Some facets of farcical elections in IHK

Some facets of farcical elections in IHK
A Siddique
THE seven phased elections for eighty seven constituencies in IHK have kicked off with the holding of first phase of elections on November 17, 2008।The polling is scheduled to be completed by December 24, counting of votes will be held on 28 December and the entire exercise is due to be wrapped up by December 31. The number of voters is estimated at 1.27 million and two thousand polling stations have been organized in the entire state comprising Jammu, Kashmir Valley and the Laddakh regions. The number of voters, the polling infrastructure and the five weeks time period allocated for conduct of polls is designed to enable the entire civil and military machine to segregate a given area for the sake of holding and manipulating lections at a given place and point in time. It should be instructive to note that for the purpose of ensuring a `free and fair� election, in addition to the 5 lac army already deployed in the IHK, 216 additional companies of the CRPF have been inducted in IHK, bringing their total to 288.Elections in IHK have a history cast in the mold of political chicanery, fraud and coercion and the ongoing exercise bears no deviation from the precedent set earlier. As witnessed in the first phase, an undeclared curfew was imposed in the Kashmir Valley, sparing only the constituencies of Bandipora, Gurez and Sonawari, where polling was scheduled on 17 November. All roads and major tracks were blocked through deployment of heavy contingent of security forces, ensuring that all efforts by the Kashmir Coordination Committee to launch protest marches were ruthlessly crushed. Over two dozen separatist leaders of the All Party Hurriyat Conference who called for boycotting the elections were arrested under the Public Safety Act. In such circumstances the concept of free and fair elections is a foregone casualty; rendering the entire process supine to governmental manipulations and orchestrations. But in IHK such anomalies are the norm and carry India�s founding fathers blessings to `select� only those Kashmiri leaders who would not shy from perpetuating the much sought after status quo by the Indian establishment. An interesting anecdote adequately underlines this entrenched bent of mind.During Sheikh Abdullah�s authoritarian rule (1948-53), Balraj Puri, a Jammu based writer and a political analyst met Nehru and pleaded that disgruntled National Conference (NC) elements be allowed to form a democratic opposition. Nehru, Puri recollected, �conceded the theoretical soundness of my argument but maintained that India�s Kashmir Policy revolved around Abdullah and that nothing should be done to weaken him.� After Abdullah�s arrest in 1953 when Bakhshi replaced him, Puri again met Nehru and repeated his request. Nehru fully agreed that Bakhshi was a thoroughly unsavoury character but argued that India�s case now revolved around him and despite all shortcomings, the Bakhsi Government had to be strengthened. For according to Nehru, �Kashmir politics revolved around personalities and there was no material for democracy there�. This is the bottom line which explains the Indian attitude towards conducting the sham of elections in the IHK.In addition to placing a puppet in the saddle of Kashmir affairs to consolidate India�s hold, IHK elections are also meant to send manipulative signals to institutions and public abroad in the context of UN linkages to the Issue of Kashmir. Indians fallaciously argue that by going to polls, the Kashmiris in IHK have rendered the UN mandated plebiscite unnecessary. Much to India�s chagrin, however, such thoroughly malicious pitch has remained an exercise in futility. The UN Security Council has rejected the Indian contention that by intermittently participating in 5- yearly polls, the people of Kashmir have exercised their right of self determination. Also, examining the issue in its report the 1993 International Commission of Jurists has concluded that the right of self determination of Kashmiri population has neither been exercised nor abandoned and thus remains validly exercisable. Kashmiri�s will for joining India or Pakistan is yet to be expressed through a transparent, free and fair franchise and the farcical IHK elections have served little, if at all, in promoting India�s self serving agenda.The statistics regarding the poll participation by the Kashmiris have also remained a matter of debate and so are the current Indian claims that the first phase of the ongoing polling has witnessed 55% participation by the local population. Traditionally Indians pull out all the stops in getting a desirable result in any IHK election. It is worth recollecting that during the first ever polls in 195 1, under the stewardship of Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah, the National Conference won all 75 seats of the `Constituent Assembly; claiming 73 seats unopposed. Bakhshi, who followed Abdullah and was anointed the trustee of Indian agenda in Kashmir for the next ten years (1953-63), won 95% and 97% seats in the 1957 and 1962 elections respectively. The corruption that marked the 1962 polls was so obvious that Nehru was constrained to send Bakshi a mildly toned demarche; �It would strengthen your position much more if you lost a few seats to bona fide opponents,� he wrote. It ought to be considered as well that notwithstanding the Indian propaganda regarding the popularity of farcical elections, if the Kashmiris were was so eager for the polls then what explains the overbearing presence and aggressive deployment of over 7 lac military and para military troops to facilitate the conduct of polls. Or if there was such a grass root support for the elections why the polls in the State would be held in seven phases spread over five weeks. Indians know that without over-saturation in troops to population ratio it will be impossible to mould the results in conformity with their well known design.People in Kashmir have made it clear that a deep anti India alienation marks the collective mood. Even those people who go to polls treat it as an exercise for electing candidates to seek improvement in local governance conditions and not to express their faith in the policies and dispensation meted out by India. In any case no one treats voting in IHK a substitute for the right of self determination where �Azadi� is the flavour of the season. In the post September Eleven environment the freedom struggle has undergone a subtle transformation; from militancy to peaceful expression of mass resistance to the Indian rule of repression. Summer of 2008 has seen un-precedent mass rallies when the Indian Government transferred 100 acres of Kashmiri land to Shri Amar Nath Yatra Shrine Board. The Indians can continue the sham exercise of elections but the Kashmiris have grown wiser with experience and notwithstanding the Indian abiding design to absorb the IHK in the Indian Union, feel increasingly empowered to thwart such ambitions.