These Elections Were Rendered Meaningless Even Before They Were Announced: Mirwaiz Umar Farooq

Jammu & Kashmir was made a Union Territory after the J&K Reorganisation Act, disempowered from defining its permanent residents and their rights, as was guaranteed under Article 35A. People see 2019's unilateral drastic changes of downgrading it to a UT; bifurcation of Ladakh from J&K; disempowerment from defining its permanent residents and their rights guaranteed under Article 35A; the Reorganisation Act and other diktats such as dismissals from government service; attachment of properties of locals; incarceration of political leaders and activists; continued daily arrests; the opening up of land, jobs and resources to outsiders; the complete crackdown on the local press, which are forced to become government mouthpieces; ire of authorities on any expression of dissent in any physical or social media platform; and the total blackout of Hurriyat’s views in the vernacular and regional press. All this is a shock therapy, an insult to their identity and cultural autonomy, meant to disempower them and engineer a long-term demographic change in the Muslim majority region.

You may not see active turmoil as before 2019 but there is a strong latent/dormant resistance to all this. It is because of fear of repercussions, coercion and intimidation by the state, that people are self-censoring and not expressing themselves in the open. We have been silenced and silence does not mean agreement.

Our focus is to ensure political engagement with the aspirations and sentiments of people and a closure to the conflict. Our role is clear, to work towards that end. And the best medium for that is peaceful means of dialogue and deliberation/mutual understanding and addressing of concerns and interests. We have always been ready and willing to reach out and engage. But in the current dispensation in New Delhi, so far there has been little appetite for such a thing. So we will have be patient, steadfast and persevere.

July 2019 was the last time we met together. On August 4, 2019 when thousands of people including those in leadership were arrested, I was detained at home. After a long period of four-and-a-half years and going to the court, I was released in September 2023. But since then too I am being detained for most of the time at home. Even when I am not under arrest, I cannot move freely without informing the authorities every time before I leave home. Right now after the elections were announced, I was again put under house arrest.

Elections are the key to expression of civic choice in a democracy. But in J&K politics, it is way beyond just this exercise in governance. Hurriyat has always maintained that civic elections cannot be a means to conflict resolution. These are two separate matters. Regarding these elections, even before being announced they were rendered meaningless after another amendment in the Reorganisation Act of 2019, giving broad and sweeping executive powers to the Centrally-appointed Lieutenant Governor, making the to-be-elected legislature almost powerless. This change was brought after an electoral gerrymandering during the delimitation exercise and adding more constituencies in one region of the state as against the other, to favour the electoral prospects of the ruling party. Besides these machinations, there has been a concerted effort to fragment the electoral landscape of the Kashmir region and consolidate it in the Jammu region. It is extremely unfortunate that knowing all this, regional electoral parties, groups and individual candidates fell for it. They could not even at this juncture stand up unitedly against the onslaught and help provide some relief to the affected people. Instead they put people in a quandary by standing up against each another, widening and deepening the divisions among people.

The most difficult part of incarceration is not being allowed to go to Jamia Masjid on Fridays to deliver the sermon, a tradition followed by my ancestors for centuries as Mirwaiz and offer Friday prayers there. Even at the tragic time when my father was martyred and I was just 16 and became the next Mirwaiz, I would ascend the pulpit and just recite some basic Quranic verses, as I was too young and not trained in the ways of the Mirwaiz; because an empty pulpit was too painful for the tens of thousands of people who would habitually visit the historic mosque on Fridays to hear the Mirwaiz’s sermon and feel spiritually satisfied. So I knew that people would be greatly hurt by my absence and that caused me grief.

Even my personal engagements such as attending family functions, sad or happy ones, is not in my control as I have to seek permission. There have been many attempts to publicly malign my reputation and discredit me through propaganda; even an FIR was recently filed against me by the anti-corruption bureau. Sadly, my close relative, a senior state official known for his honesty and integrity was also accused in the FIR because of the relationship. Many of my family members, including my spouse and little children are denied travel documentation. As a result, my wife, who is an American citizen, cannot visit her family residing in the US.