A sharply opposing set of discourses drawn around the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) muscular nationalism determined the election outcome in Jammu and Kashmir. The Jammu region has seen a phenomenal groundswell of support for the BJP since 2013, spurred by the party’s communal exhortations following the Kistwar riot, and voted decisively for it. The Kashmir Valley, on the other hand, placed its faith in the National Conference, not so much because of allegiance to or love for the N.C. but because in the current political climate, in which a triumphant and energised BJP is expected to step up its effort to tinker with the State’s special status, there is a general consensus that only the N.C. can take on this thickening Hindutva plot.
The immediate reaction in the valley at the stupendous electoral success of the BJP across the Indian mainland and in neighbouring Jammu was one of profound anxiety followed by speculation over the next policy drill that the Narendra Modi-Ajit Doval duo may effect in Kashmir, especially in the run-up to the Assembly elections that in all probability will no longer be delayed. There is fear that Modi-Doval’s reliance on a militaristic solution to contain the insurgency, by briskly eliminating the violent actors from the field, will continue, no matter the civilian unrest that will follow in its aftermath, and so will their steadfast refusal to talk to the stakeholders in the conflict since the sweeping mandate essentially endorses the belligerent line that they have adopted with respect to Kashmir.
Many in Srinagar and New Delhi’s political circles are of the opinion that a simmering Kashmir, where Indian forces are in perennial collision with Muslim insurgents, works as the perfect vote-catcher for the BJP. The generation of fear in predominantly Hindu India by a big-stage parading of a real or imagined threat from Pakistan-sponsored Islamist jehadis, the entering into a diatribe with Pakistan, the stepping up of military operations in Kashmir, and selling idea that the elimination of Muslim militant youths is victory of Hindutva over “Pakistan-sponsored terrorism” have the potential to script the political fall of the BJP’s opponents, in particular the Congress in Jammu, where a decades-long history of valley-opposed politics provides ground for reception of this cycle of manoeuvring.
Indeed, the BJP performed handsomely in the Jammu region, winning three seats—Jammu, where Jugal Kishore trumped Raman Bhalla of the Congress by 3,02,875 votes; Udhampur, where Union Minister Jitendra Singh retained his seat by defeating Vikramaditya Singh of the Congress by a margin of 3.5 lakh votes; and Ladakh, where Jamyang Tsering Namgyal trounced the independent candidate Sajjad Hussain by a margin of 10,930 votes. The N.C. won all three seats in the valley—Srinagar, where Farooq Abdullah won by a margin of 70,050 votes, defeating Aga Syed Mohsin of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP); Baramulla, where Mohammad Akbar Lone defeated Raja Aijaz Ali of the Jammu and Kashmir People’s Conference; and Anantnag, where Justice Hasnain Masoodi dealt a shocking blow to PDP chief and former Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti. Mehbooba Mufti came third after Ghulam Ahmad Mir of the Congress. Masoodi won by the narrow margin of 6,676 votes.
Tanveer Sadiq, political adviser to the N.C. leader Omar Abdullah, described the party’s victory in Kashmir as an expression of the people’s faith in its intent to safeguard the State’s special status from the BJP’s nefarious designs. “Our cadre worked very hard, and people have clearly reposed their faith in the N.C. People know that we will never compromise with our principles and do everything in our capacity to protect the State’s constitutional safeguards. We chose Justice Hasnain Masoodi for Anantnag as he, being a former judge, can delineate the importance of Articles 370 and 35A emphatically in Parliament and debunk the flawed and partisan narrative of the BJP,” Sadiq told Frontline . Asked if the BJP’s brute majority in the Lok Sabha would pose an imminent threat to the State’s special status, Sadiq said: “It is premature to conjecture on the BJP’s next course of action with respect to Kashmir.”
A senior leader close to Omar Abdullah is of the opinion that the BJP may not tinker with Articles 370 and 35A through the legislature route. “If that was the intent, they could have done it in the past five years. If they make any amendment to Article 370, fifty or more presidential orders pertaining to Jammu and Kashmir will be impacted. There are constitutional intricacies involved, and I do not see the BJP getting into all that.”
