Trouble in paradise

If enabling people to exercise their democratic rights in a theatre of proxy war is fraught with uncertainty, then gleaning every develop...

If enabling people to exercise their democratic rights in a theatre of proxy war is fraught with uncertainty, then gleaning every development for the larger picture is even more tenuous. Even so, the very fact that just over 10 per cent 11.8 to be exact of the electorate in Srinagar started a new week with indelible ink on their fingers is bound to be analysed long after their MP ensconces himself or herself, as the case may be in the 13th Lok Sabha.

What message are the inhabitants of the Valley sending out? If some would be inclined to interpret this as an indication of resurgent alienation 8212; after all, just last year the constituency witnessed a 30 per cent turnout 8212; others would just as emphatically point fingers at the secessionists and the fear instilled among the people by an appeal for a poll boycott by the All-Party Hurriyat Conference.

And perhaps everyone would in varying measure cite the countrywide ennui resulting from the annual feature the general elections seem to have become. Thenagain, it could be argued that the voter disinterest stems from the highly personalised electoral battle between two legatees to their respective fathers8217; political bounty.

Yet, what is amply clear is that, as with every election since the recommencement in 1996 of the electoral process in this paradise rendered surreal, charges of human rights violations have been flying thick and fast.

Charges which can acquire a momentum beyond the spacial and temporal limits conferred by a mere electoral contest. The media is rife with tales of voters alleging coercion by the security forces to cast their ballots. On the other hand, the administration is wont to attribute the empty polling booths to fear of the militant8217;s gun and the well-advertised call by the APHC to the people to eschew playing their part in the election.

An electoral officer may have rebutted charges that his booth saw voters being forcefully made to vote by declaring that just two persons had exercised their franchise, but it would go a longway in normalising life in the Valley if the authorities ma-de, and were seen to have been making, a conce-rted effort to get to the bottom of this grievance. There is a world of a difference between people voting against their wishes and voters using the spectre of coercion as an alibi. The exercise would remain detrimentally incomplete, however, if the role of terrorists in hampering the electoral pro-cess was to be left unexamined.

Psephology apart, the holding of elections is less a contest between political parties and more a part of the effort to normalise life in the Valley. What the people are interested in is not whether Omar Abdullah or Mehbooba Mufti will be sent to Parliament but whether their lost decade is at an end. It8217;s a distinction the votaries of the boycott and the politicians would do well to examine.

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For, the post-Kargil international consensus on Kashmir and the infusion of increasing numbers of foreign mercenaries into the Valley have changed the situation dramatically.