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Elections pass Srinagar by
By
Sonia Jabbar
SRINAGAR - The congested streets
and ancient buildings that make up the summer capital of
Indian Kashmir are sprawled indolently on the banks of
the Jhelum, indifferent to the fact that the city was at
the center of Tuesday's second stage of polling in the
state's four-phase elections.
In the voting for
the state assembly, Srinagar recorded a meagre 10
percent polling, but this comes as no surprise given its
recent history as the center of a separatist movement
that turned violent over the last 13 years. In contrast,
adjoining Budgam district recorded a 35 percent turnout
and Jammu, the third region which went to polls on
Tuesday, averaged 40 percent.
"No big incident
was reported," Pramod Jain, the state's chief electoral
officer, said with obvious relief. Jain said that the
authorities were not expecting the same high 47 percent
turnout recorded in the first phase on September 16,
when voters from five districts along the Line of
Control (LoC) that separates the state from its Pakistan
controlled half went to polls.
But before the
polling began, police used rockets to set ablaze a
residential building where two militants had holed
themselves up after killing a constable. The incident
would have dampened voting, a boycott of which had been
called by the separatist All Party Hurriyat Committee
(APHC) that is influential in the city.
Amirakadal (bridge of wealth), a constituency in
Srinagar district that was built during the Afghan
occupation of Kashmir in the mid-eighteenth century,
witnessed 68 percent polling in a hotly contested
election in Indian-controlled Kashmir 15 years ago. But
not more than 10 percent of its 60,000 voters were
expected to vote on Tuesday.
Many link such
apathy to Amirakadal's recent history. In 1987, a fiery
preacher called Mohammed Yusuf Shah, a candidate from
the far-right Islamist party, the Jamat-e-Islami,
thought he could easily defeat his nearest rival, a
seasoned politician of the ruling National Conference
(NC).
The exit polls indicated that Shah was
winning by a wide margin, but at the end of the
counting, the NC was declared victorious. Amirakadal
erupted in outrage and accused the NC of rigging the
polls.
Whatever the truth, Shah and his election
agents were muzzled, beaten up and jailed - actions that
India was to rue in the years to come. Shah crossed over
to Pakistan and into the welcoming arms of Pakistan's
shadowy Inter Services Intelligence.
Growing his
beard and changing his name to Syed Salahuddin, he was
to take charge of the powerful militant group, the
Hizbul Mujahideen. Hamid Sheikh, Ashfaq Wani, Javed Mir
and Yasin Malik, election agents for Shah, all
hot-blooded youths in their early twenties, crossed over
to Pakistan for arms training.
Rafia Baji, a
teacher in Amirakadal, recalls one day in 1989 when she
attended an anti-New Delhi rally, an increasingly common
occurrence in those days, "There were some desultory
speeches, the same anti-India stuff we'd been hearing
for a while and lots of women and children out there,
nothing really serious."
Suddenly, four masked
men got up on stage, and raised aloft AK-47 rifles,
recalled Baji. "We'd never seen these in the valley
before and the entire crowd fell into an electrified
silence for a few moments. And then it exploded like a
wave, the resounding cries of azaadi or freedom."
The four young men formed the Jammu and Kashmir
Liberation Front (JKLF), but this fell apart even as it
was forming. Hamid Sheikh and Ashfaq Wani were killed in
quick succession by Indian security forces, Yasin Malik
was caught and jailed, and the pro-independence JKLF
cadre found itself becoming the target of scores of
deadly pro-Pakistan militant groups that proliferated
rapidly in the early 90s.
By the time Malik was
released from prison in 1994, the Hizbul Mujahideen with
its Jamat-e-Islami ideology had become the most powerful
group in Kashmir. But it was superceded by the
Taliban-linked Lashkar-e-Toiba (army of the pure),
Jaish-e-Mohammed (soldiers of Mohammed) and
Jamait-ul-Mujahideen (organization of Islamic freedom
fighters).
The JKLF, the only truly all-Kashmir
organization with its push for independence, had been
decimated by outfits supported and funded by the
Pakistani establishment. Malik had little choice but to
declare a unilateral ceasefire and adopt a non-violent
strategy for political change, a tactic that has yielded
little in the last eight years.
The JKLF, which
drew its political and moral support from the
traditional National Conference base, lost its
widespread appeal once political order, ruptured by the
insurgency, was restored with the 1996 elections and the
return of the NC to power.
The JKLF has been
unable to expand its base and re-establish supremacy in
Kashmiri politics - a fact, say its detractors, that
keeps it away from elections despite numerous appeals by
American and European diplomats to join mainstream
politics.
Ghulam Rasool Dar, JKLF general
secretary, hotly contests this. "Elections are a closed
chapter for us. After what happened in 1987 we no longer
trust the Indian ballot. If the government of India says
we have no support, then they shouldn't worry so much
and give the people of Kashmir a chance to vote against
us in a referendum for self-determination." Dar, like
other separatist leaders, believes that the elections
are not going to solve the basic problem of Kashmir.
He disagrees that elections could go a long way
in bringing development. "When we are fighting for a
cause, then we should be able to sacrifice development.
It doesn't matter even if we don't have development for
the next hundred years."
The JKLF, like the rest
of the separatist alliance, the 23-member APHC, is today
a victim of its own rhetoric. Government officials say
that if the reason for taking up the gun was rigged
elections, as they have always claimed, they should have
little reason to complain since the Indian government is
providing an opportunity for transparent free and fair
elections.
Said Shafi Bhatt, Congress candidate
and present incumbent of the Amirakadal seat, "It hardly
matters whether these people and their followers boycott
the elections or not. Some votes will be cast and the
assembly will be formed regardless. The separatists will
be left behind, out in the political wilderness."
Javed Mir, acting chairman of the JKLF since the
Indian authorities jailed Malik a few months ago,
realizes that there is little room to maneuver, "We
cannot expect people to continue in limbo. But we can
neither support the elections nor be expected to
participate in them."
Mir is candid, "We started
all this. Today, after tens of thousands of Kashmiris
have been killed we can hardly say, okay, that story's
over, now vote for us so that we can join the assembly.
And more importantly, what will it achieve? Will
infiltration stop, will the killings stop if Javed Mir
fights elections?" he added.
Only a few days
ago, an NC worker was shot dead near Amirakadal, sending
a quiet wave of panic among voters. But the predominant
mood is one of cynical indifference and apathy. "Why
should I vote?" asked Munir, an autorickshaw driver,
"the man who promises the world before he is in power
only loots people once he is in power. The main problem
is the war between India and Pakistan. No candidate can
bring peace, only Pakistan's President [Pervez]
Musharraf and India's Prime Minister [Atal Bihari]
Vajpayee if they should so choose," he said.
(Inter Press Service)
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