The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is busy making a virtue of necessity.
All the “right” noises are being made about how the democratic process has been restored in the former degraded state of Jammu and Kashmir.
As if the voter in that besieged part of the country spoke for the government in power.
The fact that they did so is entirely due to their political sagacity, but clearly, they did not do it to gain credit for the establishment.
Quite the contrary, it turns out.
Background
As of August 5, 2019, the Hindutva plan for the old state began to operate.
The ideological project of incorporating Kashmir into the majority paradigm was inaugurated with the clandestine reading of Article 370. This required the forced silencing of the political voice of the Valley, especially.
Consequently, the move was accompanied by the draconian confinement of mainstream leaders and the humiliating demotion of the state to a Union Territory, never before done in the history of the post-Independence republic, and the imposition of government. direct central.
This one-shot measure robbed the state assembly of its constitutionally ordered prerogative to speak for the continuation or not of Jammu and Kashmir’s “special status”.
Security personnel barricade a street during restrictions imposed on the first anniversary of the revocation of Jammu and Kashmir’s special status, in Srinagar on Wednesday, August 5, 2020. Photo: PTI
For an entire calendar year, relentless propaganda was unleashed to claim that the main leaders and parties had lost favor with the general public who had now decided to move to the grand vision of number one to achieve “development” in the state. under the aegis of the ruling party and the benevolent political dispensation of the honorable lieutenant governor.
The question of why those leaders should be jailed if they had in fact disappeared remained unanswered. As is the question of why they were asked to sign bonds pledging not to raise the issue of Article 370 in public in case they were let out if, in fact, the people of Kashmir no longer gave a damn about identity. historical record granted by the provisions of articles 370. and 35A.
The constitution of the District Development Councils and the announcement of elections for these bodies were cunning moves to depoliticize the state and redirect popular activity toward the seemingly apolitical agenda of tidying up sewers, planting power poles, repairing roads and bridges, and give young Kashmiris the opportunity to distinguish themselves at healthy sporting events.
An elected assembly was to be understood as a secondary concern for the Kashmiri people, who now saw the great benefits of calming their disoriented political unrest in favor of uncomplaining cooperation with “nationalist” shortcomings.
Always dismissing the intervention of “foreign” voices in the matter of the Center’s events in the state as malicious efforts to discredit Indian democracy, the central government did not think of inviting elected representatives of foreign nations to the Valley to certify the laudable democratic efforts. . from the government of Modi vis-à-vis Jammu and Kashmir which, it was reported, had lagged far behind the rest of the country in economic opportunities due to the “special status” that it was unfairly granted by the “appeasement” regimes of the Congress of the past.
All this despite voluminous statistics that emphatically showed that the old state had indeed fared much better in the field of “development” than even the beloved state of Gujarat.
The final masterpiece of this elaborately constructed hoax was the declaration of elections to the district development councils.
Despite all the “correct” rumors about the great restoration of democracy for the people of the state, the astute calculation of the powers that be was that the ruling parties were too pulverized and relegated to venture to participate in these projected elections. Thus, the electoral movement was fueled by the anticipation that the ruling BJP would have an open field and the chance of his life to occupy all the political space in the state.
A king’s party was presented as a substitute for the main parties to show that local politics were alive and free to participate in the new democratic vision.
Major parties
Ruthlessly excluded from any conversation with the people, these parties found themselves in an unenviable dilemma.
But they had the sagacity to understand that if they did not participate in the DDC elections, the boycott could not fail to spell real political ruin for them.
They understood that if they did not strive to regain political space given this opportunity for council elections, another opportunity may not present itself in the foreseeable long-term future. They also understood that mere participation was not enough and that a defeat at the hands of the BJP giant would relegate them once and for all to the category of “dynastics” who had lost their dominance among the Kashmiris.
The creation of the Gupkar Alliance was therefore a necessity and a crafty realpolitik.
The leader of the National Conference, Farooq Abdullah, and the head of the PDP, Mehbooba Mufti, and other leaders watch as the spokesperson for the Declaration of the Popular Alliance for Gupkar, Sajjad Lone, speaks with the media after a meeting in Srinagar, on October 24, 2020. Photo: PTI / S. Irfan
The bell
Stunned by the mainstream’s determination to put up a fight, the only two avenues open to the ruling establishment were either to rescind the elections on one pretext or another, or to make it as intractable as possible for the Alliance candidates to campaign freely. among the electorate.
