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Grassroots democracy rebuffs
Kashmir terror
By Kanchan
Lakshman
Attempts to strengthen political
contestation and civic participation in Indian
administered Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) received
a boost this week, with the first phase of civic
polls taking place after a gap of 27 years.
As part of an eight-phase polling process,
elections for two municipal councils and eight
municipal committees in the Baramulla and Kupwara
districts of north Kashmir were held on January
29. Polls will be held for all civic bodies in the
state, including the municipal corporations of the
two capital cities of Srinagar and Jammu. The
electoral process, which began on January 8, is to
be completed by February 17. Beginning January 29,
civic polls are being held in Srinagar, Baramulla,
Budgam, Anantnag, Pulwama and Kupwara to elect a
corporation, three councils and 30 committees -
with a 33% quota of all posts reserved for women.
The summer capital Srinagar, for instance, is to
elect its first ever mayor who will preside over
68 elected councilors, including 23 women.
Preliminary reports indicate that over 60%
of the electorate cast their votes in the first
phase. The municipal committees in Kupwara
witnessed the highest turnout of 86%, while those
in Baramulla registered a turnout of 56.5%,
according to a Press Trust of India report. The
highest voter turnout was recorded in Handwara
municipal committee, where nearly 88% of the
electorate exercised their franchise. Candidates
for Kunzer municipal committee in Baramulla were
declared elected unopposed as there were only five
nominations for as many seats. While a total of 21
candidates have already been elected unopposed in
Baramulla and Kupwara, initial reports indicate
that the ruling coalition of the People's
Democratic Party (PDP)-Congress has consolidated
its position over the opposition National
Conference (NC).
Terrorist groups and the
overground separatist formations had once again
issued a call for a boycott of the elections, as
they have been doing for over a decade in J&K.
Dismissing the polls as a "useless exercise", and
"against the interests" of the people, they called
for a boycott "at every level". Some efforts were
made to enforce the boycott with violence, and
terrorists killed two candidates, one each of the
NC and Congress, while several others were
attacked in the run up to the first phase of
polling. At least six political activists were
also killed and approximately 64 others were
wounded in pre-election violence. Terrorists also
targeted the PDP chief, Mehbooba Mufti (January
24), State Finance Minister Muzaffar Hussain Baig
(January 27), and PDP legislator, Zahoor Ahmad Mir
(January 27), in the pre-poll phase.
Targeting the democratic ethos has been
integral to the strategic orientation of terrorist
groups in J&K. Al-Mansooran, a front outfit of
the Lashkar-e-Toiba, issued threats to all
candidates, demanding their withdrawal from the
electoral contest. The Congress candidate in
Baramulla, Noor-ud-din Sherwani, was shot dead on
January 17, while PDP and NC candidates were
targeted in the same area, and in Srinagar.
Security provisions for the approximately
350 candidates in Baramulla and Kupwara have been
a logistical nightmare, and at least 152 people
are reported to have quit the race before
Saturday's polls. In Baramulla alone, 83
candidates withdrew after Sherwani's killing,
while 23 pulled out in Srinagar city after the
grenade attack on an NC rally at Alamgari Bazaar
on January 15, in which three political activists
were killed. The terror fanned by violence
reportedly led to the cancellation of elections at
Khrew in Pulwama district, since not a single
candidate filed nomination papers.
But the
unprecedented participation in the first phase has
already transformed elements of the situation on
the ground. Chief Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed
declared, after the first phase, that with the
increased participation in civic polls, the myth
that "everything about Kashmir was being decided
in Delhi has also gone". Though it is still too
early to judge the overall impact of the current
electoral processes, it is certain that municipal
structures would provide for a substantive system
to address legitimate local grievances. The
empowerment of people through their
representatives at the lowest and most dispersed
levels of governance is bound to gradually change
the micro-politics of terrorist violence.
Since the escalation of terrorism in 1988
and the gradual erosion of democratic
institutions, terrorist groups have managed to
build pockets of influence across the state and,
at one point of time, had even replaced local
structures of governance in some areas. The
operation of local government institutions is
bound to erode the support base of the extremists
and, if the initial response generated is a
yardstick, these elections could change the ground
realities in ways that would consolidate the
cumulative impact of the 2004 parliamentary polls
and the 2002 state assembly elections. Both these
earlier electoral exercises saw a significant turn
out of voters in defiance of terrorist threats,
and extended the spheres of non-violent political
activity, even as they helped restore the
integrity of civil administrative institutions in
wide areas of neglect. Over time, the increasing
popularity of electoral processes is also bound to
impact the overground separatist camp, with
organizations like the All Parties Hurriyat
Conference being forced to prove their popularity
through democratic means.
The small truth
of these civic elections is that the youth in
Kashmir Valley, including a large number of women,
have been brought to the forefront. Urban
Development Minister G H Mir put the average age
of women candidates at 35 and that of men at 30.
Opportunities to be part of the developmental
process and to secure gainful employment have been
critical influencing factors. Sobiya Mushtaq, a
candidate in the Sopore town of Baramulla
district, a hub of separatist politics, for
instance, stated, "I had no idea what civic polls
are all about ... But now I am enthusiastic. I
will get some monthly salary and then I will also
be able to help in the development of our
locality." This sentiment was echoed by Nazima
Rashid, a candidate from Khwaja Bazaar in the
capital Srinagar: "I want to serve people,
especially women in my ward … These polls will
give us a voice in the government." The decision
to reserve 33% of the seats for women has enormous
potential for transformation, bringing a much
larger proportion of women into the wider
political process. Another significant spin-off is
that a representative character would give local
bodies more powers for decision-making and also
augment accountability, factors sorely lacking in
the violence-wracked state.
There is,
however, one stark blemish on the representative
character of the current elections: the names of
approximately 200,000 Kashmiri Pandits
(descendents of Brahmin priests) were reportedly
found to have been deleted from the electoral
rolls. According to the Municipal Corporation Act,
those who do not live at a particular address for
more than three years are automatically deleted
from the rolls, which means that virtually the
entire population of Kashmiri Pandits, who were
forced out of their home in 1989-90, are
mechanically disenfranchised. Ghulam Hassan Mir, a
leader of the ruling PDP, justifies this on the
grounds that, "This is not a question of giving
rights to migrants. The municipal elections are
about civic amenities. These have to be seen by
people where they live." Ajay Chrangoo, chairman
of the Panun Kashmir (a Pandit organization),
however, rejects this position, arguing, "We are
not living there, the situation is not conducive,
and this blocks our democratic right. How will we
tackle this situation?"
Electoral
legitimacy, as is the case in other theatres of
terrorist violence across the globe may, however,
also have a potentially adverse impact if the
disconcerted terrorist groups choose to up the
ante and provoke a major escalation in violence.
Given the track record of Indian security forces,
the changing global and regional situation, the
increasing difficulty of infiltration across the
border, and the progressive disenchantment of the
local population with the politics of the gun,
however, it will require the most extraordinary
effort on the part of the terrorists and their
state sponsors to successfully engineer a reversal
of the declining trends in violence that have
established themselves in the state since 2001.
Kanchan Lakshman, research
fellow, Institute for Conflict Management;
assistant editor, Faultlines: Writings on Conflict
& Resolution
Published with
permission from the South Asia Intelligence Review
of the South Asia Terrorism Portal
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