A conversation with senior leaders of the PDP and the N.C. underscored the point that there is anticipation of a more iron-fisted Kashmir policy in Modi’s second term. Ahead of the elections in Jammu and Kashmir, these people fear that military encounters and cordon-and-search operations in the hinterland could be scaled up. It already seems to be unfolding. As the results started pouring in on May 23, the Army’s 42 Rashtriya Rifles and Special Operation Groups launched one of their biggest operations of recent times at Dadsara village in Tral and gunned down Zakir Musa, the most dreaded combatant in the valley and the poster boy of new-age militancy in post-Burhan Wani Kashmir.
The killing of Musa, the chief of the Al Qaeda-inspired Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind, is likely to provoke a major civilian protest, reminiscent of what was witnessed from July 2016 when Burhan Wani was felled. Insiders in Srinagar’s power corridors believe that the return of an anti-India mass mobilisation would aid the BJP’s project. Three developments are likely. First, the pro-resistance leadership would be further crushed. Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, chairman of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, was recently barred from holding a commemoration rally in Srinagar on the occasion of his father’s death anniversary on May 21. Throughout the run-up to the general election, he remained under the radar of the National Investigating Agency. The Enforcement Directorate during that time attached the properties of other resistance leaders such as Shabir Shah and Syed Ali Shah Geelani. Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front chairman Yasin Malik continues to be in jail. The hounding of these leaders is likely to continue, perhaps intensify.
Second, bickering over Articles 370 and 35A will intensify, as choreographed from Jammu, which senior journalists in Srinagar have been of late describing as the “new Nagpur”. Three, the BJP will relaunch its Operation 44-plus. At the core of this is the strategy to help the Sajad Lone-led Peoples Conference (P.C.) maximise defections from a weakened PDP and increase its footprint in the south after successful experimentation in the north. Frontline had revealed in an exclusive report (“Common enemy”, April 26) that the alliance between the P.C. and the BJP is “very much in place” and the “strategy is to enable the P.C. candidate Raja Aijaz Ali’s victory in Baramulla, which will pave the way for the expansion of its presence across north Kashmir”. The P.C. became a formidable force in the north after the PDP’s senior leaders such as Irfan Panditpuri from Langate, Imran Raza Ansari from Pattan and Abbas Wani from Tanmarg switched over to it.
If the P.C. is able to win around 15 to 20 seats in the next Assembly election and the BJP repeats its sweep in Jammu, it will accomplish what the Centre failed to do in June 2018 when, after unceremoniously bringing down the Mehbooba Mufti government, attempts were made to poach MLAs from the PDP and form a BJP-P.C. coalition government with Sajad Lone as Chief Minister. The fact that the P.C.’s Raja Aijaz Ali polled 1,03,193 votes in Baramulla, a close second to winner Akbar Lone of the N.C., who polled 1,33,426 votes, gives room to the belief that a sweep by the BJP in Jammu, together with headway made by the P.C., can set the alarm bells ringing for Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti. Following the BJP’s resounding electoral success, the P.C.-BJP project is set to gather steam.
There is a feeling among Kashmir’s senior scribes that the BJP is bound to emerge as an unavoidable partner in any future dispensation, courtesy its advances in Jammu. Tarique Bhat, a senior mediaperson based in Srinagar, explained: “There is little possibility left now that the Congress-N.C. or the Congress-PDP combine will be able to cobble up the majority mark in the 87-member Assembly. The BJP is bound to be a formidable force at the expense of the Congress in Jammu. This makes them a potential ally that either the N.C. or the PDP would have to consider in order to form the government in the State.” He further said that the mandate to the BJP exposed the “real face” of the Indian electorate. “For long, India had put up a semblance of secularism, though we believed it was only on paper and the latent desire for a Hindu Rashtra needed just an incitement to germinate. The May 23 election outcome validates that.”
The stepping up of security operations, and indeed the other designs of the BJP, is likely to provide a boost to homegrown militancy, as experiences of the past five years have demonstrated. As more and more homegrown militants emerge and the movement of pro-resistance leaders is curtailed, there is a possibility that the leadership of the pro-independence lobby will slip from the latter’s hands to village youths, fundamentally altering the political and religious calculus of the struggle. This is already in the offing. In the past few years, some jehadi terror outfits became operational in Kashmir. Among them are the Islamic State of Jammu and Kashmir, which considers itself an offshoot of the Islamic State (I.S.); Lashkar-e-Islam, which carried out attacks on telecom towers in northern Kashmir in 2015; and the (now slain) Zeenat-ul-Islam-led Al Badr. These are different from traditional militants in that they draw ideological motivation from the I.S. and view Kashmir as a part of the larger Islamic struggle.
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