Evidently, events had seized the Center and the BJP to risk the shame of canceling the planned elections. Thus the second course was adopted. They sought to lock up the Alliance candidates, now nicknamed the “Gupkar Gang,” in closed confines under the pretext of security threats, while the BJP candidates roamed freely under state security cover.
Conventional campaign
Against the official campaign that sought to smear politics and be based on the “development” thesis, the mainstream knew that any return of political credibility to them could only result if they carried out an open campaign against the reading of Article 370 and for the restoration of the “status” granted to the state by the constitution of India after prolonged negotiations in the Constituent Assembly.
Therefore, the Alliance was named Popular Alliance by the Gupkar Declaration.
That declaration, as we know, was aimed at opposing the termination of “special status” and fighting for its restoration. The fact that this bold principled resolve to uphold its commitment to the deleted article was unsurprisingly maligned was proof of its extra-nationalist loyalties to “separatism.”
The result
During the campaign, whatever media group placed a microphone in a voter’s mouth, they were told that people had decided to vote now for the new vision of the state vigorously propagated by the Center and the ruling party.
But the results show that the people of Kashmir had a monumental scam in mind.
Whoever took the voices of the campaign seriously would not have concluded that the BJP was destined to sweep the state, including the Valley.
However, look at what has happened. The Alliance has not only swept the province of Kashmir, but has recorded victories by up to 35 seats in the province of Jammu. In contrast, the BJP has won three seats in the Valley, mainly due to poor selection of candidates by the Alliance in these seats.
Clearly, any media propaganda on behalf of the establishment that the results once again show a divide between the Hindu-dominated province of Jammu and a Muslim-dominated valley is just that: propaganda. The salutary fact is that while Hindutva has failed to conquer the Valley in the opposite way, it is the mainstream that has once again demonstrated that its hegemony extends to large areas of Jammu province as well. That the National Conference has 25 seats and the Congress 17 in Jammu province puts an end to that sectarian thesis.
The candidate of the National Conference (NC), Salmaan Sagar, shows a sign of victory after his leadership in the results of the municipal elections, in Srinagar, on Tuesday, December 22, 2020. Photo: PTI
This can be fairly interpreted as living proof that the core of Kashmir’s secular politics remains in place and, if you will, that Kashmir has once again triumphed over sectarian majoritarianism.
Truly a consequence that brings heart and hope to a nation overwhelmed by the forces of cultural and political reaction, and suffocated by an authoritarian government. Note that even some Pandit candidates have won their seats at the main entrances.
Remembering Gandhi, Kashmir still shows the way.
This resounding assertion of mainstream politics gives it a fair basis for asserting that its “special status” restoration agenda has a mandate from the people, a assertion that may not be rationally challenged by a regime that never fails to assert that its 37 El % of popular vote in the 2019 General Elections gives you the right to do what you want, where you want.
Without losing points of controversy, the ruling BJP now seeks to offer the argument that it has obtained equal or more votes than the Alliance. It goes without saying that they might not have said this if they had had more seats than the Alliance and if the Alliance had more votes than they.
The future
Having failed the DDC Project elections for the ruling BJP, the incumbent government may now be more than paralyzed to once again resort to draconian measures, to once again weaken the career of the dominant politics and leaders in the state. Nor can it be that easy, given the current historical agitation of farmers, to suppress massive public activity in the state as explained above.
Similarly, the establishment may think twice now to fulfill its commitment to restore statehood in Jammu and Kashmir or hold elections for a new assembly.
Given that the new domicile laws have come down hard in both provinces of the union territory, it may not be easy to contain the popular mobilization against these new measures that affect everyone in the state.
A situation may arise where the Kashmiri people of both provinces are forced to unite, despite Hindutva, to fight together to regain what was lost.
Let us never forget that the democratic world watches the events in Kashmir and that the new presidency in the United States may not be as helpful on the matter as Donald Trump.
More than a millennium ago, Kalhana Pandit, author of Rajtaringini, a text close to the official heart, had this as an epigraph: “Kashmiris can never be conquered by force, only by love.”
Well, that love can only be better expressed in the Center’s acceptance of the demand for restoration of Article 370, and the abandonment of the Hindutva vis-à-vis Kashmir project.
Badri Raina has taught at the University of Delhi.
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