16

Jul

J&K : Will spurt in terror activities polarise voters?

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Syed Khalique Ahmed

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New Delhi | Tuesday | 16 July 2024

Political watchers in Jammu and Kashmir say that the recent spurt of terror activities in Jammu and Kashmir, particularly the Jammu region, will polarise the voters in the assembly elections that have to be completed before September 30 as per Supreme Court directions.

While several strategic experts have given simplistic explanations of the cross-border terror with the involvement of locals as a bid to postpone or cancel the assembly polls, those who have been keeping watch on the political scenario in this border state, reject this thesis.

Several political analysts have advised the Government of India not to cancel the assembly polls but to go ahead with the elections to strengthen democracy and restore statehood to the Union Territory. Jammu and Kashmir were divided into two regions and downgraded as a Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh as a separate Union Territory after the Central government scrapped Article 370 that gave a special status to the border state.

There does not appear any chance to defer or cancel the polls as the Election Commission of India (ECI), and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during his visit to Srinagar recently, already announced to conduct elections before September 30 and restore statehood.

 

Article at a Glance

The recent surge in terror activities in Jammu and Kashmir, particularly in the Jammu region, has raised concerns about the upcoming assembly elections. Political analysts believe that the violence is aimed at polarizing voters, which could benefit certain political parties that thrive on communalism.
The Election Commission of India and Prime Minister Narendra Modi have announced that the elections will be held before September 30, and statehood will be restored.
The delimitation of assembly seats has also been a contentious issue, with the Jammu region gaining more seats despite having a smaller population than the Kashmir region. The criteria used for delimitation have been criticized for being biased towards the Jammu region.
The provision for nominating two seats for displaced Kashmiri Pandits and others has also been seen as a move to give an edge to Jammu-based parties.
The assembly elections are crucial for the region, and political parties are gearing up for the polls. However, the recent violence and delimitation issues have raised concerns about the fairness of the electoral process. It remains to be seen how the elections will play out and what impact they will have on the region's politics.

 

What is surprising about the recent spurt in terror activities is that the militants did not disturb Parliamentary elections in Jammu and Kashmir. Why should they indulge in violence to disrupt the assembly elections? Are they working at the behest of forces from across the border based on some particular political agenda? If the primary objective is to achieve polarization of voters, then how will it benefit forces directing the militants to take to violence before holding assembly polls?

Spurt in terrorist activists in the Union Territory, particularly the Jammu region soon after the Parliamentary elections, has become a matter of concern in political and intellectual circles. They argue how the Pulwama attack in 2019 on a CRPF convoy resulting in the killing of 40 personnel changed the entire atmosphere in favour of a particular political party that came to power again at the Centre. Some BJP insiders like former Jammu and Kashmir governor Satya Pal Malik made highly controversial remarks about the incident and said that the top brass of the BJP politicized the tragic event for political purposes.

One hopes that no political party will politicize the recent increase in cross-border terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir because this is a matter related to the nation’s security. Yet, some quarters have expressed the feeling that certain political parties or their leaders may indulge in a one-upmanship game to achieve political superiority by using these incidents when the assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir are just two months ahead.

The Lok Sabha elections 2024 was the first election held in Jammu and Kashmir after the abrogation of Article 370 and the state was downgraded into two union territories: Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh. The polling percentage in Lok Sabha polls was 58.6 percent, the highest in the Valley in the last 40 years.

The high polling percentage indicated the public’s interest in exercising their right to vote and their sentiments towards political parties and individuals.  Former chief minister Omar Abdullah of Jammu and Kashmir National Conference (JKNC) lost to independent candidate Engineer Abdul Rashid Sheikh from the Baramulla seat who was in jail and could not come out to campaign in his support. He is still in jail.

The journalists based in Jammu and Punjab, who have been covering Jammu and Kashmir for over four decades and have witnessed militancy both in Punjab and J-K, say the resurgence of violence soon after the Lok Sabha polls be read between the lines because the militant activities are likely to further polarize the voters thus benefitting the parties whose very existence and survival depend on the communalization of society and division of voters along religion and community lines. In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, how some top leaders of the BJP tried to polarize by delivering hate speeches and demonizing for Muslims to achieve their political objective. However, the majority of the people rejected their communal appeal. It is a different thing that BJP came to power again with the help of its electoral allies – JD(U) and Telugu Desam Party.

However, the political parties in the Kashmir Valley are not happy with the delimitation criteria that resulted in a disproportionate increase in the number of assembly seats in the Hindu-dominated Jammu region even though the population of the Jammu region is 15 lakhs less than that of the Kashmir region.

Before delimitation, the number of assembly seats in the Kashmir region was 46, and 37 in the Jammu region. Had the delimitation been done based on the 2011 Census, it would have increased the seats in Kashmir to 51 and 39 in Jammu.

However, the Delimitation Commission invented new criteria that carved out a constituency with an average population of 1.45 lakh in Kashmir and 1.25 lakh in Jammu. The population criteria for carving out assembly seats in the Jammu region was based on their remoteness, terrain, and hostility from Pakistan. The political observers say that the same criteria could have been applied in North Kashmir’s border districts of Baramulla, Kupwara and Bandipura which are worse off than those of Jammu. But this was not done.

So, the new criteria added six seats in Jammu, thus raising the total seats in Jammu to 43, and only one seat was added to Kashmir, making a total of 47 seats in the Kashmir region. The total number of assembly seats in the UT came to 90.

Surprisingly, Kashmir accounting for 55.4 percent of the UT’s population got fewer additional seats, and Jammu with just 44.6 percent was given more additional seats.

This was objected to by Kashmir-based political parties who moved the Supreme Court to challenge it. But their petition was rejected.

Besides, the Commission made provisions for the nomination of two seats for those who were displaced from the Kashmir Valley, particularly Kashmiri Pandits and others, due to terrorism. They are mostly settled in Jammu, Delhi and other parts of India. The Lieutenant Governor will nominate them. Valley-based parties feel that this provision, for which there is no precedent anywhere in India, will give an edge to Jammu-based political parties or those playing politics on majority communalism throughout India.

The Commission also reserved seven seats for scheduled castes and nine seats for scheduled tribes. Before it, no seats were reserved for SCs and STs in the Jammu and Kashmir assembly.

Before delimitation, there were 15 Muslim-majority seats in the Jammu region. But their boundaries have been redrawn during delimitation in a way that has ended their Muslim majority character.  Political observers say that this will reduce the representation of Muslims from Jammu in the state assembly. The Muslims form a majority in the Rajouri (63%), Poonch (90%), Doda (54%), Kishtwar (58%) and Ramban (71%) districts of Jammu, while the Hindus form a majority in Kathua (88%), Samba (86%), Jammu (84%) and Udhampur (88%) districts.

PDP president Mehbooba Mufti, after the delimitation, had commented that the delimitation was “tactical pre-poll rigging” that converted “majority into minority and minority into a majority.”

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