Does It Matter For Delhi What Kashmiris Think   

SRINAGAR — Both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP president Amit Shah have been effusive in their praise of the people of J&K for the remarkable performance of the Hindutva party in the just concluded municipal bodies polls. More importantly, the party won 97 seats (most of them uncontested) in Kashmir Valley, ironically the state’s separatist stronghold.

But on ground the reality was largely contrary to  what was being projected. The polls witnessed a widespread boycott in the Valley, so much so, that 76 of the BJP’s 97 seats were won unopposed. And a significant number of the candidates fielded by the party didn’t live in the localities they contested from but a minimum of 300 kilometres away. 

The other figures about the polls similarly tell a farcical if not the grim story: Overall, 231 wards in the Valley were won unopposed and the other 185 went uncontested. Congress got 157 wards  of which 78 were won unopposed. However, independents emerged as the single largest group in the Valley by winning 178 wards.

In Jammu, the BJP emerged as the single largest party. But in Ladakh, the party drew a blank.

The participation in the Valley was so meagre that a total of a four and a half percent cast their vote over the four successive phases in the Valley. In a Baramulla ward, a candidate won by his solitary vote. What is more, voters didn’t know who was contesting the election. Their names were kept under wraps until the day of the polls. Nor was their any election campaigning. 

One major takeaway from the polls is the boycott in Kashmir Valley and what  it entails for the state going forward.  First time the state witnessed boycott on such an extensive scale was during Parliament polls in 1989 when militancy had just begun.  The elections that followed saw an increasing participation of the people. Only exception was the last year’s Lok Sabha bypoll for Srinagar constituency which was not only boycotted but resisted too, leading to loss of eight lives.

So, has the situation in the Valley regressed to 1989? The answer, the general opinion in Kashmir goes, is yes.

Omens for the near future are thus grim. And after the boycott of the civic polls, few see chances of any participation in the ensuing Panchayat polls  or the general elections next year.   And this alienation, in turn, imperils the electoral politics in the Valley. And its biggest victims are the major regional political forces like National Conference and People’s Democratic Party, the two parties which have alternately ruled Kashmir in alliance with a national party like Congress or the BJP.

They have boycotted the ongoing civic polls pending an assurance from the centre that it wouldn’t scrap the Article 35A, the state subject law that bars outsiders from settling in the state. With no such assurance coming along, National Conference has even threatened to boycott the Assembly and Parliament polls.

This has left the field open for the Congress and BJP and the other smaller parties.  Only well-known Kashmiri party in the fray is the  People’s Conference led by Sajjad Gani Lone, a BJP ally. And as the results  reveal, Congress and the BJP have won a major chunk of the wards. Ironically the BJP has won even from the separatist bastions like Anantnag.

But the truth is far from helping improve the situation, the massively boycotted polls have only ended up putting the grim situation in the Valley in a sharp relief. Alienation is  total which in turn is a comment on the handling of Kashmir by the Modi government.

For centre, it doesn’t matter what Kashmiris think. The democratic message from  widespread boycott is that the people aren’t interested in the exercise and they want their grievances and aspirations addressed.  But New Delhi instead of acknowledging it seeks to not only distort what people want to convey but also impose its favourites on the people.

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