The decision of Jamaat-i-Islami leaders who unsuccessfully contested last year’s Assembly election to float a new political party has generated some interest in the Valley. Named as the Justice and Development Front (JDF), the party will contest the upcoming grassroots elections. It will be the third new political party in Kashmir since the abrogation of Article 370 in August 2019. First two were the Apni Party led by Altaf Bukhari and the Democratic Progressive Azad Party (DPAP) founded by the former Congress veteran Ghulam Nabi Azad. Both of them have not been able to make any mark since their advent. In fact, the DPAP has all but disappeared from the political scene and Azad has almost retired from politics. Jamaat contestants in last year’s election too couldn’t win a single seat despite initial excitement. Except for Sayar Ahmad Reshi who polled 25000 votes in Kulgam, others were defeated by heavy margins.
Now, the question arises whether a new party could help these candidates. It may or may not do. There are no guarantees in politics. The USP of being a Jamaat-i-Islami is its religio-political agenda and its loyal cadre. Also, if we go by the Jamaat’s history, the party despite its religious image hasn’t only been about the religion. Jamaat schools were and continue to be forward-looking in matters of education. While religious instruction in these schools is a must, it is not the paramount and exclusive focus of education like the madrassas that sprang up in hundreds across the Valley through the nineties. Long before madrassas started turning out youth with knowledge restricted to religion, Jamaat produced doctors and engineers, scientists and academicians, even administrators, some of whom occupy posts in the higher echelons of the state bureaucracy.
Would this history and the background transfer to the JDF? Again, it may or may not happen. Over the last three decades of Jamaat’s absence from electoral politics, generations have grown without any familiarity with Jamaat. They will find it difficult to relate to Jamaat, let alone a party with a purported connection to the parent organization. Anyways, the new party seems to have no connection to the parent in terms of its ideological leanings. Going forward, the JDF is likely to be judged on its own merits, and how best its leaders retain draw on Jamaat discourse and ideology. Not being able to do so will only detract from the organization’s authenticity, in turn impacting its electoral chances.
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