Independents’ day in Kashmir 

There is an emotive appeal in the voices of 365 candidates contesting without the backing of political parties in the Union Territory’s first election since the removal of special constitutional status in 2019. Peerzada Ashiq finds that the BJP’s calculations pivot around the Independents, for whom ‘jail’ is a prominent poll plank in the attempt to upend J&K’s legacy parties

Autumn has arrived in Kashmir and the sun has grown milder. People are busy in roadside orchards picking windfall apples in south Kashmir’s Shopian as the harvest season is still a few weeks away. A 20-minute drive from Shopian town passes through low-lying and highland apple-laden orchards, leading to a cluster of houses in Reban Gundibeharam village of Zainapora area.

This is home to cleric and independent candidate, Sarjan Ahmad Wagay, 38, widely known as Sarjan Barkati. He is one of 365 independent candidates of the 908 challenging traditional parties like the Mehbooba Mufti’s Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Dr. Farooq Abdullah’s National Conference (NC). Kashmir’s established parties are wary of Independents, who now constitute over 40% of those standing for election. This is the first Assembly election in Jammu and Kashmir after the 2019 dilution of Article 370 that granted special constitutional status to the then-State, now Union Territory.

The 2008 Assembly election was held against the backdrop of violent months, after over 100 acres of forest land was given to Shri Amarnath Shrine Board (SASB) by the Ghulam Nabi Azad-led government. Then, 468 candidates contested as Independents. At the time, the aim was to ensure that the boycott calls of separatists were blunted. In the 2014 Assembly election, a time of relative peace, the number of Independents reduced to 274. The Kashmir division has 47 Assembly seats, and the Jammu division has 43.

Fighting more than elections

Unlike other candidates contesting the Assembly election in Kashmir, an eerie silence prevails at the house of Wagay, a cleric by profession and currently in the Central Jail, Srinagar, on multiple charges of rioting, abetting and promoting separatism and militancy. Only after several knocks on the carved wooden door of his three-storey house, is there a response. Eventually, Wagay’s daughter Sugra Barkati, 16, appears in a head-to-toe veil; only her eyes are visible.

Sugra says she rents a car every day and visits the constituencies of Beerwah and Ganderbal to speak for her father, the youngest on the campaign trail. She admits that the victory of Awami Ittehad Party (AIP) chief Sheikh Abdul Rashid, widely known as Engineer Rashid, in the Lok Sabha elections in April-May this year from the Baramulla seat egged her on to do this.

“When Mr. Rashid’s son (Abrar Rashid) campaigned for his father in the Lok Sabha elections, people of Kashmir overwhelmingly supported him, to get him out of jail. I suggested that my father contest elections and, if he manages to win, all jailed youth will get relief,” says Barkati.

Her father was jailed from 2016 to 2020 under the Public Safety Act (PSA), 1978, a law dealing with preventive detention, and was arrested again in November 2023. Wagay’s unique style of raising ‘azadi (freedom)’ slogans during anti-India rallies earned him the sobriquets of ‘Azaadi Chacha’ and ‘Pied Piper’.

Sugra, a former student of the National Innovation Public School (NIPS), Zainapora, a village in Shopian district, discontinued schooling this year and decided against sitting for the Class 10 board examination. This pause was because the J&K Police’s State Investigation Agency (SIA) arrested her mother Shabroza Bano too in November last year.

According to the SIA, Bano was “an active ideologue, promoter and supporter of the ongoing militant-secessionist nexus”. Her inammatory speeches incited, instigated and provoked youth to join the militant ranks, alleged the SIA. The SIA’s investigation “established the culpability of Barkati’s (Wagay) wife and their Pakistan-based handler in furthering and financing the militant and secessionist activities in J&K”.

Wagay’s Shopian district was one of the volatile towns of south Kashmir. Besides apples, militancy and violent street protests have attracted media attention to the region for years. It was in the first week of January this year that a local militant, Bilal Ahmad Bhat, affiliated to the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) was killed in an encounter with security forces, an indicator that locals continue to join militant ranks. People in Shopian say dozens remain behind bars for being separatist or militant supporters.

