The AIP's Kashmiri Pandit Contestant

This story was published as part of Outlook Magazine's 'Future Tense' issue, dated October 1, 2024. To read more stories from the Issue, click here.

At Engineer Rashid’s home in Jawahar Nagar in uptown Srinagar, a man sat patiently waiting for him. The man at times shifted his posture, smiling at those who entered the house. Despite Rashid being a Member of Parliament, there was no security, allowing people easy access to his house. But Rashid was not at home; he was busy campaigning after he was released on bail. While others who had come to meet Rashid eventually left, the man kept waiting. “I won’t leave without meeting Rashid Sahab,” he said.

The man introduced himself. “My name is Ashok Kumar Raina, and I’m almost 60. I have a degree in law, but I’m not a practicing lawyer. My expertise lies in drafting petitions,” he said.

Raina was born in the Dooru area of Anantnag, where he initially studied in his village before moving to Srinagar for higher education. His father, Gopi Nath Raina, was also a politician associated with the Congress in the 1960s and 1970s.

“I have enjoyed my time in Kashmir,” he said. While talking about life in the 1970s and 1980s, he became nostalgic. “I don’t think we ever thought about who is a Pandit or a Muslim. We were competing with each other in education and sports.

But his life changed in 1990. Some people came to his house and knocked on the door. “They were strangers, maybe they had weapons. I was vigilant. We didn’t open the door,” he said. The next day, the family shifted to Jammu. Raina says the migration of his family was a tragic incident, and it deeply impacted him psychologically.

In 1991, Raina returned to Kashmir and started working in the Jammu & Kashmir Bank. One day, a politician from the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) approached him, asking him to join the party. Raina left his job in 2008 and contested from the Habba Kadal constituency—considered a Pandit stronghold—on a BSP ticket. In 2019, Raina left the BSP and joined the Congress. He contested and won the panchayat elections in 2019 and became the deputy sarpanch of his village.

Then, on August 5, 2019, Article 370 was abrogated. “I couldn’t visit my village after the abrogation because several of my colleagues—Ajay Bharati from Tral and Rakesh Pandita from Anantnag—were killed, along with another Muslim friend,” he said.

For Raina, Article 370 holds little significance. “It was like just another provision in the Constitution, devoid of substance,” he says. Raina believes that if the abrogation could lead to positive changes for Kashmir, then it is worth it. However, he remains deeply concerned about statehood and seeks the restoration of statehood for J&K.

This year, he left the Congress and joined the Rashid’s Awami Ittehad Party (AIP). He was eager to once again fight from the Habba Kadal constituency, but the party had other plans. It asked him to contest from the Chhamb constituency in Jammu, where former Deputy Chief Minister and senior Congress leader Tara Chand is contesting.

“We are not proxies of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), but we can say that if we gain more seats, the BJP could become a key ally of the AIP. There’s no harm in forming an alliance with them,” he added. He expressed frustration with the distorted interpretations of Article 370 and the misguided discourse labelling the AIP as the A-team, B-team or C-team of the BJP. “The BJP could become our A1 team if we get more seats in Kashmir,” he said.

(This appeared in the print as 'The Lone Wolf')