Srinagar, Indian Administered Kashmir – Sakina Itoo used to motivate Kashmiris to believe that India is better for their future. But the 48-year-old pro-India policy says New Delhi’s decision to strip the Muslim-majority region of autonomy last August has made it lose face and vulnerable.
“We don’t know how to go back to addressing people. We don’t have answers ourselves, what will we tell them?” Itoo, a former minister in the regional government, told Al Jazeera.
The government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi also suspended the regional assembly and demoted India’s only Muslim-majority region to federally administered territory in a move that critics say has taken away the democratic rights of the people.
The government justified the move, saying it will bring development to the region, which has seen an armed rebellion since the late 1980s against Indian rule.
In our own houses we were told that we could not go out. As long as we were the people who advocated for democracy.
Waheed Para, PDP leader
Local politicians who participated in the elections and remained affiliated with parties loyal to New Delhi have faced numerous attacks and threats from the rebels.
Itoo joined politics after his father, a pro-India politician, was assassinated by rebels in 1996. Since he became a member of the Kashmir assembly in 1996, Itoo has survived several attacks on his life.
Last April, a grenade was thrown at his home in Kulgam, a district in the southern region of Kashmir, a stronghold of rebels who have been fighting for independence or a merger with neighboring Pakistan.
Loyal to New Delhi
Itoo’s party, the National Conference, was the most dominant political party in the region that had remained loyal to New Delhi, but its top leadership, including members of its powerful Abdullah dynasty, were arrested last year.
The region was subjected to an unprecedented communications and security blackout last August. The internet was revived earlier this year, but at low speed.
The chairman of the National Conference party, Farooq Abdullah, right, and his son and former chief minister, Omar Abdullah, were detained for months. [File: Mukhtar Khan/AP Photo]
The scars on the National Conference and other political parties are now deeply ingrained as they struggle to fit into Kashmir’s new territorial and political reality.
“We always talk and motivate people that India is the best for us and it is our country,” Itoo said. “The youth are not ready to listen now,” he said.
Feeling abandoned and vulnerable, many of them have kept silent and disappeared from public life while facing threats from rebels.
“I have painful memories,” said the 48-year-old politician, referring to the attempts of her rallies and workers. “The previous militants would attack, but we had the support of the government, but now we are caught in the middle,” he said.
For the past three decades, as the armed rebellion waxed and waned in Kashmir, pro-India politicians were granted state security and benefits in exchange for loyalty to New Delhi.
There is no space and all political processes have been blocked. There is no road ahead.
Mohammad Yusuf Tarigami, former legislator
Waheed Para of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), which awarded the region’s last two top ministers, believes that the militaristic steps taken by New Delhi on August 5, 2019 and their consequences are not a solution for Kashmir. PPD leader and former Prime Minister Mehbooba Mufti has been detained for more than a year.
The Kashmir conflict dates back to 1947, when the Indian subcontinent was divided into India and Pakistan, a Hindu majority, a homeland for Muslims.
But things got complicated when the then Hindu king of the Muslim-majority region chose to access the region with India but with certain conditions, which were enshrined in article 370 of the Indian constitution.
“Kashmir was a problem before August 5 and continues to be,” Para, 30, told Al Jazeera.
“Our disappointment and regret is that we promised things to the people they took. We promised constitutional spaces to the youth of Kashmir, we promised a solution within the (Indian) constitution and these were not only challenged by the people or the militants but by the own government. “
Former Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti remains in jail since she was detained last year [File: Mukhtar Khan/AP Photo]
Para said the pro-India parties paid a “huge cost” as thousands of cadres were killed by rebels. “Suddenly, we are told that this space does not exist,” he said.
The young leader was one of hundreds of politicians imprisoned after the government’s decision to eliminate Article 370, which granted some autonomy to the region.
“In our own homes they told us that we could not go out. As long as we were the people who defended democracy,” Para said.
The political structure changed
Several pro-India politicians Al Jazeera spoke about expressed shock and accused New Delhi of treason.
We always talk and motivate people that India is the best for us and it is our country.
Sakina Itoo, Former Minister
Mohammad Yusuf Tarigami is a veteran of Kashmir politics. A member of a communist party, he has been elected as a legislator for the Kulgam constituency in southern Kashmir consecutively since 1996.
