The poll posturing in Kashmir

Sankarshan Thakur

National attention, or at least the attention of the Atal Behari Vajpayee establishment, is now getting focused on elections in Uttar Pradesh but there is another equally if not more key election round the corner — in Jammu and Kashmir. And skirmishes of the kind that just took place between the Vajpayee establishment and the National Conference of Farooq Abdullah are a sign of the launch of preparations on both sides. Sure, the Vajpayee government and Farooq Abdullah are on the same side of the political fence but such are the complexities of Kashmir, they can easily tear apart personal friendships and political alliances.

The irony of the Centre raising questions about the authenticity of elections in the Valley is inescapable. The National Conference is a constituent of Vajpayee’s National Democratic Alliance (NDA), Omar Abdullah is a minister in his government and yet people as senior in government as Vajpayee and Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani have virtually pronounced adverse judgement on most past polls.

If the National Conference reacted indignantly, it was only natural. The National Conference could not well sit silent when its own senior ally is questioning its legitimacy. It turned around with questions on the political and moral sustainability of the Vajpayee government itself. As Omar Abdullah, Minister of State for External Affairs, himself said, ‘‘Questioning the fairness of elections in the Valley means questioning my own election and I am a minister in the Vajpayee government, what does that say of the Vajpayee government?’’ That he has an illegitimately elected man as minister in his government? That he is in alliance with an illegitimately elected government?

The National Conference has, of course, tempered its anger and refrained from dragging the rhetoric to breaking point, perhaps because it realises that it needs a friendly centre much more than any other state government. But then, as the deadline for elections in the state draws closer — they are scheduled for August-September 2002 though Farooq Abdullah is said to be keen to hold them earlier — attrition between the Centre and the National Conference is bound to rise. And the reasons for it are rather different from those that caused a rupture between Mamata Bannerjee and the NDA on the eve of the West Bengal assembly elections. The dynamics that worked in West Bengal were entirely localised; in Kashmir, the issues are larger, they are international, even though the Government of India is loath to admit it.

One of the main reasons why New Delhi is now raising the ‘‘legitimacy’’ issue on elections in Kashmir is that it does not want to be on the backfoot internationally, it does not want to be seen as ‘‘conducting’’ or ‘‘rigging’’ elections in the state to favour known pro-India forces such as the National Conference. Like it or not, there is widespread international scepticism about the freeness and fairness of elections in Kashmir, there are doubts about the level of voluntary participation in the poll process and about the authenticity of balloting. And these doubts have existed not just post 1990, when the ‘‘azaadi’’ movement came to a boil, but before as well. When the National Conference lost, they alleged the Congress had rigged elections; when the National Conference won, similar allegations were on them.

Post 1990, of course, another dimension was added the elections in Kashmir that multiplied doubts about the authenticity of the process: the lack of popular participation. Large numbers of Kashmiris were openly unwilling to vote and had to be driven to polling stations under duress by security forces. This was particularly true of the September 1996 Assembly elections, which the National Conference won. The actual extent of public boycott is difficult to quantify but the All Party Hurriyat Conference has given boycotts a profile that Pakistan has consistently projected internationally as proof of the Valley’s unwillingness to stay with India.

Against the backdrop of Pakistan’s determination to keep the Kashmir coals alive — Agra wouldn’t have been a failed summit else — New Delhi is even keener now to prove its case in the Valley. The coming election will, quite obviously, be a big test for New Delhi — more an international affair than a domestic one. The Vajpayee establishment is only too aware of the kind of international scrutiny that will attend the Kashmir election. The least it thinks it can do to offset Pakistani propaganda is to begin making the ‘‘right noises’’. And what could be a more appropriate noise to make than to try and tempt wider political participation in the Valley, what better way is there to prove that Kashmir, like the rest of India, is a thriving pluralist democracy?

The Centre knows the participation of the National Conference or the Congress or lesser groups like the one headed by Mufti Mohammed Sayeed are not nearly enough to overthrow the Hurriyat’s or Pakistan’s case. The scope of participation in elections needs to be widened. And to that extent it is keeping up efforts to create schisms in the Hurriyat Conference and lure sections into the electoral process. It is essentially to attract them and leaders like Shabbir Shah that it is making noises about previous elections not having been entirely free and fair. It is a signal to non-National Conference forces in the Valley: come forth and participate, we will ensure you get a fair deal. No wonder all this makes Farooq Abdullah both angry and insecure, no wonder he reacts to New Delhi’s ‘‘right noises’’.

Despite the surface concord between the National Conference and the NDA — Abdullah has clarified that his support to the Vajpayee-led coalition will continue — there is an underlying suspicion in National Conference ranks that New Delhi might change horses in the Valley if it gets the slightest hint that other forces are willing to join the electoral process. Or, at least, it may not ‘‘assist’’ the National Conference as much New Delhi has in the past in order to encourage competing political parties and prove to the international community that Kashmir is a multi-party arena within Indian democracy and not a one-party show installed by New Delhi. In the weeks and months to come, therefore, Centre-Farooq relations may well remain, quite like Kashmir itself, on the simmer.