of 300 km, what will it achieve in restoring peace in the state? Consider these statistics to understand the sham that goes on in the name of empowerment of citizens.

Out of 10,50,000 voters in the Kashmir valley, just 43,091 used their franchise. Out of 40 urban local bodies, no polling was held in 27. It converts into 412 out of 598 wards going without polling. In 181 wards, there was no contestant, whereas in 231 wards there was just one contestant each, who were obviously declared victorious uncontested and would be representatives of the BJP, rather than any voters. 

There are stories galore about money going into inducing candidates to file nominations and voters being brought to polling stations. Some victories are believed to be the result of polling just five votes in all between the victor and the vanquished. 

The crisis in Kashmir right now is not about the statistics of participation. It is all about the credibility of institutions and the ability of the country to accommodate the aspirations of a people with all their cultural, social and religious identity which they feel is threatened more than ever before and is just one push away from coming to a shove. It is also about brazenly purchasing the loyalties of a few against the will of the masses. 

And it was not at all difficult for Prime Minister Modi to build on the atmosphere that his predecessor Vajpayee had created 16 years ago to retrieve the democratic system in the state and invest it with not just credibility and respectability but also an unmistakable potential to generate permanent peace in the state as a respectable and distinct part of the union. 

But, unfortunately, his government, too, is now reduced to the earlier Congress' sloganeering: "Kashmir is our integral part and no power on earth can snatch it from us", as the Home Minister recently reiterated. No Kashmiri, in fact, has any doubt about that. 

It is ironical that the belief in Kashmir that 'it is Delhi that makes and breaks governments in J&K' has been revived during the tenure of a strong non-Congress government. 

Morarji Desai was the first PM to deliver a free and fair election to the state, even though it meant Sheikh Abdullah sweeping the polls, though Desai was never a fan of the Sheikh. Like Nehru and Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, in his quest to own Kashmir, bludgeoned Farooq into a disastrous coalition that became the nemesis of the heaven on earth. 

The retrieval came in 2002 when another non-Congress PM, Vajpayee, kept his commitment and the NC chief-ministerial candidate and party president Omar Abdullah was trounced in the constituency held by his father and mighty grandfather. Lacing this fundamental intervention that gave Kashmir the first taste of the value of vote, with diplomatic and political push, the state got transformed in no time.

Unfortunately for him, for the country and for Kashmir, Modi chose to be in the league of Congress prime ministers rather than be his own man or be one with Vajpayee and Morarji Desai, his fellow Gujarati. The elections have lost, at least for some time, the power of being an instrument of change; for better, though certainly not for worse. 

The government may claim credit for the elections being free and fair. But in public perception, they were 'paid and feared' elections, an addition to the local lore.