Legitimizing tyranny

Elections in Occupied Kashmir, either Lok Sabha or State Assembly, have largely been viewed in India from a security and strategic lens, with New Delhi seeking legitimacy for its rule, and reading the people’s participation in the Delhi-backed polls exercise as a proxy for the trust they repose on Indian Union.

Kashmiris’ perceptions, however, stand in stark contrast to what New Delhi tries to showcase. For them, these polls have nothing to do with the larger political question of the Kashmir dispute. However, they do provide some opportunity to address their day-to-day matters. Lok Sabha (LS) polls, unlike the State Assembly polls, are even further from this perception as they have rarely sparked enthusiasm among the local people. The latter largely consider it to be a political elites’ exercise to position themselves in New Delhi, instead of aligning with the electorate.

With the announcement of the schedule of India’s 18th Lok Sabha polls by the Election Commission of India (ECI) on March 16, 2024, polls in Occupied Kashmir’s five parliamentary seats have become an issue of greater significance, as it would be the first major political activity since August 5, 2019.

This electoral exercise is being conducted in a context where Kashmir’s political landscape has undergone a seismic shift, upending the entire political order with the downgrading of the state into two separate Union Territories (UTs), stripping it of its special status, and the resulting reconfiguration of the parliamentary and state assembly constituencies. The erstwhile state of Occupied Kashmir had six parliamentary seats, which have come down to five now: Srinagar, Baramulla Anantnag-Rajouri, Udhampur and Jammu, while one seat was left to Ladakh, the other UT.

While the Congress-led INDIA (Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance) and BJP-led NDA (National Democratic Alliance) are in the fray, the major contest will likely take place between the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and the National Conference (NC) on the two parliamentary seats of Kashmiri Valley: Srinagar and Baramulla.

The BJP, Congress and Democratic Progressive Azad Party (DPAP), a new political party formed by Ghulam Nabi Azad after bidding adieu to his long-term association with Congress, will probably be vying for the two seats of Jammu division: Jammu and Udhampur. The Peoples Conference of Sajad Lone and the recently established Jammu and Kashmir Apni Party of Altaf Bukhari are also significant contenders, though their prospects of securing any seat are not very promising.

Since the parliamentary polls in Occupied Kashmir are being conducted ahead of the state assembly polls, expected to be held after LS polls, the major contestants view Lok Sabha polls as the run-up of the assembly elections where they stake their major claims. Therefore, the key contenders would seek to reposition themselves in New Delhi while simultaneously reconnecting with their electoral base in Jammu and Kashmir.

Given the BJP’s decade-long onslaught against Kashmiris, their state and identity, and its hopeful prospects for a third term, the two regional parties of Kashmir, PDP and NC, might find themselves in a bind. If they openly side with the BJP-led NDA, their already considerably squeezed electoral base in the Valley ceases to exist, and if they go along with the Congress-led alliance, their chances for power sharing in the future dispensation of Occupied Kashmir, in case the BJP comes to power again, may drastically be diminished.

Both parties are caught in a dilemma which is evident in their recent statements. For instance, Dr Farooq Abdullah in an interview with India Today (Feb 15, 2024) said his party would go solo on all seats while hinting that they may re-join the BJP-led NDA in the future. Immediately after the interview, his son and Vice President of NC Omar Abdullah clarified the party’s position, dismissing any chance of quitting INDIA and the possibility of his party aligning with the BJP-led NDA. It bears recalling here that the NC was a coalition partner with Vajpayee’s NDA, Omar Abdullah then being the union minister of state for external affairs from 2001 to 2002.

With this anti-BJP posturing, the NC likely intends to retain the three Kashmir valley parliamentary seats that they won in the last LS polls, regain their support base in Kashmir, and create an enabling environment for a better performance in the expected State Assembly elections.

Similarly, the PDP is also walking the tightrope of aligning with its support base in the valley while outwitting the NC’s moves to potentially gain the support of the centre for the major role in the future dispensation of Occupied Kashmir. The biggest challenge the PDP is facing now is to wrest back its support base, which it lost to a considerable extent after stitching an alliance, termed by critics ‘an unholy alliance’, with the BJP in 2015. To neutralize and diffuse the anger evoked in the valley against the PDP, it felt compelled to reposition itself to make amends for its past political blunder and retain its electoral base in the valley.

The most unpredictable contest is likely to occur in the radically restructured parliamentary constituency of Anantnag-Rajouri, which has been transformed from being an entirely valley-centric constituency to a trans-regional one, between Jammu and Valley.

The districts of Rajouri and Poonch, previously part of Jammu, have now been clubbed into this new constituency, ostensibly paving the way for the BJP contender to have decisive support from the Pahari tribe, which accounts for around 19 per cent of the total population of the constituency. This gerrymandering coupled with granting the status of ST to the Pahari community of Pir Panjal, ahead of general elections, is a move to realize the BJP’s long-cherished wish for a toehold in Kashmir.

With this, the BJP seeks to alter the parliamentary trajectory in its favour in terms of the number of seats. The two seats of Udhampur and Jammu have already been held by the BJP for the last two consecutive terms, in 2014 and 2019, with promising prospects for a third term. It is now eying the trans-regional seat of Anantnag-Rajouri.

These electoral dynamics may shape the outcome of upcoming parliamentary polls in Occupied Kashmir. However, by no means can they be construed as a benchmark to determine the relationship between the larger population of the region with New Delhi, as 14 such exercises have already been conducted in Occupied Kashmir with the people’s resentment only running deeper in the region after each round.

The writer is an academic based in Islamabad. He can be reached at mawaisbinwasi@gmail.com