The Hindu : Hurriyat and elections

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Aug 21, 2002

Opinion

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Hurriyat and elections

DESPITE ALL THEIR apprehensions, the best option before those constituting the All-Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC) and other such outfits in the Kashmir Valley would be to participate in the coming polls to the Jammu and Kashmir State Assembly. This would help them establish their credibility to represent the aspirations of the Kashmiri people. Any prevarication at this stage (with the Election Commission scheduled to issue the notification for the first phase today) will only expose them to the charge that they do not seriously aspire to lead the people of Kashmir. By insisting on preconditions such as the imposition of Central rule in the State and postponement of the poll schedule for participating in the polls, the APHC leaders are only showing their nervousness about the true extent of their political support in the Valley.

It is undoubtedly true that the distasteful experience of the 1987 election has contributed to their wariness of entering the fray. But then, the very fact that this election is going to be held under the glare of the national and the international media has reduced the space for manipulating the poll process. Added to this are the initiatives of the Election Commission, which have been aimed at fine-tuning the mechanics and procedures for the conduct of the elections; the proposal to post officers handpicked by the Commission from outside the State as poll observers, for instance, should help allay apprehensions of rigging and other such malpractice this time. For these reasons, the APHC (and others) should agree, in real earnest, to participate in the elections this time.

Be that as it may, the elections will take place with the basic concerns of the Kashmiris — a pervasive sense of alienation — remaining unaddressed in any serious manner. While the Cabinet Committee headed by Ram Jethmalani has not been able to make much headway, the "Arun Jaitley initiative" too has remained a non-starter, simply because it was overtaken by the poll process. This certainly is due to the lack of clarity and cohesiveness that has characterised the approach of the political leadership of the ruling NDA (of which the National Conference too is a part) towards the crisis in Kashmir. Nothing else establishes this better than the prevarication by the political establishment on the basic issue of "autonomy"; while the demand for autonomy has remained anathema to the BJP (all that the party is willing to talk about is "greater devolution of powers", the National Conference too is guilty of reducing the historic demand for autonomy — certainly a critical factor in the Kashmiris' deep sense of political alienation — into a half-hearted slogan and using it only to serve its own agenda of self-preservation.

The coming Assembly elections could be the start of a democratic process that could hold a key to the Kashmir conundrum. This, however, is possible only when the Atal Behari Vajpayee regime comes forward and commits itself to autonomy rather than sticking to the vague idea of devolution-of-more-powers. It is imperative for the Vajpayee regime (as well as the platforms in the Kashmir Valley including the National Conference as well as those within and outside the APHC) to look at autonomy from within the context of the nation's categorical commitment to a special status for the State under the Instrument of Accession, symbolised in part by Article 370 of the Constitution. In this sense, the demand for autonomy in the Kashmir context is a larger concept whose scope extends far beyond Centre-State relations in the federal set-up. With the poll process now on, it would be worthwhile for all those groups in the Valley (the APHC in particular) to establish their following among the Kashmiri people so that they could play a useful role in working out the details of an autonomy package.

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