{"id":4126,"date":"2019-04-01T21:13:11","date_gmt":"2019-04-01T15:43:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/?p=4126"},"modified":"2019-04-01T21:13:18","modified_gmt":"2019-04-01T15:43:18","slug":"kashmir-polls-politics-and-experimentation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/point-of-view\/kashmir-talk\/kashmir-polls-politics-and-experimentation\/","title":{"rendered":"Kashmir: Polls, Politics and Experimentation"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/fb:like>\n

PUNCHLINE<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Polls, Politics and\nExperimentation <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Z. G. Muhammad <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am not a psephologist. Notwithstanding,\nin the democratic process, the role of psephology is recognized as an important one, the\nstudy of elections in Jammu and Kashmir\nhas never been my cup of tea. I never endeavoured to analyse voting patterns,\nregional and sub-regional factors, the role\nof caste, sects and religious factors, in the elections held in the state since\nin 1957. The 1957 elections were held under the Jammu and Kashmir\nRepresentation of the People Act 1957 after the Constitution of Jammu and\nKashmir was adopted on 17 November 1956. Nonetheless, in this column, in the\npast on many occasions, I have debated\nand discussed the political and international dynamics of the elections held\nfor the State Constituent Assembly in 1951. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This election was conducted by  the State’s election\nand franchise commissioner after a resolution was passed by the Jammu\nand Kashmir National Conference and proclamation to that effect was made by\nprince-regent Dr Karan Singh.  It had\ncaused a stir in \ninternational forums. In this column, on many occasions in the past, I\nhave written about the genesis of the Jammu and Kashmir Constituent Assembly and\nhow elections for it were conducted.  In\nthis column, it may not be possible to\ndwell on the birth and the history of this Assembly but to put it briefly the\nwhole objective behind these elections was the subverting the holding of\nplebiscite in the state for deciding its\nfuture as contained in the Instrument of Accession\u201d, pledged New Delhi and\nguaranteed by the United Nations Security Council Resolutions.                <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The polls\nfor the State Constituent Assembly have been for quite a long time of interest\nto scholars and political scientists. Professor Sumantra Bose of London School\nof Economics and Politics, author of many books known in the State for his\nbooks, \u2018The Challenges in Kashmir: Democracy, Self-Determination and a Just\nPeace\u2019 and \u2018Kashmir: Roots of Conflict, Paths to Peace\u2019 has described these elections as move for \u2018governing Jammu\nand Kashmir as a \u201cparty state\u201d- a type of state in which one party has the right to form the government all others are\noutlawed or are allowed limited participation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The election campaign for 17th<\/sup>\nIndian Parliament (Lok Sabha) these days is in full gear.  The psephologists\u2019 are busy as bees in analysing the trends, the swing of votes and the data all over India. The\nstate of Jammu and Kashmir for the first\ntwenty years after the departure of the British from the sub-continent has not\nbeen part of this process.  For first three elections for the Lok Sabha 1952-\n1957, 1957-1962, and 1962- 1967, that was crucial\nin as much as many debates over \u201cthe constitutional relations of the state with\nUnion of India\u201d are concerned, the state was not represented in the Parliament.\nAnd whatever laws regarding the state\nhave been passed or amended during these three terms of Parliament have been done\nat the back of people of the state. In\n1967 after a number of Central Laws were extended to Jammu and Kashmir during\nthe regime of Ghulam Mohammad Sadiq, for the first time, Parliament election was\nheld in the state.  Since then except in\n1991 when no elections were held in the state,\nelections for the Lok Sabha have been conducted\nalong with in other states. Except, the polls for the fifth Lok Sabha, (1971-1977) that\nhad generated some heat in the political atmosphere in the state the Parliament elections in the state have been\nmainly a lacklustre affair. In 1971, the Plebiscite Front was banned\nunder the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act 1967, and to show its strength\nit had supported and campaigned for an independent candidate from Srinagar, and in this election,\nthe Jammat-e-Islamia Jammu and Kashmir had fielded its candidates in three\nconstituencies. The independent candidate had won with a significant margin, and the\nJammat had lost, but it had benefited in\nas much reaching out to the general masses with their socio-religious programmes.\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The results of the Parliament elections followed\nby segment-wise analysis to an extent presage\nthe likely outcome of the Assembly elections.