J&K Elections: Congress' Failure Could Sharpen Communal and Other Faultlines

The BJP’s propaganda machine has got much grist for its media mill.

Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha and Congress MP Rahul Gandhi addresses a public meeting ahead of Jammu and Kashmir Assembly elections, in Ramban, Jammu, Wednesday.

(Photo: PTI)

The temporarily forgotten divide between Hindus and Muslims is sure to deepen in, and between, Jammu and Kashmir – thanks in part to the Congress’s incredible political blindness. For, only two Hindus have been elected among the majority (48/90, with five nominees with voting rights to come) that the National Conference (NC)-Congress alliance won in the new union territory's Assembly – both on NC tickets. 

For the sake of representation, two of the three Hindu Independents who have won from the Jammu region (including Satish Sharma, son of former MP Madan Lal Sharma) ought to be included as ministers, now that even Congress heavyweights like Raman Bhalla and Lal Singh have lost their seats – and Harsh Dev Singh of the Panthers Party, too.

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP's) propaganda machine has got much grist for its media mill. They will make much of Hindu representation, and the fact that the BJP won more votes across the union territory than the NC.

The BJP will now see no stakes in harmony, having lost Gurez after putting up a veteran Muslim politician, and having gained relatively little from giving scheduled tribe status to Pahadis.

Zulfiqar Chaudhary, the political heavyweight the BJP inducted recently, got barely 55 percent as many votes for the Budhal seat as the NC. And even the BJP’s unit president, Ravinder Raina, lost Nowshehra, which was settled by resentful migrants from areas that Pakistan took over in 1947.  

Congress Responsible for Boosting BJP’s Agenda  

The blame for this boost to the BJP’s agenda should be laid squarely at the door of the Congress’s top leadership. They have not just let the union territory down, but also the country.

A panoply of top Congress leaders came to Kashmir to work out the alliance, but then stayed languorously away, in the manner of landlords of yore. The top caste Muslim Kashmiri who they named president for the union territory had only joined the party a year before political activity ceased in 2018. So, he barely knew anyone in the Jammu half of the union territory – or even most Congressmen in the Valley. (I mentioned caste because the BJP’s unit strategically involved lower caste Kashmiri Muslims in government schemes over the past couple of years.) 

Bhalla and Lal Singh found themselves running to Delhi and Srinagar for decisions early in the election process. So, they could barely focus on their own constituencies, let alone the rest of the Jammu division. 

The Congress not only won just one-seventh as many seats as the NC, but it also won all its six seats from Muslim-dominated areas, five from the Valley. Each winner can be individually credited for his win – and the NC’s coattails. As for the Congress’s Hindu candidates, even former deputy chief minister Tara Chand got half as many votes as the (Independent) winner and was well behind the BJP candidate.

The Congress lost every seat on which it insisted on a 'friendly fight' with the NC. In Doda, its candidate came fifth – 19,000 votes behind the AAP winner (who polled 23,228), and more than 9,000 votes behind the NC candidate (at 13,334). Its Sopore candidate got less than 20 percent of the winning NC candidate’s votes. And its Bhaderwah candidate got 35,000 votes less than the BJP winner, and 25,000 less than the NC runner-up. 

Its bull-headed insistence on fighting those half-dozen seats against strong NC candidates, and not Uri – where its long-time member and minister (and seniormost Gujjar leader of the union territory) Taj Mohiuddin came second with a creditable 25,000+ votes – speaks of ignorance and vacuousness if not an anti-secular mindset.  

LG & CM Will Be at Loggerheads  

A second sort of conflict will now inevitably arise within the government, between the lieutenant governor and the chief minister, for the rules of business have progressively been changed to concentrate more and more power with the former.

Jammu’s Hindus will clamour for even more power to be with the lieutenant governor (LG), and so deepen the divide even further.

NC President Farooq Abdullah told me a few weeks ago that his son, Omar, would be both chief minister and party president after the elections. Since Omar has been a chief minister with arguably more power than chief ministers of other states, he will chafe – probably articulately. 

The putative protestations of ministers and legislators that they have no power to do anything for their people will result in resentment and then unrest in the Valley. Meanwhile, the increase in lethal militancy in the Jammu region could spread and escalate. It could find takers amid this sort of resentment. If that becomes the popular mood, some NC leaders might be tempted to take up plebiscite-type themes, adding more fuel to the potential fires.

This is tragic, for there was strong resistance to any return of violence before the elections. Almost miraculously, the people of J&K had settled down for peace, harmony, integration, work, tourism, and development over the past few years.

There was no backing during the campaign for the restoration of Article 370 or 35-A, even though people feel a deep psychological wound over their loss. Nor did candidates bring up such issues. And Pakistan holds no attraction for people at large.   

However, the uncertainties and frustrations that could now be released might cause a swing back. Major domestic and international forces would want that. For, as many Kashmiris remark laconically: 'Badi-badi dukaanein band hain (the conflict business has been suspended)'.

One fervently hopes – as do most Kashmiris – that conflict will now not be back in business.

(The writer is the author of ‘The Story of Kashmir’ and ‘The Generation of Rage in Kashmir’. He can be reached at @david_devadas. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)