With the BJP-led government stepping up the crackdown against anti-India elements in Shopian, Sugra saw these elections as a way to tell this story of Shopian. “After the SIA raid in February this year, there was so much fear among neighbours that even getting a cup of curd became difficult. Those neighbours who helped us in difficult times too were raided. I fear for my brother (Azaan Barkati, 12) now. I don’t want him to drop out of school,” says Sugra. “It’s hard to attend court hearings. It’s painful to see my simple mother behind bars for no crime. We will put up a fight for the release of my parents. These elections will help us,” she adds.

Wagay’s first attempt at filing nomination papers was rejected from hometown Zainapora by officials, citing “incomplete paperwork”. Undeterred, she filed her father’s nomination against NC candidate Omar Abdullah in Ganderbal. Omar admitted that he had to scheme to ensure Wagay did not file against him in the Budgam constituency, his second place of filing. “We took forms from Beerwah and Budgam constituencies and did not reveal our intentions. People sitting in Delhi thought I may file from Beerwah because I represented it as MLA in 2014. However, I led from Budgam at the last moment,” Omar says. Wagay led a nomination from the Beerwah constituency as well.

Sugra is candid about her move to file the nomination from Ganderbal, 72 km away from her hometown in Shopian. “Omar sahib is a seasoned politician. We are not against him. We are forced by circumstances,” says Sugra, without qualifying it further.

Meanwhile, Apni Party president Altaf Bukhari has extended support to Wagay in Beerwah. “I urge my party cadre and supporters to support Sarjan Barkati in Beerwah,” he said, while campaigning. Bukhari parted ways with the PDP in 2020 and floated his own party, which engaged with the BJP leadership in New Delhi on several occasions.

Jail as a marker

With the Centre initiating a major crackdown on militants, separatists and their supporters since 2019, jail has become a sentiment and a war cry in these elections. Around a dozen candidates contesting in the Kashmir valley are turning their jail terms post-2019 as a ‘qualification’ in election campaigning. Many, like PDP’s Waheed-ur-Rehman Parra, are able to strike a chord too.

“Every voice was silenced after 2019 with jail. Religious leaders like Abdul Rashid Dawoodi and Mushtaq Veeri were arrested for speaking in public. I was arrested for about two years in spite of being a mainstream voice never involved in any protests or violence,” says Parra, 36. “Voters are connecting with the slogans like ‘Jail ka badla vote se (Avenge jailing by casting your vote).”

A United Nations report alleged that Parra was subjected to “abusive interrogations after his arrest” in November 2020, just three days after he filed his nomination papers for the first-ever District Development Council (DDC) elections in J&K. It claimed Parra’s interrogations lasted from 10 to 12 hours and he was held in a dark underground cell in sub-zero temperatures.

“Parra was deprived of sleep, kicked, slapped, beaten with rods, stripped naked and hung upside down. His ill-treatment was recorded. Parra was examined by a government doctor three times since his arrest last November and three times by a psychiatrist. He requested medication for insomnia and anxiety,” it added. Many youths in Pulwama relate to Parra’s jail story. He says, “I will fight for a general amnesty of arrested youth if our party wins the elections. Jail is hell and has changed me a lot from inside.”

Like south Kashmir, independent candidates in north Kashmir’s Sopore Assembly segment too have jail stories. Out of 22 contestants in Sopore, hometown of Syed Ali Shah Geelani, who headed the separatist Hurriyat for two decades, 14 are Independents. The main contenders are from the NC and the Congress that have a pre-poll alliance to avoid vote fragmentation. The seat was previously represented by a Congress candidate, Abdul Rashid Dar, who has been fielded again, and will take on NC’s Irshad Kar and PDP’s Irfan Ali.

