DDC Poll: BJP’s Botched-Up J&K Plan

Some diehard, liberal optimists are yet again jumping the gun with fake optimism by overwhelmingly asserting that the District Development Council (DDC) election results for about 278 seats in Jammu and Kashmir is “a return to democracy”. There also seems to a view that the election results have proved that the BJP is the single largest party of this former state and new Union Territory, and, therefore, it has been absolved of the arbitrary abrogation of Article 370, the prolonged communication & social lockdown, mass arrests and the military clampdown. This, too, is flagrantly off the mark.

In this freezing cold, the winter of discontent has yet again been reaffirmed and expressed unanimously by the people in the Valley, with all their mistrust and misgivings about the mainstream politicians of the various mainline parties. The DDC polls, if at all, are a reminder, that all is not well in the restive region, and the Valley desperately needs freedom, peace, dignity and democracy. A restoration of the autonomy which was forcibly snatched from the people in early August 2019 by the BJP-led government in Delhi.

The tally of 75 seats for the BJP is a pointer to the sharp religious polarization witnessed in Jammu and Kashmir, especially since 2014. The fact that the BJP had an alliance with Mehbooba Mufti’s People’s Democratic Party (PDP) earlier, against the popular mood, which led to another round of mass unrest in the Valley, has not been forgotten in the region. Certainly, it did not help in mainstreaming BJP in the region, especially in the Valley, more so, after it broke the alliance, as arbitrarily as ever.

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The military clampdown followed by the arrests of scores of politicians and ordinary people, the total communication and social and political lockdown which continued for months, including a tacit and overt clampdown on the local media, has not erased from popular memory. If at all, the DDC polls have only highlighted the serious lack of faith, the universal bad faith, and the total alienation witnessed in the valley since August last year.

The BJP winning a large chunk in the Jammu region is predictable, though even the Congress and the National Conference led by the Abdullahs have made inroads there. The Congress won 26 seats. The alliance has won in both mixed areas, as well as in Muslim-dominated areas, overwhelmingly.

There have been palpable fears in the Jammu region that outsiders might usurp their land in the current scenario, and this fear has been widely shared in the region of Ladakh as well. Despite that, the Hindu-dominated Jammu has voted for the local candidates of the BJP. The independents have won over 50 seats. Predictably, there are allegations that the BJP is trying to appropriate the independents.

Members of the Gupkar Alliance in Kashmir

Significantly, the BJP has got only 3 per cent odd votes in the Valley, and three seats in the Srinagar region. The Farooq Abdullah-led People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD), comprising the PDP, the CPM, the Jammu and Kashmir People’s Conference, and others, have overwhelming won the mandate with 110 seats. And it has not been easy for the alliance, with its leaders such as Mehbooba Mufti and Sajjad Lone widely seen as compromised leaders who had earlier aligned with the BJP, going against the popular mood.

Besides, there were complaints by the alliance that they were not allowed to campaign freely, their movements were restricted, that the central agencies were making life difficult for them, and that their top leaders were not able to reach out to the masses in the interiors. There were also complaints of the BJP using the state machinery to its benefit, as much as pumping in huge money and resources to win the polls.

ALSO READ: A Tale Of Two Elections In J&K

Let it also not be forgotten, that the Apni Party propped up by Delhi has done badly with only 12 seats. The fact is that the Centre’s manipulative moves to change the course of the region’s politics has not really succeeded, especially in the Valley. Since the military clampdown, the Centre has tried to create a new and alternative leadership, sponsored by the Indian State and aligned to BJP, from the local level leadership, such as the panchayats and the districts. This move has not only boomeranged, but failed singularly in creating an alternative leadership, with most of these local, sponsored chieftains unable to even visit their areas due to the fear of a collective backlash.

Several other myths seem to have been broken by the final results of the polls and the process of campaigning. The BJP’s campaign to remove dynasties simply did not work. Despite the bad faith, the people have restored faith in the old dynasties, including Sajjad Lone, Mufti and the Abdullahs.

Second, the DDC winners will involve themselves with strictly local issues — health, water, infrastructure, among other factors. These are municipal issues and in no way reflect the big political picture and social process of the state. People have clearly voted to make a categorical point in the Valley and in the mixed population areas elsewhere – that they unilaterally and unanimously oppose the abrogation of Article 370, the dissolution of the assembly, the arrest of mainstream leaders and others, the lockdown and the clampdown, and the totalitarian method adopted by the Centre under Narendra Modi and Amit Shah since August last year.

If anything, the poll results yet again reflect mass resentment and anger at the state of affairs and are a signal that the entire strategy of the ruling regime in the region has moved from one political failure to another.

In this context the rhetoric that the polls would end militancy or extremism is much too far-fetched. If anything, Pakistan-backed armed militancy has only increased since the state was turned into a union territory, and there is no sign of it abating. With China fishing in murky waters in Ladakh, hitherto a part of Jammu and Kashmir, allegedly occupying Indian land, despite the high-level talks, the border region will continue to be restive.

