Why Mufti felt he needed to ‘thank’ Pak and separatists

When the elections were announced last October, the police rounded up the Hurriyat leadership and and cadre. By mid-November, 928 people had been detained. Police sources said more than 2,000 people were picked up during the campaign and polling. A senior police officer said: “As soon as the polls were announced, we put the leadership under house arrest and picked up almost all known cadres.”

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cActivists of smaller parties like the Muslim League too were rounded up, JKLF’s Yasin Malik wasn’t allowed to venture out, and the police even prevented Mirwaiz Umar Farooq from attending the Friday congregation at Jamia Masjid. “We were arrested. The government didn’t allow me to attend Friday prayers. We were not allowed to take part in any political activity at all,’’ Mirwaiz told The Indian Express.

Mufti made a reference to Srinagar, saying he is proud because the heart of Kashmir came out to vote for the first time. Apart from the police crackdown on separatists, what made people come out and vote was a consistent campaign by both the PDP and the National Conference that a boycott in two Srinagar constituencies, Tral and Sopore, would bring the BJP into Kashmir. This “fear” of the BJP was one of the factors that pushed up the turnout. “When elections were very close and the BJP was visible in Kashmir, there was an effort by a section of separatists to encourage voting so that a low turnout wouldn’t become an advantage for the BJP,’’ a senior police officer said. “I won’t say this was the only reason for the people’s participation, but the BJP factor did help create a momentum.”

Unlike in the past, there weren’t many militant attacks against candidates or political rallies. While PDP worker Ghulam Modideen Dar was killed in Pulwama, the other attacks during the campaign included killing of sarpanchs — two in Shopian and one in Baramulla. The two major militant attacks during this period — one in Jammu near the border on November 27, and the other on a Army camp in Uri near the LoC on December 5 — were not linked to any attempt to disrupt the poll process.

The reason for the absence of election-specific attacks was manifold. There has been a sharp decline in the number of militants active in Kashmir. Besides, their profile and strategy have changed; most are currently lying low. Their political targets have been village heads, who don’t have enough security. Over the years, there has also been a sharp shift in the militant leadership’s emphasis on targeting elections or mainstream leaders. In fact, a few ambiguous statements by militant leaders ahead of the 2008 polls were interpreted as a green signal to the elections. Similarly, there were allegations that a few militant commanders had supported the PDP in south Kashmir in 2002.

A senior police officer said, “The fact is that our information gathering mechanism and experience helped us preempt any attack. However, the militants didn’t try a lot either. That’s why, this time, rallies were held almost across Kashmir. Even the BJP campaigned without a problem.”

Why did Mufti make this statement at the beginning of his tenure? The reason is that his party’s alliance with the BJP isn’t very popular in Kashmir and he wants the focus to shift to something that shows him as stronger than the BJP in his core constituency. Over its 16 years, the PDP has slowly encroached into the separatist constituency with its soft separatist posturing. The party’s self-rule agenda provides an important role to Pakistan as the PDP has sought a joint mechanism to connect the two Kashmirs divided by the LoC and even advocated dual currency.

The PDP had been worried Islamabad might have changed its position on the party, especially after a PDP leader close to Mufti, Nayeem Akhtar, was denied a visa to Lahore for a conference recently. Earlier, the Pakistani establishment had rolled out the red carpet to Mehbooba Mufti in Islamabad in 2008. There have been visible indications that Islamabad is bothered by the PDP’s alliance with the BJP. Last month, Pakistan foreign secretary Aizaz Ahmed Chaudhry accused New Delhi of planning to change the demographic makeup of Kashmir and turn its Muslim majority into a minority. Mufti was addressing this growing perception so that his government wouldn’t have to deal with any possible security-related ramifications of that perception.

One of the reasons for the rise of the PDP is the consolidation of the anti-NC constituency. Jamat-e-Islami cadre have been covertly supporting the party since 2002 because of their traditional animosity to the NC. That support too is under threat because of the BJP alliance, and Mufti’s utterances were aimed at placating this constituency, too.