Among the Independents in Sopore, Ajaz Ahmed Guru, 58, has a similar jail narrative. Ajaz is the brother of Parliament-attack convict Afzal Guru, who was hanged in 2013. He is contesting for his jailed son, Shoaib Aijaz Guru, 26, arrested in December 2023 on charges under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985, and was held under the PSA. He is lodged in the Central Jail, Jammu. Ajaz took voluntary retirement from the Animal Husbandry Department in 2014 and is now a contractor. “I want my son to be a free man,” he says.

In Sopore, Shuiab Mohd. Sheikh, 39, a resident of Tujjar Sharief, was arrested in 2021 and is contesting elections from jail. He faces charges under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Amendment Act, 2008, for working as an overground worker (OGW) of the Al-Badr militant outfit and was detained under the PSA. “He is determined to serve people. He was always active as a social worker and was respected in the locality,” Mohammad Haneef Sheikh says of his son.

Unity and division

The soaring numbers of Independents in Kashmir are also a spin-off of the last-minute release of AIP chief and Member of Parliament (MP) Engineer Rashid, out on a 22-day bail. Rashid has a pre-poll alliance with the banned Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI). AIP is backing 31 candidates; the JeI six. “We have been pursuing the ECI [Election Commission of India] for registration of AIP as a political party for more than two years,” Rashid says.

His release saw a groundswell of street mobilisation. In a live show on social media, he pledged to defeat Omar Abdullah from Ganderbal, where, out of 15 candidates, seven are Independents. After results are announced on October 8, if the Rashid-backed elected members decide to support a party falling short of numbers, the anti-defection law will not apply to them.

“Why only Engineer Rashid? Why is he receiving special treatment? What about Yasin Malik, Shabir Shah, and Asiya Andrabi, who are also in jail under the same law? It is evident that Engineer Rashid has been released to divide votes and assist the BJP in gaining control of the Assembly and solidifying the decisions made on August 5, 2019,” Omar says.

He alleges that Independents “simply serve as pawns in the schemes of those seeking to undermine the unique character, historical individuality, and identity of Jammu and Kashmir”. He adds, “It is crucial to recognise the importance of electing NC to eectively handle such issues.”

The BJP’s main poll thrust is against dynasts: the Abdullahs, the Muftis, the Gandhis. Conspicuously, it has fielded candidates from only 19 seats in the Kashmir valley, against 26 in 2014. It is, therefore, banking on the Independents to form the government. A senior BJP leader said, “The BJP will be important in the formation of any government in J&K; do not discount the fact that there are seven small parties and 32 Independents [who could affect the prospects of the BJP] in the fray as well.”

Political rivals otherwise, the PDP shares Omar’s concerns about Independents being fielded “to divide the votes”. Senior PDP leader Naeem Akhtar foresees a grim scenario for J&K. “The BJP is a master at micromanaging elections. My fears are that it does not want any party to emerge with enough numbers to even think of claiming a government,” he says, adding that the BJP will go with Independents, or a hung Assembly will simply continue the Lieutenant-Governor’s rule.

In 2014, three independent candidates won, while in 2008, four did. What is different this time is that many Independents have a mass following and political clout. Sayar Reshi from Kulgam and Aijaz Ahmad Mir from Zainapora, both backed by JeI, draw crowds as large as 4,000 to their rallies. They sometimes campaign together.

In central Kashmir, Nazir Ahmad Khan from Beerwah is a member of AIP and former DDC chairperson. After 2019, Khan endorsed the measures taken by the BJP in Kashmir. He hosted Union Ministers and foreign envoys on their trips to Kashmir to share his thoughts on “the change brought by the BJP in Kashmir”. Another Independent with a strong following is Taj Mohiuddin, formerly a Congress leader, voted in twice from Uri, and previously a Minister. Independent candidate Hakeem Yaseen, a former Minister and MLA from Khan Sahib, is also a candidate with a track record of winning the seat.

The first phase of elections on September 18 saw a 59% voter turnout. Rayees Magray, 29, a voter from Naira village that is dotted by paddy fields and apple orchards, says, “The apple trade needs peace to flourish. I hope these elections take Kashmiris towards a dignfied life.” 

Published - September 20, 2024 05:06 am IST