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Editorial
Kashmir’s Unfrozen Turbulence
 It
is easy to make a mistake when reading the results from the
Kashmir
elections. And trust the Indian government to make the mistake, its
natural proclivity when it comes to deal with people's aspirational
movements. New Delhi can use the occasion as a watershed to end the
bloodshed or it can choose to repeat history's mistakes.
For those intent
upon making the high voter turnout in
Jammu and
Kashmir Assembly elections as the leitmotif of all political
deductions, our advice is to simply look at the fervour of the
large-scale public demonstrations favouring azaadi only a few weeks
back.
Clearly, it is
not a situation of whether "this is true or that was true". The fact
is: "Both are true." It is a fact that not only the government but
also Hurriyat and all other shades of political players need to
absorb and study. Just as the recent results and the Amarnath
agitations both exposed the regional and religious fault lines.
If you still
chose to quote the percentage of votes polled in the seven phase
elections, 55 per cent, then take this too: Most of these votes came
from the rural areas while urban centers like
Srinagar, which
are the core centres
of separatist politics, saw a low 20% voter turnout.
But to the
boycotters, we have another fact to quote: In 2002, just over 30,000
people had voted in the eight segments of
Srinagar, while
this election saw more than 1,11,000 voters exercising their
franchise.
The point we are
trying to make is simple: This is not an either/or situation.
Aspirational
movements have many strands of politics and those who learn how to
weave these strands can gain something for their people. Rest can
either become non-problematic stooges (cf. PS Badal), fall off the
margins of public memory (cf. Mohanta), or get bogged down in
radical stances without the ability to weave reality and aspirations
(cf. Hamas).
The popular
support for azaadi in
Kashmir has not
evaporated. And New Delhi's bid to play up the results as a sort of
rebuff to
Islamabad
and a brownie point in the geopolitical struggle is rank
foolishness.
If that were the
case, Kashmiris did the same in 1987 when the National Conference
and the Congress stole the elections from under their nose. It was
this mistake that gave rise to many separatist and militant leaders.
Now, the same two political animals, the NC and the Congress, will
rule
Kashmir. Each has a demonstrated capacity to dump people's agendas.
Each has had its flirtation with twisted ideas of I Am More
National Than You. And one wonders which one has learnt better
lessons from 1987?
The Hurriyat,
which styles itself as a national liberation movement, needs to
learn that new ways of making its point by using the tools available
to it in the electoral domain too. It must now marry the Azaadi
demand with people’s immediate concerns of bijli, paani and sadak
(electricity, water and roads). Wish for Azaadi will never go away
if you get your people the basic needs. All East Germans had bijli,
paani and sadak.
As for the BJP,
it has got what it wanted. Its divisive agenda has succeeded. It has
deepened the communal fault lines. Advani’s agenda is winning in
Jammu.
It has no hope of winning in
Kashmir in the
next 100 years. And it has made its choice.
It is now for
the national parties, autonomy hungry regional forces and right
thinking progressive people everywhere to see through the game of
the BJP. It sells Kashmir to rest of India and gets votes just as
Congress had sold the disturbed Punjab to win unprecedented victory
in mid eighties. Is India up for such political sales, bit by bit,
part by part? The Kashmir elections is the time to pause and think.
Or India will dig its own path towards balkanization.
7 January 2009
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