The most obvious takeaway from the J&K results is that the `mainstream’ has won, trouncing those who used to be counted as secessionists. As I had predicted in The Quint, the Jamaat-e-Islami did not win a single seat, and `Engineer’ Rashid’s brother scraped through with barely a 1,602 vote (two per cent) margin. And, Sajad Barkati, the demagogue of 2016, won nothing from jail.
The sidelining of separatism might seem to promise stability, but I fear the opposite. Stability, peace, and tranquillity had been obtained until the state apparatus gave Rashid’s sons a free run to campaign for him during the Lok Sabha polls.
These forces may not have got many votes, but Rashid’s very presence in the assembly campaign, and Barkati contesting from jail, affected the public psyche, restoring memories of the turbulent agitations of 2010 and 2016—like a reset button.
I was intrigued to hear that videos of blindings, pellet wounds, and the killings of those insurgent years circulated just a few days before polling in a town where the state apparatus seemed to be backing a high-profile candidate with a base in rural portions of the constituency. That town barely turned out to vote.
I also fear that, by pushing erstwhile secessionists and militant backers such as J-e-I to contest (the then Amir-e-Jamaat, Ghulam Qadir Wani told me on record last month that the outfit backed candidates because those who control power told them to), we may end up with a situation in which embarrassed elements in such groups try to varnish their tarnished image by covertly backing militancy again.
Jamaat Demonstrated Strength in Kulgam
As the Kulgam result shows, J-e-I should not be taken lightly. The independent candidate it backed in Kulgam polled 25,796 votes. If the PDP candidate’s votes had gone to it, it would have been just 250 or so votes behind the winner, Yusuf Tarigami of the CPM—if the combo didn’t actually carry them ahead of Tarigami. Indeed, since 2002, J-e-I adherents used to vote for PDP candidates across south Kashmir, especially in such J-e-I strongholds as Kulgam.
This time, however, Kulgam is apparently the only constituency where J-e-I’s support seems to have made a difference. Elsewhere, it appears that most of its adherents did not even vote. There was intense dissatisfaction among J-e-I adherents about the decision to back candidates.
One of the key supporters of Aijaz Mir, to whom J-e-I had vouchsafed support, complained, that even J-e-I adherents who used to vote in the past did not turn out this time. Mir, who stood as an independent after being refused a ticket by his party, PDP, came second, polling 15,000+ votes for the Zainapora seat (which Showkat Ganie of NC won with 28,251 votes). But he earned most of those votes for his work on the ground in the past, and not thanks to J-e-I backing.
Rashid, Known for Fireworks, Fizzled
While J-e-I is strong in the Kulgam, Shopian, and Pulwama districts of south Kashmir, `Engineer’ Rashid’s stronghold is in north Kashmir. But even there, his backing brought little advantage. One of his strongest candidates should have been Yasir Reshi, who has been in politics for long and knows many in the state apparatus. But Reshi polled only 17,791 votes in Sonawari against NC’s Hilal Lone’s 31,535.
Hilal’s father, Akbar Lone, has been an assembly speaker and was a member of the previous Lok Sabha. But, since he has been ill and inactive since the constitutional changes, many expected Reshi to run neck and neck with the younger Lone, a first-time candidate.
Another strong Rashid-backed candidate, Shoaib Lone, also polled just under half as many votes (10,750) as Javaid Beigh (22,523), who won the Baramulla seat for NC. Shoaib’s father was a prominent minister who was killed by militants. So, he inherited a political legacy of work on the ground—and hence many of his votes. In fact, some Baramulla residents spoke of intense bitterness between Rashid and Shoaib towards the end of the campaign.
As for Barkati, he only polled 438 votes in Ganderbal (Omar Abdullah won with 32,727). Barkati did, however, poll a respectable 12,282 votes in Beerwah (which he also contested from jail), against the NC winner’s 20,118 votes. Nazir Khan, who had Rashid’s backing, polled 15,957 votes.
Hurriyat’s Electoral Weakness
These results have proved something some of us have long said about the now-defunct Hurriyat—that they would be exposed if they contested elections. Even the parent J-e-I in Pakistan has never had much electoral success, although the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (particularly the faction led by Fazal-ur-Rehman) has had much success in Pakistani politics.
Much is made by many analysts of the Muslim United Front’s attempt to win the 1987 assembly elections in J&K. However, even its founder, its convenor, and other ranking leaders told me when I was researching my first book (In Search of a Future, the Story of Kashmir) that they would have won 10 to 15 (maximum 20) seats in the 76-member house if there had been a totally fair election.
The fact is that MUF’s two strongest constituent parties, the People’s Conference and J-e-I, hated each other and insistently put up candidates against each other across much of north Kashmir. The result: they defeated each other. MUF would probably have won the Amira Kadal and Habba Kadal seats in Srinagar, and several in the then Anantnag district (from where a couple of its candidates did go to the assembly).
`Soft Separatist’ Parties
In these just-concluded elections, even the PDP won only three seats, even though party President Mehbooba Mufti had spoken more strongly against the government and in favour of jailed youth than NC over the past few years. She sought to launch her daughter, Iltija, into legislative politics from the family’s home constituency, Bijbehara, but Iltija was defeated. (Again, it would seem that J-e-I adherents did not vote.)
In order to accommodate Iltija, her mother shifted party veteran Abdul Rehman Veeri, who would almost certainly have won that seat, to the newly carved Anantnag East. In the bargain, the party lost both seats. Veeri got just over half the votes that the NC winner polled, and Iltija lost by almost 10,000 votes.
The PDP won Kupwara handsomely, but got less than half of the NC’s votes in Karnah, which it once held, and polled less than even the BJP candidate in Shopian—and less than half the votes that the PDP man it did not field managed to poll there as an Independent. Its Uri candidate polled fewer votes than NOTA.
Even Sajad Lone, who had recalled his father’s (Hurriyat leadership) legacy during the campaign, lost Kupwara badly (with 7,000 votes, he was 20,000 behind the PDP winner) and barely won Handwara with 728 votes.
It’s difficult to say which way a wounded Sajad’s politics might turn over the next couple of years. Nor can we predict how PDP might choose to revive itself—and whether elements in J-e-I will covertly back militancy again in order to whitewash their badly damaged image.
As I said in my piece yesterday, Congress' Failure Could Sharpen Communal and Other Faultlines, buckle up for conflict of various kinds—perhaps next summer.
(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.)
