Elections and Kashmir

By Balraj Puri

TO THE Prime Minister's assurance of free and fair elections in Jammu and Kashmir, the Home Minister significantly added that polls in the State, barring that of 1977, were never fair and free. This is the first official realisation of the fact that a major cause of the alienation of the Kashmiris is non-extension of Indian democracy to the State. Curtailment of the democratic rights of the people, including the right to freely choose their Government, used to be justified in terms of the unresolved problem of Kashmir.

This vicious cycle began with the State's accession to India. When Sheikh Abdullah came to power in October 1947, his party and Government celebrated the event as the end of 400 years of Kashmir's slavery under non-Kashmiri rulers - Mughals, Afghans, Sikhs and Dogras. The Sheikh was perceived by the people more or less as a Kashmiri substitute for non-Kashmiri princes instead of as a democratic alternative to autocracy.

He would not tolerate any dissent in the State or in the party. In 1947, the most important leader next to him was G.M. Karra. He tried to cut to size his potential rival by denying representation to him in the party and the Government. I asked Nehru, why Karra's loyalty to India should be routed through the Sheikh? I pleaded for Karra's survival as a political entity notwithstanding his differences with the Sheikh. Nehru replied ``India's entire Kashmir policy revolved around the personality of the Sheikh, how could we afford to weaken him?''

Jayaprakash Narayan, as the then tallest Opposition leader, too, refused to be helpful till Kashmir issue was settled. After five years of persecution, and in sheer desperation, Karra was the first known Kashmiri Muslim leader to give a call for the State's accession to Pakistan, in June 1953. It was one of the reasons that disturbed the equilibrium of the Sheikh, who, to steal the thunder of his rival, started making anti-Centre noises and equivocating on the issue of accession, which was one of the factors that led to the August 1953 crisis.

Interestingly Karra, along with other secessionist groups, rejoined mainstream politics when the first viable alternative to the Sheikh emerged in the State in the form of the Janata Party in 1977. The end of one-party system also marked the end of the secessionist movement in Kashmir. My proposal in a National Conference meeting that no Government officer should be office- bearer of the party was outrightly rejected by the Sheikh. I showed Nehru a copy of an order issued by the Deputy Commissioner of Doda, who was also president of the NC district committee, to dismiss the party's tehsil committee in Kishtwar and appoint a new one. I asked the Prime Minister ``how long can such an undemocratic State remain a part of a democratic India?''. He was visibly upset. But pleaded helplessness.

If the most popular leader Kashmir ever produced, who had the support of the entire Indian nation and presided over a regimented setup, needed to ensure the unopposed return of his men in 73 constituencies with a nominal contest in two seats in the first election to the Constituent Assembly of the State in 1951, it was difficult to break the tradition. In 1954, I told Nehru that I wanted to set up a unit of the Praja Socialist Party in Kashmir so that it could provide an Indian outlet to anti- Government sentiments. He argued that the national interest was more important than ideals of democracy. He said, ``we have played a gamble on Kashmir, should we lose it for idealistic considerations? Whatever be the weaknesses of Bakshi Ghulam Mohammed (who had replaced the Sheikh) our Kashmir policy depends on him''.

I submitted that the national interest would be best served if anti-Government and anti-India sentiments were not mixed up. I also reminded him that till a year ago he used to assert that India's Kashmir policy depended on Sheikh Abdullah. In reply Nehru said, ``Kashmir politics would always revolve around personalities. Where is the material for democracy there?'' Most of us, led by the PSP president, Asoka Mehta, were beaten in the streets of Srinagar when we reached there to set up the party unit. The first experiment in forming a secular, democratic Opposition in the Kashmir Valley was crushed.

In 1958, another experiment in Opposition politics was made when G.M. Sadiq led his leftist group out of the NC to form the Democratic National Conference. A number of foreign journalists observed that the Bakshi-Sadiq polarisation had made a considerable dent in the following of the Plebiscite Front led by the Sheikh. But the national leaders and the press were alarmed over ``the disunity in the ranks of the nationalist forces''. The two parties were pressured to reunite and the event was hailed as the triumph of the national interest.

In 1967, Bakshi revived the NC and posed a formidable challenge to the Congress in power. Nomination papers of his partymen in more than half the constituencies in the Valley were rejected. I collected a bundle of duplicate ballot papers that the ruling party was using to defeat Bakshi's candidates and showed them to the Chief Election Commissioner, K. Sundaram. He said, ``Bakshi also used to do like that''.

The tradition of unopposed elections, rejection of Opposition candidates and bogus voting was broken by Morarji Desai, who, in defiance of the advice of his Cabinet colleagues and the entreaties of State Janata leaders, including Karra and Mr. Abdul Ghani Lone, boldly asserted, ``I will prefer taking poison and die to any manipulation in election''. The Janata won only two of the 42 seats in the Valley. But its defeat was the greatest triumph of Indian democracy and national interest. The polarisation of State politics between the Janata and the NC made secessionist and communal forces redundant.

A similar polarisation between the Congress and the NC in 1983, which returned the latter led by Dr. Farooq Abdullah to power had provided anti-State Government and anti-Centre sentiments secular outlets. But Dr. Farooq Abdullah was removed for ``hobnobbing with the opposition parties of India'' by Indira Gandhi. After two years, he returned to power when he agreed to share power with the Congress. Thus space for a secular Opposition was again vacated. The Muslim United Front came into existence to fill the vacuum and became the only channel of expression of anti-Centre and anti-State Government sentiments.

If the Rajiv-Farooq accord blocked a secular outlet of discontent, the manipulated election in 1987 blocked a democratic outlet also. Some of the candidates, along with their election and polling agents, whose defeat was engineered, formed the nucleus of the first militant group that went across the LoC to get arms and training.

What would have been politics of these militants if they had not been deprived of a democratic way of expressing their discontent may be debatable. But it is surely better for the parties concerned to confront each other in the Assembly and through democratic debates than through the violence of the gun. Indian democracy, if extended to the State, should have accepted the challenge of a dissent of 10 to 15 members who could possibly be elected if the poll was perfectly free and fair, in a House of 87.

In the 1996 election, none of the national parties, in particular the Congress and the Janata Dal, which had a presence in the Valley, campaigned against the NC on the plea that Dr. Farooq Abdulllah was their best bet. Thus the entire Opposition space was left to non-secular or secessionist parties.

In the 1999 Lok Sabha election when, again, the contest was between pro-India parties, the election, according to press reports quoting the Election Commission, ``was neither free nor fair''. The electorate, it added, ``was coerced by the security forces to vote''. Apart from weighty theoretical arguments, there is thus ample empirical evidence that whenever there were free elections and a democratic and effective Opposition in Kashmir, the degree of alienation of the people visibly declined.

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