Kargil poll battle ahead, National Conference fights Ladakh administration to regain symbol

Before the withdrawal of Jammu and Kashmir’s statehood, the NC was registered under the Election Commission as a state party with the plough as its symbol. After the abrogation of J&K’s special status, the state was split into two Union Territories and the districts of Leh and Kargil were carved out to create the new Union Territory of Ladakh.

The Ladakh administration says that no state party, including the NC, is a recognised political party in Ladakh and therefore it cannot claim the plough as its symbol. The NC says that as the incumbent in Kargil’s hill development council, it wants to contest the elections on a symbol previously reserved for it.

For the NC, the plough is a matter of its political identity and a way to appeal to the region’s large rural population. “It (the plough) is our identity … It is the most important symbol for us. It represents our struggle,” said party spokesperson Imran Nabi Dar.

The origin of the plough as a symbol of Kashmir’s struggles dates back to 1939. After Sheikh Abdullah renamed the Kashmir Muslim Conference to the more secular and inclusive National Conference, he adopted a red flag with a white plough at the centre as the party’s flag. The flag was designed by party member Pandit Prem Nath Dhar and the red colour was a nod to the influence of Communist ideology in the NC.

This was also a period of tension in Kashmir between the ruling Dogra dynasty, which owned the land in the region and controlled how it was distributed, and the marginalised peasant and working classes. The plough at the centre of the flag was inspired by the peasants’ struggles against the Dogra rulers. The red banner with the plough, after a modification, was later adopted as the flag of Jammu and Kashmir.

After Abdullah became the prime minister of Jammu and Kashmir, one of his first acts was to push land reforms that gave ownership rights to the sharecroppers and landless farmers who helped him and his party gain popularity among the masses. Decades later, and despite having little to show on the governance front, the National Conference continued to win elections with backing from rural and agricultural communities, many of whom maintain a deep attachment to the plough symbol.

“The symbol is more relevant to the National Conference now than it was maybe two decades ago,” said Naeem Akhtar, a former MLC from the Peoples Democratic Party. “This is the time when the fear of land is again on the people’s minds. There is a fear of demographic change and land is in focus again.”