A Peaceful Poll?

The seven phase Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir, starting November17, are taking place in the backdrop of the extended Shri Amarnath Landagitation, which impacted dramatically on both sides of the Pir Panchal. Addingto administrative and security concerns in the state are the frequent ceasefireviolations by Pakistan across the Line of Control (LoC) and internationalborder. Authorities fear that firing from across the LoC and internationalborder will escalate during the protracted polling process that will continuetill the results are declared on December 28. 

In the first phase of polling on November 17, there were 10 assemblyconstituencies spread over four districts of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). Of the1,038 electoral booths in the Bandipora, Poonch, Leh and Kargil districts forwhich elections were held on November 17, more than half of them have beendescribed as 'hyper sensitive' while the rest have been placed under 'sensitive'category. While over 600,000 people were eligible to cast their franchise onNovember 17, the remaining electorate in 77 constituencies will vote in sixphases on November 23 and 30 and on December 7, 13, 17 and 24. 

The past year has witnessed many intrusions from across the LoC and borderboth in the Jammu and Kashmir divisions. The United Jehad Council, aconglomerate of 17 terrorist groups headquartered at Muzzafarabad in Pakistanoccupied Kashmir, and headed by Hizb-ul-Mujahideen chief Muhammad Yusuf Shah akaSyed Salahuddin, has given a call for a boycott of the elections, which createsan imminent danger of terrorist violence against candidates contesting andpeople participating in the election process.

Commenting on elections in J&K on Oct 21, 2008, at Islamabad, Yusuf Shahdeclared that United Jihad Council fighters were ‘sparing’ areas whereKashmiris were rallying behind the election boycott, but "we continuetargeting Indian army camps and the border areas."

J&K continued to witness a decline in terrorism related violence through2008, a trend that settled in after the peak of militancy in 2001. Totalfatalities in 2008 were 490 (up to November 3), as against 777 in 2007 and 1116in 2006. Nevertheless, efforts to push militants across the border from PoKcontinue, with at least five violations of the ceasefire between India andPakistan coinciding with infiltration attempts. Two of these were successful,with the militants cutting the fence and taking people hostage at Chinore andSamba. The infiltrators were eventually killed in encounters, but not beforethree civilians, including a photojournalist, and a soldier were killed inSamba; and seven civilians were killed in Chinore. The present elections,consequently, will be played out under the continuing spectre of extremistviolence and a boycott at least selectively imposed by militant fiat. 

Articulating these apprehensions, the Director General of J&K Police,Kuldeep Khoda, said on November 15 that there was a possibility of militantsattempting to disrupt the poll process, even though militancy-related violencein the state has declined by 40 per cent over the last year. "There havebeen grenade attacks by the militants in the last few days and we have gotinputs indicating that they are not totally silent," Khoda said. He alsosaid that campaigning passed off peacefully in all the ten constituencies forwhich elections were held on November 17.

Against this backdrop, the electoral scenario remains murky. In Jammu, thebattle lines are drawn between the main contenders: the Congress and BharatiyaJanata Party (BJP), though other regional contenders such as the NationalConference and Jammu and Kashmir Panthers Party (JKNPP) are far from weak andhave the capacity to upset electoral calculations. In the Kashmir Valley, on theother hand, the National Conference (NC) appears to have secured a dominantposition, with the Congress apparently reluctant to expand its base and thePeoples Democratic Party (PDP) seen as a double agent playing both sides. Thesparsely populated Ladakh region, which accounts for just four seats in the 87strong Legislative Assembly is largely dominated by the Ladakh Union TerritoryFront and National Conference. 

The Amarnath land controversy has created a deep impact on the hithertounchallenged and overwhelmingly hegemonistic Valley politics. An undercurrent ofpsychological hurt and insecurity increasingly influences the politicaldiscourse, undermining possibilities of success for the poll boycott call by theseparatists. People in the Valley are seeking an effective presence in theAssembly to upset and counter the probable unity in Jammu.

According to a government spokesman, following the announcement of pollschedule for the state on October 19 and beginning of the process of makingnominations for the first four phases, 862 political meetings have beenorganized across the state by November 12, with 406 of these taking place in theKashmir Division and 456 in Jammu division respectively. While 197 meetings hadbeen held by the NC so far, the Congress organized 178 such meetings. The PDPfollowed with 166 workers meetings while the BJP organized 63; the BSP with 45,the NPP 41, and the PDF, 24. A number of independent candidates also organized56 rallies and workers meets across the state. 

The poll boycott call by the two factions of the separatist All Party HurriatConference (APHC) and Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) is part of thestrategy to delegitimize the election process and at the same time exertpressures on the participants to remain amenable to separatist sensibilities. Inthe 2002 elections, both factions of Hurriat Conference had extendedbehind-the-door supported to the PDP while maintaining a boycott posture. Atthat time, the transfer of votes to the PDP resulted in the downsizing of the NCas the all-pervasive party in the Valley. It also created an alternativepolitical pole flirting with soft secessionist agenda and exerted markedpressures towards a competitive secessionist agenda. Separatist pressuresaccomplished a virtual capitulation by the PDP, which declared that its newgovernment did not have a representative role, but only a role to act as an‘interface’ between separatists, India and Pakistan. Even as the PDP securedpower through the polls, consequently, it was able to engineer thedelegitimization of the electoral process, at least in the eyes of separatistrank and file.

