Kashmir Turnout and Results Rebuff Separatists and their Mentors

By Sanjay Kapoor Hardnews New Delhi

More important than the election results to the contentious state of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) that were declared today (which produced a hung assembly with the National Conference nosing ahead) has been the voter turnout. If 62 percent of Kashmiris chose to defy the boycott call given by secession breathing Hurriyat Conference, then it clearly indicates that the people of the state, unlike many Muslim societies that reel under authoritarian rule, are willing to pay their allegiance to the Indian constitution if it means participating in a robustly free and fair election to elect a government.

The separatists, as the Hurriyat Conference and their supporters are routinely called, have boycotted elections knowing that their participation would show them as reposing faith in the Indian democratic process- an impression that could knock the bottom off their political raison de etre, and antagonize their patrons sitting in different world capitals. This rag-tag group of Kashmiri leaders has been looking at the United States government and Pakistan to play the midwife to help the land locked state gain azadi or independence. The messy and protracted stand-off in the early part of the year over grant of land to Amarnath shrine pilgrimage trust helped in reviving the dwindling fortunes of the Hurriyat Conference.

By showing up the Central government as communal, the Conference managed to tell its fatigued supporters that they had hope in the mistake ridden bumbling Indian government. Days of agitation accompanied by stifling curfew reinforced the belief in the Hurriyat conference leadership that the majority was with them and de-legitimization of Kashmiri political parties would follow a successful boycott of the elections. Even the Indian government was in dithers whether to postpone the assembly elections or hold it even if voters decide to abstain in response to the call given by the separatists.

Hardnews was informed by sources that it was Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s insistence to hold the polls on time that set the ball rolling. His faith in the fairness of Election Commission and the feedback that he was getting from the ground proved more correct than many of those who were shouting “postponement of the polls.” Interestingly, candidates, during the campaigning, realized that the ground reality had changed. More people were coming out to take part in election meetings and there was no large scale violence. It seemed that the feared militants, a major factor in Kashmiri politics in the last 20 years, who had given spine to the anti-center agitation in the early part of the year, had either become irrelevant or they were told by their handlers to stay quiet. Former National Conference Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah, after the results were declared and his party emerged as the single largest in the new assembly, thanked the militants and even Pakistan for allowing peaceful conduct of the polls. Quite clearly, Abdullah was being realistic, as an uneventful elections was not possible if Islamabad did not want it.