After the vote

Across the country, Indians have reacted in different ways to the unexpectedly large participation of Kashmir8217;s people in the assembly elections, more than 61 per cent when last tallied, and this without coercion from any side, save a boycott call by separatists, which was sought also to be enforced through persuasion without resort to violence. But in looking forward it is important that we read the message that J038;K, particularly Kashmir, has clearly given to us all not only in this election, but also in the months that preceded it. This will I hope make for a solid foundation towards the resolution of the Kashmir conflict in its entirety.

In the August 31, 2008 issue of Outlook, Prem Shankar Jha, a perceptive observer of Kashmiri developments, had written a sorrowful article plaintively titled 8220;How India lost the Kashmiris8221;. As I flew into Srinagar on September 3 in a flight from Delhi with few passengers, I was filled with trepidation. What should I find in the city that I have over the years grown to love as my own? I knew that the curfew had been lifted. But would Srinagar be the desolate city imbued with a muted sorrow that I remembered from 1990 when I was the divisional commissioner of Kashmir? Was I to find a city of fear? But as I walked around the city unescorted I found Srinagar more at peace than I had seen it since my visit there on Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi8217;s tour in 1986. There were young girls walking in the streets, their laughter tinkling in the sunshine and residents going about their business as though life continued as usual. And this while the state was in the throes of an agitation, with calls in Kashmir for Azadi and larger than had been seen for two decades, bringing a panic reaction by the state8217;s government with curfew and arrest, leading to a violent, uncontrolled reaction in Jammu that took on a decidedly communal hue.

And so, when the question of whether or not the state should hold elections came up, I told all those who cared to listen that the people of the state must not be denied their right, as that of every Indian, to have a government of their own choice and not one that was unrepresentative.

The message now is then clear for anyone who cares to read it. An article in The Kashmir Observer December 27 by a London-based Kashmiri seeks to express it with rather dramatic exaggeration. 8220;The turnout figures of this year8217;s assembly polls in Kashmir are a silent scream of a people under excruciating mental torture for more than six decades. The story the figures tell is not a fairytale romance with New Delhi8217;s version of calibrated democracy or disillusionment with the Kashmir cause, but symbolic of a strong urge in the souls to find utterance.8221;

The yearning for Azadi is still strong, but the elections are not seen as a contradiction. The government that will now take office as a result of that election will need to address this issue. Hence the call for greater autonomy, self-government or call it what you will that constituted the agenda of all three principal contenders in the Valley 8212; be they the National Conference, now the largest single party and staking claim to form the government, its archrival in the Valley, the PDP, or even the INC. And here stands the major gain from concerted endeavours often gone unnoticed in the evolution of present thinking in Kashmir. The call for Azadi does have implications for the relationship of the state of J038;K with the rest of India, but has moved well beyond any concept of secession. With the NC retaining its position as the largest single party with 28 seats and the PDP posing a challenge to it with 21, as the voice of a major section of the Valley8217;s population, any new alliance will clearly be poised to move towards a now perceptible destination.

To understand the concept of Azadi it is necessary to understand the history of the evolution of the democratic system in J038;K, which has differed from that in the rest of India in many ways thanks to the state having had its own constitution. In J038;K there has been a history of rigged elections. So the people, particularly those of the Valley, can in many ways claim that the Azadi enjoyed by the rest of India, and indeed even other parts of the state itself, celebrated by us every August 15 has been denied them. At the same time it is also clear that the attempt to wrest this by force has been a signal failure.

The mission for the new government must then be to bring J038;K into full conformity with all the liberties that the laws in the rest of India give including in the area of local self-government and freedom of information. But to make the public8217;s sense of participation in governance real, it will be necessary to bring all sections of the people of the state, including those described as 8220;separatists8221;, into the mainstream of civil society. And Farooq Abdullah has clearly acknowledged, while speaking to CNN-IBN, that the militants having observed restraint during the election process have done much in helping this process to move forward. We are therefore looking at a possible if still incipient consensus.

That the state is ready for this has become clear not from the elections alone but from the events of the last several months, when a political resolution was sought and indeed achieved by massive political demonstrations, but with a clear and stated endeavour to abjure violence. India8217;s political structure is capable of enduring such a movement readily and will in fact emerge the stronger.

The writer is the Chief Information Commissioner of the Government of India

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