The goals in the present election have not changed, but the PDP appears tohave fallen drastically in esteem among the separatists. All significantseparatist formations have expressed a lack of confidence in the PDP from timeto time. The exposure by the Ghulam Nabi Azad-led Congress government regardingthe role of the PDP in the Amarnath land transfer have undermined the party’scredibility in the Valley. 

The NC, after its defeat in 2002, has sought to occupy the PDP’s politicalspace this time around, with communal stridency dominating its campaigns andpostures. The NC has executed an about turn and now supports trilateral talks,demilitarization and unconditional dialogue with terrorist groups and theirstate supporters, relentlessly seeking to portray itself as the real protectorof Kashmiri aspirations. This would incline to reduce the PDP to a SouthKashmir-centric political formation impeding the balanced development of theKashmir region. The Amarnath land issue and the involvement of PDP in the landtransfer to the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board (SASB) provided the NC with therequired ammunition to project the PDP as an agent of the Centre and a traitorto Kashmiri aspirations.

Understandably, the PDP was canvassing for the postponement of Assemblyelections in J&K, desperately seeking more time to bridge its distance withthe separatists constituency and to allow people to forget its role in the landtransfer row. Through the release of its ‘Self-Rule Document’, the PDPsought to unsettle the NC’s Greater Autonomy plank, but has failed to sell itsproposals as a better proposition than the NC’s scheme. In sum, theseparatists appear to have increased the scope of secessionist mobilizationthrough ‘mainstream’ political parties, even as they continue with theirboycott postures. 

There is an effective third force emerging in the Valley with former Ministerand PDP rebel Ghulam Hassan Mir declaring the formation of his new Jammu andKashmir Democratic Party Nationalist (JKDPN). Mir has demonstrated a knack forkeeping himself alive on the margins of the stiff competition between the PDPand NC, and has now emerged as a significant alternative for people fed up withthe militancy and the competitive communalism of the NC and PDP. There is alsosignificant talk of pushing a number of independent candidates into the Assemblywith separatist support. 

Several attacks against candidates have already occurred to impose theseparatist boycott, but these have basically remained selective. Attacks havebeen orchestrated both by separatists and by the militants. For instance, onNovember 12, a NC candidate Mubarak Gul escaped an attempt on his life bymilitants in the M.R. Gunj area of capital Srinagar, the first such attack onany political leader after elections were announced on October 19. Gul, athree-time legislator, was visiting an ailing NC worker, Mohammad Yousuf Bhat,when militants hurled a grenade towards Bhat's house. Earlier, in the firstattack after the election was announced in J&K, militants on October 31attacked a Police Station in Baramulla town, injuring 13 police personnel.Further, according to Police sources, unidentified persons set fire to thegranary stores and band saw mill of six senior political workers, including oneCongress and five NC workers, in Hajin Village in the Bandipore Assemblyconstituency. Given the overall structure of the electoral process anddelimitation in the state, with its bias in favour of Kashmir, the boycott callcan, however, be seen as little more than an exercise to undermine thelegitimacy of the polls, rather than any attempt to effectively preventparticipation. The actual objectives of the separatists remain far more complex,and include the securing of a proxy presence in the Assembly, both throughmainstream parties and independents.

In Jammu, political calculations after the Amarnath agitation have gone haywire.Far from leading to a consolidation of the vote, fractures have deepened. Thecatalyst for this process of disintegration has been the stiff battle betweenthe Shri Amarnath Yatra Sangharsh Samiti (SAYSS) and the Bharatiya Janata Partyon the future course of action to be adopted. The BJP prevailed upon the SanghParivaar to allow the Sangharsh Samiti to fade away, rather than to emerge as aregional formation in Jammu. The creation of the Jammu State Morcha in the lastelections was projected by the BJP as the principal reason for its dismal show,and the Sangh Parivaar accepted that any prominence to the SAYSS would underminethe BJP’s prospects. But the marginalization of the SAYSS dissolved thepolitical focus which had mobilized large masses of the people against. Far fromcapitalizing on the environment generated by the Amarnath agitation,consequently, the BJP has allowed these focused energies to be frittered away,denying space to the emerging leadership in Jammu, which had garnered tremendoussupport during the agitation. The consequent advantage would accrue,necessarily, to the Congress. The absence of unambiguous postures on theAmarnath issue (indeed, the avoidance of this issue during campaigning) by themainstream parties in Jammu has, moreover, created wider spaces for independentcandidates. 

These are, however, early days in the protracted poll process. With another sixphases to come, it is would be premature to arrive at any definite conclusion onthe trajectory of elections and their aftermath in J&K. Some satisfactioncan, nonetheless, be derived from the fact that the run-up to the first phasehas been relatively peaceful. 

Ajaat Jamwal is Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management.Courtesy, the South Asia Intelligence Review of the South Asia TerrorismPortal