By Farooq Sulehria and Haris Qadeer
Despite its malicious strategy of communal gerrymandering to win the Legislative Assembly elections in Indian-administered Jammu Kashmir (JK), the right-wing Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was rejected by a thumping majority.
Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI(M)) candidate Yusuf Tarigami retained his seat for a fifth time, defeating a Jamaat-e-Islami rival. An alliance of the Jammu Kashmir National Conference (NC) and the Indian National Congress (INC) won a simple majority (42 and 6 seats, respectively) in the 90-seat assembly. The NC is a JK-based party with a long history.
Out of seven independents elected, four have announced they will join the NC. Tarigami is also supporting the NC. Another two NC members, who ran as independents after they were refused endorsement by the NC, may also join. With the independents, the NC-led alliance would command a majority of 53.
The BJP won 29 seats (25% of the vote) but won the largest popular vote share.
Jammu is a Hindu-majority region with pockets of Muslim populations, while Kashmir is Muslim-majority with Hindu, Sikh and other religious minorities.
The BJP’s vote share is largely Jammu-based. The NC’s victory is due largely to the campaign to reinstate special status to JK, enshrined in Article 370 of the Indian Constitution.
Article 370 and Article 35A were revoked by the BJP government on August 5, 2019, removing JK’s special status. Consequently, JK was divided into two separate “Union Territories” administered by New Delhi. JK was given the right to a Legislative Assembly, while the other territory, Ladakh, was not.
At the time of the partition of the subcontinent, Hari Singh, the princely ruler of Jammu Kashmir, sought India’s help after a local rebellion broke out in the Poonch region of Jammu Kashmir and an attack by Pakistan through tribal proxies. While the Indian Military was quick to intervene and halted the Pakistani advance. New Dehli has refused to withdraw its military ever since.
The previous JK elections were held in 2014, resulting in a coalition government of the Kashmir-based People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and the BJP. Instead of completing its six-year term, the coalition ended in 2018, when the BJP parted ways with the PDP. Since August 2019, when Kashmir erupted in protest, the region’s administration has been entrusted to a lieutenant-governor appointed by New Dehli.
The BJP strategy to control Jammu Kashmir
Restive since 1947, the Indian-held Jammu Kashmir turned to militancy in the late-1980s. Two factors during the course of the 1990s shaped the conflict. While Pakistan willingly and happily armed militant groups fighting back against India, Pakistan also globalised the “jihad” there. This contributed to the marginalisation of secular trends leading the freedom struggle until the 1980s.
New Delhi, preferring a jihadist opposition to a secular one, also encouraged puritan grouplets. For the BJP, pacifying JK is an important “show of strength” to its fanatic social-base and middle-class vote bank in greater India.
Before taking power in 2014, the BJP, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, promised to rescind Article 370. On winning the elections for a second time in 2019, Modi hurriedly moved to abrogate Article 370.
Modi consistently claimed that JK’s special status was an obstacle to its development, in addition to contributing to an armed rebellion and a movement for secession.
After the abolition of JK’s special status in 2019, steps were first taken to settle Indian citizens in the region. More than 12,000 residencies were issued. Previously, under Article 370, Indian citizens could not be domiciled in JK, a situation JK guarded since 1947, as it feared that India (and Pakistan) could turn JK’s indigenous population into a minority through settlements.
The BJP’s next step was to raise the number of seats in the Legislative Assembly and gerrymander the region in favour of its Hindutva agenda. Seven seats were added to the Legislative Assembly; six seats were added to the Jammu region (rising from 37 to 43), while the Muslim-majority Kashmir region got only one (46 to 47).
Notably, Kashmir has a larger population than Jammu (56.15% of citizens reside in Kashmir and 43.85% in Jammu).
Meanwhile, the number of Hindu-majority constituencies in Jammu rose from 24 to 31 and the number of Muslim-majority constituencies fell from 12 to 9.
Courtesy of the BJP’s “Hindutvised” gerrymandering, the 28% Hindu population in JK was granted 34.44% of the overall seats.
Five seats were also reserved in the Legislative Assembly (two each for women and Kashmiri Pandits, and one for Hindu migrants from Pakistan). However, candidates for the reserved seats are not elected, but will be nominated by the administrator, Lieutenant-Governor Manoj Sinha. These undemocratically nominated members will have the same rights as directly elected MLAs. However, even these five additional seats will not rescue the BJP this time.
Results
Voters undermined all of the BJP’s strategies and despite having the power (via the administrator) to nominate five MLAs, its plan to appoint a “Hindu Chief Minister” for the region has fallen flat.
The detailed results were: NC 42 seats; BJP 29 seats; INC 6 seats; Jammu Kashmir People’s Democratic Party (PDP — a BJP ally) 3 seats; CPI(M) 1 seat; Peoples Conference 1 seat; Aam Admi Party (Common Man’s Party) 1 seat; Independents 7 seats.
Apart from winning the most individual votes, the BJP received votes in Kashmir for the first time, but did not win a seat. BJP ally, the PDP, suffered a crushing defeat. Its share fell to 3 seats, down from 28 previously.
The NC was the only party to field Muslim and Hindu candidates.
According to election analysts, the INC focused on canvassing in Kashmir instead of Jammu. It won 5 seats in Kashmir and 1 in Jammu. The NC criticised this strategy, saying that if the INC had focused on Jammu and left Kashmir to the NC, it could have added to the alliance’s overall vote tally. The NC won 35 mandates from Kashmir, 7 from Jammu.
With the independents joining the NC, the party’s tally in Jammu will improve.
All-powerful New Delhi
The NC and its allies won on the promise of restoring Article 370, restoring the state’s identity and providing a dignified life to its people.
Particularly in Kashmir, voters rejected the BJP’s actions over the past five years. However, the new JK government will be at the mercy of New Delhi.
Since the approval of the 2019 “Jammu and Kashmir Reorganization Bill” and the 2023 “Jammu and Kashmir Reorganization Amendment Bill”, the JK Legislative Assembly has been deprived of the powers enjoyed by the assemblies of other Union Territories.
The police, bureaucracy, Attorney General and Prosecutor are controlled by the Lieutenant-Governor (L-G) nominated by the BJP rulers in New Delhi. All matters related to appointments and transfers of the government officials will be approved by the L-G. Likewise, financial decision-making will also require the L-G’s nod. A representative of the L-G will attend all Cabinet meetings. Above all, legislation will be subject to his approval.
Thus, in practice the JK government has been reduced to the status of a municipality. The newly elected government will be crippled.
In practice, the rule of the L-G, and through him the BJP central government, will continue for the foreseeable future. Though BJP’s Hindutva agenda has been defeated for now, the goal of achieving democratic, economic and political freedoms requires a long struggle.
As a result of the BJP’s toxic politics, the regional divide between Jammu Kashmir is compounding. Only a secular, socialist agenda can bring peace and prosperity in the region butchered by British imperialism and ultimately bring about a voluntary unification of all the areas occupied and held by alien states.
