Discontent in Srinagar

Violence and low poll turnout show Valley's growing alienation

The by-election to Jammu and Kashmir’s Srinagar Lok Sabha constituency was conducted on Sunday, amidst violence and extremely low turnout. There were 200 separate incidents of violence, and seven people were reportedly killed in firing by the security forces. Meanwhile, the turnout, at around 7 per cent, was the lowest in history, if occasions, when the seat was uncontested, are excluded. The previous low was around 12 per cent in 1999. Since then, turnouts have gradually increased in most elections, before falling precipitously again on Sunday. Rattled by the events, the state government, a coalition of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has cancelled the by-election in Anantnag scheduled to take place on Wednesday — a significant decision since Anantnag is the parliamentary constituency of the chief minister, Mehbooba Mufti, who vacated it in favour of her brother.

There can be no doubt that this is a wake-up call for New Delhi: Its Kashmir policy is failing, and threatens to further fuel widespread alienation in the area from the Indian state. Not only is the situation worsening on the ground, it is also fast turning into a major embarrassment, especially in international fora, for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP-led central government. The Srinagar fiasco comes shortly after a senior official in the Donald Trump administration in the United States once again raised the possibility, unwelcome to India, that the US could “mediate” between India and Pakistan on Kashmir. India’s answer to such offers of intervention has always been that Kashmiris are free citizens of India, who transparently and democratically elect their own representatives. Farcical episodes like this one fatally undermine that argument.

So far, the central government has had a two-pronged approach to Kashmir. The first was for the BJP to enter into an alliance with the PDP. This allowed the BJP to become part of the ruling establishment in the state for the first time and it came with the promise of better synergy between the Centre and state governments. But in no small measure, this coalition angered and disillusioned the PDP’s core voters. The other prong was to take a strong line on militancy — the encounter of noted online propagandist and supposed “commander” of the Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist outfit, Burhan Wani, was a case in point. But the wave of disaffection that it unleashed in the Valley left New Delhi stunned. It is clear now that that outrage was not a fleeting sentiment.

Looking back, in just a few years, much of the painstaking good work done since 1999 to bring the Kashmiris into the fold of electoral process seems to have been squandered. Moreover, the situation in the Valley today is significantly different from the last time that turnouts were so low — in the 1990s. On that occasion, it was fear of foreign or Pakistan-returned militants that was dominant. Today, it is the sweeping popular anger at the Indian state and the security forces. This is an unfortunate turn of events. The government needs to do some hard introspection as to how it lost the advantage of favourable momentum in the Valley, and what should be done now.