Indeed, with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris coming to power in America, there is speculation that the human and fundamental rights issue might be again raised by democrats, involving Kashmir. Pakistan is sure to raise it yet again internationally, tacitly backed by China. And with the new American leadership’s stated position in support of democracy, secularism and freedom, if there is a shift in American foreign policy on Kashmir, that surely will be another big headache for the regime in Delhi.

Despite all the shadows and black holes, the DDC poll campaign and the results are a good sign. It restores minimalist electoral democracy in a state under siege and virtual occupation. It also promises the final restoration of autonomy and the state assembly under federal principles of the Indian Constitution, whereby people of the region might once again choose to vote for an elected state government – and not a power structure controlled by the Centre with military clampdown.

A Tale Of Two Elections In Jammu & Kashmir

The month of November has witnessed elections in two different parts of the former Himalayan state of Jammu and Kashmir. On November 15, elections were held in Pakistan occupied Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) wherevotes were cast to elect a puppet legislative assembly. And on November 28, Direct Development Council (DDC) elections were held in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir for the first time.

The DDC elections were held in order to elect representatives who would be in charge of development projects in their respective districts.

The GB elections were more of a ‘make-PTI-win’ by hook or crook exercise. Originally the elections were scheduled to be held in August. However, excuses were made regarding incomplete voters list and elections were postponed for three months.

Critics of Imran Khan are of the view that this was a manoeuvre to let winter set in so that far-flung regions in the mountainous region would be blocked due to snowfall thus making it impossible for voters to get to the far and few polling stations.

The DDC elections in Jammu and Kashmir were held for the first time in the history of the Union Territory. They are designed to devolve power and to transfer control of local development from a centralised UT government right down to the district level.

On the contrary, the GB elections were a power grab scam which enabled the federal government in Pakistan to ‘select’ a toothless rubber-stamp legislative assembly.

On election day, ballot boxes were stolen and ‘unknown’ gunmen armed with guns attacked more than one polling station in GB and allegedly replaced numerous ballot boxes with those which had already been filled with votes to make ‘selected’ PTI candidates win.

At least 1,700 postal votes were discovered in Astore which had mysteriously been stamped before the election date.

Despite vigorous election campaign run by Pakistan People’s Party leader Bilawal Zardari Bhutto and Maryam Nawaz of Pakistan-Muslim League Nawaz drawing the largest crowds at her public meetings in Gilgit and Skardu they only managed to bag 4 and 2 seats respectively. The PTI bagged 8.

It has been the norm in previous GB elections held in 2009 and 2013 that the party which formed government in Pakistan would win in GB as well.

However, this time around the poor performance of Imran Khan government in Pakistan, the lack of grass root party organisation in GB, the resentment against the declaration of turning GB into Pakistan’s fifth province and the resonance of the anti-military establishment public discontent displayed at several rallies held across the country under the banner ofPakistan Democratic Movement were decisive elements that everyone had realised would grossly dent PTI popularity, if any, in GB, and that the PTI would lose miserably.

However, today we have a PTI government in GB. This can only happen in Pakistan where the invisible hand of Pakistani military establishment works in mysterious ways. But the people of GB have rejected the tampered election results and taken to the streets.

Violent protests set in across the land and in Gilgit and Skardu they continue for over a week. All major opposition parties have refused to accept the election results.

The DDC elections held on November 28 were held undisputed. Even the Gupkar gang did not raise a finger to challenge the transparency of the voting process. Electors in the valley came out in their droves to vote.

A 120-year-old woman was carried on the back of her great-grandchild to the pollingstation. Despite the bone-chilling cold and the fear of terrorist attempts to disrupt the polling, people came out and voted.

A glance at the percentage of votes might give us a better understanding of how seriously people took the DDC elections. In an interview with this scribe Sajid Yousaf Shah, CEO of The Real Kashmir News said that more people turned up at the polling stations in South Kashmir than North Kashmir.

This, he claimed, was of great significance since most of the violence and terrorism was previously attributed to the Southern part of the valley.

Perilously notorious trouble spots such as Kupwara, Shopian, Doda, Kathua and Samba to name a few, witnessed a turn out of 50.74 per cent, 42.58 per cent, 64.49 per cent, 62.82 per cent and 68.61 per cent respectively. The total overall turnout was recorded at 51.76 per cent.

No untoward incident was reported during the polling. This shows the resilience of the people of Kashmir who have been held hostages for seven decades by those who now comprise the Gupkar gang.

The politics of communal hate and insecurity are over or so it seems at least for now. The fact that people turn up at the polling stations in Jammu Kashmir is a testimony of approval of the abrogation of article 370 and 35A.

The second phase of the DDC elections will be held soon. This will include areas that were left out in the first phase. Unlike GB where elections have brought more repression of the colonial occupier, the DDC elections are to prove the steam engine for progress and prosperity.

The tale of two elections have brought about two opposing outcomes.

While DDC election in Jammu Kashmir will help the Union Territory to take long strides towards integrating its economic and political with the living body of Hindustan, in GB the struggle to free our people from the clutches of jihadist oppression and colonial slavery continues.

(The author is a human rights activist from Mirpur in PoJK. He currently lives in exile in the UK — ANI)