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Kashmir: Guns, guts and
guesswork
By Sudha Ramachandran
BANGALORE - With voter turnout in Monday’s
polling exceeding expectations, it does seem that the
battle between the ballot and the bullet in the first
phase of the elections to the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly
has gone in favor of the former. However, with three
more rounds of voting to go, the battle could still go
either way.
Stung by the respectable voter
turnout in round one, militants have stepped up violence
in a bid to intimidate voters into staying away from the
polling booths in the second phase of voting scheduled
for September 24.
According to the Election
Commission, turnout in the five districts that voted in
the first phase of polling (two candidates were returned
unopposed in the sixth district) was around 47.2
percent. Although this figure is lower than the 61
percent turnout officially claimed in these five
districts in the 1996 Assembly election, the current
turnout is being hailed as a real achievement as unlike
in 1996, this time voters were by and large not coerced
by security forces to vote.
The 23
constituencies that voted on Monday are spread across
five border districts - Kupwara, Baramulla, Kargil,
Poonch and Rajouri. It is through the mountains in these
districts that Pakistan infiltrates militants into
India. Monday’s voting, it has been reported, took place
against the persistent rattle of militant gunfire.
Of the five districts, Kargil, a frequent target
of Pakistani shelling, recorded the highest turnout of
75.89 percent. Even the militancy hotbeds saw good voter
turnouts - Kupwara with 55.39 percent, Poonch and
Rajouri districts with 52.36 and 44.44 percent
respectively, and Baramulla district with 41.72 percent.
Militants have threatened reprisals against
anyone who participates in the elections. Two candidates
and at least 150 people have been killed in the state
since August 22, when the elections were notified. The
confrontation between militants and security forces has
turned bloodier in recent weeks, with the Indian
government determined to conduct a "free and fair" poll,
and the militants and their backers across the border in
Pakistan just as determined to derail the democratic
exercise.
In that battle, India has gained the
upper hand in the first round - thanks to the voter
turnout and the international community’s endorsement of
the way the election was conducted - prompting much
self-congratulatory praise in New Delhi.
However, the respectable 47 percent average
turnout for the first phase does not tell the whole
story. Turnout was uneven, especially in the Valley.
While many Kashmiris did brave the militants and came
out to vote, some stayed away. There have been reports
of entire villages not showing up to vote.
The
town of Sopore (Baramulla district), the stronghold of
jailed Hurriyat hardliner, Ali Shah Geelani, registered
a dismal 3-5 percent turnout. In Dooru, his ancestral
village, just "one reluctant vote" was cast by an ailing
villager who had been asked by the local police to do
so, reports the Indian Express. A similar story from
Botingur, the ancestral village of the Hurriyat’s
hawkish chairperson, Abdul Gani Bhat. Of the 945 voters
listed here, the lone vote was that of a disabled youth.
The Hurriyat Conference, an umbrella organization of
separatist groups, has called for a boycott of the
polls.
However, if Baramulla turned its back on
the ballot box, the mood in Kupwara - often called the
"‘gateway of militancy" - was very different, where
voters stood in long lines for hours, braving bullets to
exercise their franchise. Tregam, the birthplace of
Maqbool Bhat, the azadi (freedom) struggle's
first "martyr", saw a voter turnout of 83 percent.
Two proxy candidates of the People’s Conference
(PC) (a moderate Hurriyat constituent) contested from
Kupwara. Known to be close to the slain PC leader, Abdul
Gani Lone, the two, contesting as independents on a
pro-azadi plank, have drawn huge and spontaneous
crowds at election rallies.
The unprecedented
voter turnout in Kupwara was not so much the result of a
new enthusiasm to do as India wants as it was a
determination to vote out the ruling National Conference
(NC). "The use of electronic voting machines for the
first time convinced many people that chances of
manipulation of the result would be less and their vote
could make a difference and that they would, if they
voted, be able to oust the NC," a Srinagar-based
Kashmiri journalist told Asia Times Online.
Some
sections in India have interpreted the voter turnout as
a tilt in India’s favor. However, as many voters in
Kupwara have said their vote was neither a pro-India
vote nor a vote against independence. It was a vote for
freedom from NC rule. The huge voter turnout in Kupwara
is expected to hurt the NC's chances in the district.
Reporting from Kashmir for The Hindu, Anjali
Mody writes, "People voted for reasons which had nothing
to do with New Delhi's … They wanted change, they said,
from the politics of 'self aggrandizement and
corruption' … Almost no one saw the election as New
Delhi has been seeing it - the beginning of the end of
the troubles in Jammu and Kashmir."
However,
India can take heart that the Kashmiris see the ballot
box and not the bullet as the means to bring about the
change, that they have in effect turned their backs on
the militants and Pakistan.
New Delhi is hoping
that the positive response of the voters will have a
cascading effect on the subsequent phases. The turnout
has already stung the militants, who are striking back
with renewed vigor. There has been a sharp escalation in
attacks since Monday night.
The districts of
Srinagar and Budgam in the Valley and the district of
Jammu will go to the polls in the next phase. With
polling day now just a few days away, it is on Srinagar
that militants seem to be targeting all their firepower.
On Tuesday, militants shot at the editor of the
widely circulated Urdu daily, Srinagar Times, apparently
for his "positive coverage" of the polls. In a separate
incident, militants lobbed a grenade at the office of
the Congress Party, situated in the heart of Srinagar.
Two NC workers were killed on Wednesday morning in
Srinagar.
According to reports, intelligence
intercepts indicate that the Pakistan based leadership
of the Hizbul Mujahideen has offered cash prizes of
around US$2,000 for the head of each candidate.
The separatists' boycott call is expected to
affect polling in Srinagar city, which accounts for
eight of the 10 seats in Srinagar district. The low
turnout is likely to help the NC's here. The other two
constituencies in Srinagar district are Ganderbal and
Kangan and both are likely to see high voter turnouts.
The NC’s chief ministerial candidate Omar Abdullah is
contesting from Ganderbal. Although he is popular, he
carries the burden of being the son of the deeply hated
present chief minister, Farooq Abdullah.
Barring
Beerwah constituency (a militant-infested area) the
other four constituencies in Budgam district are
expected to see high turnout, putting the NC in a
difficult situation. The opposition, People’s Democratic
Party (PDP) could wrest seats from the NC in Budgam.
The issue of statehood is gaining ground in
Jammu district. While the NC and parties such as the
Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are
refraining from raising this issue, the All Party Jammu
Statehood Movement (APJSM) - an offshoot of the
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a fraternal
organization of the BJP - is campaigning actively on the
matter. Interestingly, the BJP is engaged in a direct
fight with its sister organization, the APJSM, in 12
places.
The RSS's open support to the APJSM has
opened up a new rift within the Sangh Parivar (the
family of Hindu organizations to which the BJP and RSS
belong) and could even undermine the BJP's electoral
prospects in Jammu.
Despite the militants
intensifying their violence, the poll campaign by the
parties for the second phase seems more enthusiastic
than the previous round. With a high voter turnout
likely to adversely affect the NC, and an ouster of the
NC emerging as a possibility, parties such as the PDP
and the Congress have stepped up their campaign.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi, who stayed away from
the previous round for security reasons, addressed a
rally in Srinagar on Wednesday.
If on September
24, voters defy the militants and show up at polling
booths in reasonably large numbers, the NC could be in
trouble. Ironically the militants campaign is helping
the NC. If their bullets and boycott calls are
successful, they just might help maintain the status
quo.
(©2002 Asia Times Online Co Ltd. All rights
reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com
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