A Warning In Kashmir

Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif may not be aware that his description of the voting in the elections held in Srinagar as "the lowest ever turnout in the sham elections held in Kashmir" is self-cancelling as it contains a double negative. But verbal quibbles cannot hide the message that the polling in Srinagar has sent, loudly and clearly, to the Indian government and the Indian people. The 12 to 15 per cent turnout in Srinagar is not the lowest vote recorded there: it was a bare 2 per cent in the ’89 parliamentary elections. But it is less than half the turnout that occurred last year and in the state assembly elections of ’96.

The state government and official media in Delhi have sought to explain this as the result of the Hurriyat’s boycott of the poll. But the Hurriyat has issued a boycott appeal during every election since April ’96. Why should the city’s people have listened to it now? Nor can the government blame the rise in attacks by the mainly foreign mercenaries. Except for a lone attack within the city, Srinagar has not witnessed nor felt the effects of that violence. In fact, Kargil and the stepped up mercenary violence should have had the opposite effect on the turnout, for no part of the Valley has so decisively rejected violent insurgency or lost quite as much on account of the Kargil war and the premature end of the tourist boom that had begun in late April.

The message the low turnout has sent is unambiguous. The urban, mostly educated and highly politicised Srinagar residents have protested in the only way open to them against a corrupt and whimsical government; against blackmail and extortion of ex-militants and their families by rogue elements in the Special Operations Group (sog) of the j&k police; against the betrayal of promises to restore political rights; and against the failure to make Constitutional changes to protect Kashmir’s genuine autonomy within the Union.

Farooq Abdullah is the main culprit, but not the only one. For over two years, a succession of home secretaries of indifferent calibre and home ministers distracted by political infighting have sat in a perfect agony of indecision about what to do next. For them, the Kargil war and the mercenary onslaught in the Valley has come as a godsend, for it has given them the perfect excuse to go on doing nothing. And that is precisely what Pakistan wants.

Meanwhile, things are sliding. Abdullah’s been unable to step up the pace of developmental work partly since he’s been denied some of the Plan funds due and partly because of the rank corruption and lack of accountability in the bureaucracy. In desperation, he has increased recruitment to the state civil service. But the number of vacancies are pitifully few in relation to the applicants, so this has rapidly turned into the most important avenue for corruption and nepotism in the state. The fact that Abdullah has farmed out the grant of jobs to his mlas has eroded not only his legitimacy but that of the entire National Conference.

The revival of the democratic process has ground to a halt after the assembly elections in ’96. Since then, the absence of a genuine Kashmiri opposition party in the fray caused the voter turnout to remain at 40 per cent in the Valley, against the 73 and 74 per cent witnessed in ’77 and ’83. To complete the revival of the political process, Delhi has either to bring the Hurriyat back into the system or, if that isn’t possible, open up political activity sufficiently to permit the emergence of new parties and leaders. It requires only a moment’s thought to see that these can’t come from among the surrendered militants, much less the ‘reformed’ ones, but must come from the ranks of the genuine Kashmiri militants, who believe in Kashmiriyat, had taken on the Indian security forces in a bid for independence, but had become disillusioned by Pakistan’s covert betrayal. These ‘dormant’ militants—who number 31,000—are aware of the people’s rejection of armed insurgency and have quietly given up the gun. But they are not willing to recant on all they have believed in and fought for by formally surrendering to the authorities. As a result, they are caught in limbo and do not know which way to turn.

These militants have become easy prey for the rogue elements in the sog. Whenever a rogue officer feels the itch for a bit of cash, he heads for a local militant’s home and forces him to part with some money. If he is unable or unwilling to, he is beaten up. Occasionally, the rogues go too far and one has another custodial death. The number of custodial deaths in Kashmir is surely far smaller than what the Hurriyat claims, but only one or two a month are sufficient to keep reminding Kashmiris that they remain less than completely free in their own country.

The Srinagar vote is a warning. If nothing changes, then sooner or later the conditions that created the militancy in the ’80s will return. Pakistan too has learnt from its mistakes and Sharif is now talking openly of supporting Kashmir’s bid for freedom rather than insist on a merger with Pakistan. What Delhi needs to do is clear: declare an amnesty for all known militants except those against whom there is prima facie evidence of involvement in serious crimes; curb the discretionary powers of the sog by insisting that the rules laid down for arrest and interrogation are followed; set up screening committees consisting of senior police officers to clear the names of those the sog want to question; lift the ban on the jklf and designate a location in each town as a ‘Hyde Park’ where all leaders are free to say whatever they want, and enter cautiously and very quietly into a dialogue with the main exemplars of Kashmiriyat.

There is always a small risk that political liberalisation may backfire. But history is littered with the corpses of dictators who did not learn that not doing anything is infinitely more dangerous.