Two parties, one voice

`MUZAFFARABAD 170,' reads the huge hoarding put up by the People's Democratic Party (PDP) at the TRC Chowk in Srinagar. If taxi driver Abdul Rashid's comments on the issue were on television, all that the audience would get to hear would be one long beep. "Before we get a highway to Pakistan," he says, his monologue laced with expletives, "I'd really like someone to build a road in my village. With any luck, the first bus to Muzaffarabad will fall off a cliff with all the politicians inside it."

Travel almost anywhere in the Kashmir valley, and voices like Rashid's are not in short supply. Complaints of schools without teachers, hospitals without doctors and roads made up mainly of potholes are widespread. Srinagar residents complain about poor sewerage, water supply and health care. In southern Kashmir, in areas such as Shopian or Kulgam, orchard owners have been hit hard by a price slump, the result of cheap imports and an ineffectual price-support mechanism. Everywhere, young people are bitter about shrinking employment opportunities.

Everywhere, that is, except in the speeches of the PDP and the National Conference (N.C.), the two major parties in the Kashmir valley. Given their dismal record in office, the two major political formations have wisely chosen to sidestep these issues. Little is said about issues that touch the everyday lives of ordinary people. Although candidates have been mouthing the usual pieties about addressing unemployment and bringing about development, no party has outlined a vision of just what it intends to do to solve these problems. Many of the PDP's unpopular measures in office - electricity tariff hikes, for example, or job cuts - were endorsed in principle if not in practice by the National Conference while it was in office.

Both the N.C. and the PDP, which generally agree on little, have remarkably similar visions on what needs to be done. Both, for one, seem to agree that dialogue with terrorists is essential. On April 12, N.C. candidate from Srinagar Omar Abdullah claimed that the Hizbul Mujahideen was "butchered under PDP rule". The allegation was entirely true - but it neatly ignored the fact that the same thing had happened under N.C. rule. PDP leader Mehbooba Mufti, who is contesting from Anantnag, had said a few days earlier in Soibug that the Hizbul Mujahideen had "an important role to play" in future dialogue on Jammu and Kashmir.

Both parties also agree that human rights violations by the Indian forces are a major problem - and that killings by terrorists need not be addressed. In a recent speech Omar Abdullah claimed that "there has been no let-up in rights violations and dozens of people are killed every day". No mention was made of his party's endorsement of aggressive anti-terrorism operations while in office. Despite being in power, Mehbooba Mufti has made similar allegations against the police. After the April 11 attack on her rally at Uri (story on page 36), the PDP leader described the police as "an enemy of peace", but remained quiet on why her government, which controls the department, had not brought about such reforms as it thought necessary.

Significantly, both parties have sought to use Islam as a major component of their campaign strategies. Omar Abdullah's campaign managers believe his marriage to a Punjabi Hindu and the recent marriage of his sister Sara to Congress politician Sachin Pilot have dented his legitimacy. The N.C., therefore, takes care to begin rallies with Islamic incantations. Former Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah has claimed that the Bharatiya Janata Party is not a "well-wisher of Muslims". The Union government's refusal to fund an Islamic University in Kashmir, he claimed, showed that New Delhi "does not want people to get enlightened". PDP campaigners have also liberally used Islam as a motif in their campaign, saying their green flag is a symbol of their commitment to defend the faith.

No one has missed just how similar these three plans - dialogue with terrorists, human rights and the defence of Islam - are to the traditional platform held by the All Parties Hurriyat Conference and Islamist groups over the last decade. Failure to actually provide meaningful governance has led to a situation where mainstream parties have, so to speak, shifted the ideological goalposts. Indeed, Farooq Abdullah has gone one step further than the PDP in this regard, and threatened to "revive a movement for a plebiscite if the elections are rigged" - a remarkable re-formulation of the Opposition's allegations that the rigging of elections by the National Conference in 1987 led to the outbreak of terrorism in the first place.

Perhaps the polemic represents the desperation in both camps.

It is a process that holds out real dangers. "If politicians do not deliver on issues relevant to people," says Mohammad Yusuf Tarigami, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) candidate standing against Mehbooba Mufti in Anantnag, "it will breed cynicism about democracy itself. Yes, everyone should be concerned with the future of Jammu and Kashmir, but there is a lot to be done while this problem is resolved. We can't build a road to Pakistan, but we can push for a road from Poonch to the valley. We can spend money on schools and hospitals, instead of spending on just expanding the Cabinet endlessly." The Congress, which is contesting against the PDP in Baramulla, has also been talking of development, but its credibility is compromised by supporting the PDP in adjoining Srinagar and Anantnag, as well as Jammu.

Both the PDP and the National Conference are fond of talking about the masla-e-Kashmir, the problem of Kashmir. If democracy is to have meaning in Jammu and Kashmir, its time they started addressing the problems of Kashmiris as well.