Message in the ballots

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) strategists have successfully used communal polarisation to make electoral capital in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). This process of polarisation started by Indira Gandhi in 1983 elections was primarily aimed at ending Kashmiri dominance in J&K politics. Annoyed at the anti-Delhi rhetoric of the then newly anointed Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah, Mrs Gandhi pulled out all the stops to polarise Jammu’s Hindu belt. She won all the 25 seats in this region, in that process also counter polarising Muslim regions, including the Kashmir Valley. The polarisation drove the two arch rivals Farooq Abdullah and Mirwaiz Mohammad Farooq to join hands against Delhi. Riding the wave of counter polarisation, they swept the polls, winning a large chunk of seats. But Mrs Gandhi did not give up. Engineering cracks within the National Conference a year later, she paved the way for the dismissal of Farooq, who learnt the hard way the impossibility of forming a government in Srinagar sans Delhi’s support. 

History has now repeated itself. Though the current elections results have thrown up a fractured mandate, its communal overtones are difficult to ignore. Not only has the BJP swept the Hindu majority areas of the Jammu region, effectively replicating its UP formula of consolidating Hindu votes, but it has, in addition, managed to fragment Muslim votes, making them irrelevant in the two Muslim regions of Jammu division, Pir Panjal l and the Chenab Valley. 

A large number of people in the Kashmir Valley voted out of fear of the BJP but their votes were split between the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), the NC and even the Congress. Amazingly, the Congress snatched victories in the separatist bastions of Sopore, Bandipora, Shangus, Devsar, and gave a tough fight to Chief Minister Omar Abdullah in Beerwah.

The NC faced the voters’ wrath, but the PDP MLAs also lost in many constituencies where they had not delivered on the ground. Significantly, most of the sitting MLAs winning the polls were also the ones who sincerely nurtured their constituencies, and were always accessible to the people.

Kashmir’s political landscape has remained split among separatists, nationalists and unionists. While separatists have not participated in electoral politics after 1987, nationalist and unionist camps have been represented by the NC and Congress respectively. By ending the dominance of NC and the Congress, the recent verdict has not only reconfigured this political map, but also re-written the political script. Besides replacing the Congress as new kingmaker party and unionist, the BJP has catapulted itself in the zone of government formation, as a majority partner. The PDP, on the other hand, has emerged as the dominant custodian of Kashmiri nationalist sentiments.

The BJP is now attributing its failure to achieve mission 44 plus to a freeze on de-limitation of the assembly constituencies. Union Minister Prakash Javadekar told TV channels that going by electoral population the Jammu region has lesser number of seats than the Kashmir Valley. He even described the 2002 amendment in the Jammu and Kashmir Representation of the People Act 1957 and Section 47(3) of the Constitution of J&K, freezing the delimitation of assembly segments till 2026 as ‘anti-Jammu’. This, according to Javadekar, has put brakes on the BJP’s march to power in the state. The same point was also drummed during the election campaign to polarise voters in Jammu region, to highlight their political disempowerment, and their so-called forcible submission to the Muslim-dominated Kashmir Valley, which has 46 seats against Jammu’s 37.

But let’s be clear that both the Census as well as the election data deflate this theory. As per 2011 Census figures, Kashmir Valley has 70 lakh population, against 53 lakh in Jammu division. Ladakh with two districts of Leh and Kargil has a population of 2.80 lakh. Out of a total of 72.25 lakh electorate, Kashmir Valley has 37.53 lakh voters, while Jammu has 33.11 lakh. In the Kashmir Valley, some 33 lakh people are missing from the electoral rolls, while this figure is just 20 lakh in Jammu.

An Election Commission report has also unveiled that Kashmir Valley has the lowest Elector-Population ratio in the country against the Jammu division, which has the highest. This is apparently because the people in Kashmir do not register as voters.

It’s true that Jammu & Kashmir has been functioning as a single integrated unit for more than one and a half centuries, notwithstanding that the entity was not a natural conglomeration. Incidentally, Ladakhis, who have been clamouring for the Union Territory status to have direct central control have not voted for BJP -- the strongest unionist party. Instead they have voted for the Congress. Like in Kashmir, identity politics is also central to Ladakh. The Buddhist population in Leh has been apprehensive about the RSS-led Sindhu Darshan campaign. 

In view of the recent deeply fragmented verdict, decentralising power through regional councils with an overarching single assembly is the ideal solution to empowering the population. In 1993, through a notification issued by then governor, a regional council was set up in Ladakh. The idea was extended to Kargil, in 2003, soon after Mufti Mohammad Sayeed assumed office. These councils have successfully addressed the issue of regional aspirations. The experiment needs to be now extended to other regions and sub-regions. 

On the basis of ethnic identities, at least six more councils -- three each in Jammu and Kashmir regions -- can be set up. Finally, a word for media and TV channel analysts: don’t link the high voter turnout and the mandate as affirmation of the politics of nationalists and unionists; or to the end of political conflict or rejection of separatism. Reaching that goal would require a series of external and internal steps. Conducting free and fair polls is just one of them. 

A high turnout is not a signifier of defiance or rejection of anything. It essentially manifests the desire to get rid of the non-performing MLAs. In their reading of the elections as a turning point, many had erred in 2008. They were later scurrying for cover, trying to explain the 2010 uprising. Both the NC and PDP have consistently warned to not treat these elections as some referendum on the Kashmir issue – but rather a mechanism for addressing the local issues.

We must respect and help in restoring people’s faith in Indian democracy. One must understand that like in West Bengal or Odisha, J&K also can form its own government without Delhi. The need of the hour is to ensure better governance for people, while also respecting their passion to protect their identities.

The author is chief of bureau, dna