Tarigami said New Delhi removed “the line” that separated pro-Indian politicians in Kashmir from resistance leaders who defended freedom for the disputed region.
“Now we are all on the same line. There is no division. Now, all people are in the same jail, whether they are terrorists, separatists, the mainstream,” he said.
Tarigami describes the situation as unprecedented and says that Kashmir has become a “prison” in which “all shades of opinion” are detained.
“There is no space and all political processes have been blocked. There is no road ahead,” he said.
Aijaz Ashraf Wani, a Kashmir-based political analyst, told Al Jazeera that “politics in Kashmir has always remained very guided and controlled” and followed a “broader framework” set by New Delhi.
“It was within this framework that Kashmir’s political parties were supposed to operate. After 1947 the main concern was to bring Kashmir closer to India and that was guided by concern for national security and national integration,” he said.
“After August 5, he not only changed the status of Kashmir, he also tried to change the whole political structure,” he said.
What have they done for the people? They only worked to elevate themselves.
Ashok Koul, BJP spokesperson in Jammu and Kashmir
“We witnessed that [New Delhi] they were not concerned or concerned about the local political parties. They showed that they can do it without them and they even wanted to kill them, ”he said.
Wani’s assessment of a controlled and guided political structure that exists in Kashmir has also had resonance with a larger population, which has shown little faith in the democratic process. And that has been reflected in the low voter turnout in the elections.
Last October, just over four percent of the people turned out to vote in local council elections. Most of the pro-India parties boycotted the elections.
In the 2019 parliamentary elections, Kashmir’s Anantnag constituency witnessed a turnout of just 8.75 percent and 14.8 percent and 35 percent came out to vote in Srinagar and Baramulla, respectively.
Compared to that, the two electoral districts in the Hindu-majority Jammu region witnessed more than 70 percent turnout.
On Tuesday, India said it “revived grassroots democracy” in the region after UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet criticized New Delhi for severely restricting space for political debate and public participation.
‘Injustice’
Many Kashmiri locals Al Jazeera spoke to showed little sympathy for the marginalization of pro-India politicians.
“Whatever happens after August 5, only politicians are crying, but for ordinary Kashmiris it is always the same, always the change in the intensity of oppression,” said the Dane Ahmad.
“These are the same politicians who did us injustice all these years. I have never had any hope of them,” he said. the 25-year-old student from Srinagar, the main city in the region.
Sitara Nazir, a 55-year-old National Conference supporter from the central district of Ganderbal, says she feels desperate in the new political order.
These are the same politicians who did us injustice all these years. I have never had any hope of them.
The Danish Ahmad, a civilian from Kashmir
“Siding with them made us vulnerable in our own homes, we were even ready to take that risk thinking that our children might get jobs and we might see some kind of hope. Today we are totally desperate and we will never support them again,” he said. .
Experts in Kashmir fear that the hard-line policies adopted by the government could prove “counterproductive.”
“Right now, the situation is quite bleak,” said Radha Kumar, a retired teacher and one of three interlocutors appointed by the Indian government for dialogue with Kashmiri citizens and groups in 2010-2011.
“If you don’t have a legitimate political activity, how does a democracy work? In effect, that means there is no democracy. It is a very alarming situation,” he told Al Jazeera by phone.
“It is a very dangerous act, asphyxiating political spaces only leads to radicalization,” he said. ‘We may see more radical expressions and more militancy. All the measures the government has taken are guaranteed to be counterproductive. “
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has defended the government’s decision to suspend the state assembly, saying that the government “closed the shops” of Kashmiri politicians.
“What have they done for the people? They just worked to rise up,” said Ashok Koul, the BJP’s secretary general and spokesman in Jammu and Kashmir.
However, the crackdown in New Delhi last year has put a large crowd of its loyal politicians in an enigma. The rebels continue to hunt them and the state that had promised them safety and space has rejected them.
In many ways, they seem to be caught between the devil and the deep blue sea.
“What they (New Delhi) did, I don’t see any future in politics. What are we going to tell people if we go to them? They have eroded and ended up here,” Itoo said.
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