\nNew Delhi, despite political parties demanding holding of Parliament and\nAssembly elections together, has chosen\nto defer the Assembly elections. There may be some motives behind it, or it may just\nhave something to do with addressing the security-related\nissues- or preparing for as good an exercise as that for 1996 or 2002 Assembly\nelections- both these elections had an international dimension with regard to primary Kashmir\nnarrative. In the ongoing  2019 elections\nsome new, unprecedented trends are distinctly\nvisible; a large number of retired cops, bureaucrats,\nsuperannuated government employees\u2019 activists, and   judicial officers are joining the\n\u2018electoral-political\u2019 parties- in some parties these folks have almost outnumbered\ntraditional political workers that generally graduate from grassroots levels  to the positions of getting mandates for the\nelections. Another   significant development related to electoral\npolitics in the state that has come to the fore during the past couple of weeks has been birth of new\npolitical parties- in fortnight\u2019s period six new parties have been launched.  Some political parties well entrenched in the\nelectoral politics have been expressing their concerns about the proliferation\nof the political parties- and casting doubts on it, they see it as a hideous move for dividing voters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the public mind, there is some scepticism about these new developments in the\nelectoral-politics more particularly about the entry of new faces in this genus of state politics. From 1947 the\nelectoral politics and the resistance politics have been running parallel to\neach, but the lines dividing the two   always\nwere quite distinct. For the first time,\nthese lines have become so much blurred that it has become too difficult to\nknow which side of fence some old and new faces in the electoral-politics belong\nto. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a story in Outlook magazine about a\nnew young entrant into the electoral politics belong to of the Communist-affiliated All India\nStudents’ Association by one of our senior journalist  Naseer A Ganai that   reminded\nme about an interview I had some decades back with Khawaja Ahmad Abbas. In his\ninterview, Khawaja Ahmad Abbas had told me that Jawaharlal Nehru, as first\nPrime Minister of India in early 1948 had invited a good number of communist\nwriters euphemistically called progressive writers and told them that Kashmir\nwas a \u2018laboratory for experimenting socialist ideas\u2019 and sent some of them including\nAbbas to Srinagar to fight an ideological battle against Jinnah\u2019s idea of two\nnation theory on the turf Kashmir. Famed short story writer Rajinder Singh Bedi was appointed as Director Radio Kashmir\nJammu to propagate Nehru\u2019s ideas about Kashmir. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nehru\u2019s experimentation with Kashmir had,\nin fact, started ten years before the independence\nof India. In 1937, he had sent K.M. Ashraf a Marxist historian, from London\nSchool of Oriental Studies and leading member of the Communist Party of India\n(CPI) and a member of the All-India Congress Committee (AICC) for establishing\na mass contact in Kashmir. He had stayed in Kashmir for quite a good time and\nsucceeded in creating a cadre to his ideology in Sheikh Abdullah\u2019s party. This\nexperimentation paid   big dividends to Nehru in 1947, with entire\nNational Conference standing by his side. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the given scenario, it will be difficult\nto say where this new experimentation leads to\nif it adds confusion to already existing messes in state politics or achieves the\nobjective attracted the Kashmir youth towards the electoral politics.  <\/p>\n<\/fb:like><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PUNCHLINE<\/p>\n

Polls, Politics and
\nExperimentation <\/p>\n

Z. G. Muhammad <\/p>\n

I am not a psephologist. Notwithstanding,
\nin the democratic process, the role of psephology is recognized as an important one, the
\nstudy of elections in Jammu and Kashmir
\nhas never been my cup of tea. I never endeavoured to analyse voting patterns,
\nregional and sub-regional factors, the role
\nof caste, sects and religious factors, in the elections held in the state since
\nin 1957. The 1957 elections were held under the Jammu and Kashmir
\nRepresentation of the People Act 1957 after the Constitution of Jammu and
\nKashmir was adopted on 17 November 1956. Nonetheless, in this column, in the
\npast on many occasions, I have debated
\nand discussed the political and international dynamics of the elections held
\nfor the State Constituent Assembly in 1951. <\/p>\n

This election was conducted by  the State’s election
\nand franchise commissioner after a resolution was passed by the Jammu
\nand Kashmir National Conference and proclamation to that effect was made by
\nprince-regent Dr Karan …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4127,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-kashmir-talk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4126"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4126"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4128,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4126\/revisions\/4128"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}