It has been over five years since Jammu and Kashmir saw its special status abrogated, subjecting the former state to direct rule from New Delhi. Now, as Jammu and Kashmir prepares to elect a government for the first time since the change, mainstream political parties are facing unprecedented challenges as they seek to rebuild their space.
Omar Abdullah, the leader of the National Conference, is one of the top contenders for chief minister in the upcoming assembly election. In an exclusive interview with Anando Bhakto, Abdullah shares his thoughts on how he plans to reinvent politics to give healing to a battered Kashmiri populace, rein in intractable bureaucrats, and reclaim executive power currently vested in the New Delhi-nominated lieutenant governor.
The following is excerpted from an interview he gave to The Diplomat on August 23 in Srinagar.
The Narendra Modi regime’s discourse since it ended Kashmir’s special status in 2019 has been that it uplifted the region from anti-India separatism and, it alleges, inefficient and entitled dynastic politics. It also takes credit for turning Kashmir into a bustling tourist and investment hub, and spearheading affirmative action for depressed communities. What is your reply?
None of what the BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party] has talked about its achievements in Jammu and Kashmir are visible on the ground. They claim to have turned the [erstwhile] state into an investment hub, but we don’t see investment pouring in.
There has been a good tourist footfall this season and the last one, but the numbers they cite are inflated. The boost to tourism is an unexpected fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic as people started looking inwards for travel rather than overseas. That opened up Jammu and Kashmir as a potential destination. But this astronomical growth in tourist footfall from lakhs [hundreds of thousands] to crores [tens of millions] happened because the government started counting Mata Vaishno Devi pilgrims and Amarnath yatris as tourists, which we consciously avoided doing.
Otherwise, Jammu and Kashmir’s indices that you would use to measure progress on social upliftment have worsened in the last few years, including the state’s gross domestic product. Manufacturing has declined whereas unemployment has shot up – unemployment in J&K today is among the highest in the country.
Though the BJP constantly rakes up “corrupt dynastic politics,” it is in the LG’s [lieutenant governor’s] tenure that everybody is talking about corruption. Senior bureaucrats in this government are pointing the blame at the highest levels.
The BJP could lay claim to Jammu and Kashmir being a more peaceful place but even that has blown up in their face with the situation in Jammu worsening. Areas which in our time were completely cleared of militancy are today seeing attacks, whether it is Reasi, Doda, Rajouri, Poonch, Sambha, or Kathua.
The only thing that one would give them some credit for is that the separatist politicians have been marginalized. But alienation has increased. If you want a concrete example of that, it would be the Baramulla parliamentary election result [underdog politician Abdul Rashid, incarcerated since 2019, won the seat with a considerable margin], which was a vote to send New Delhi a message against its excesses.
Is the upcoming assembly election in Jammu and Kashmir symbolic or would you attach more meaning to it?
No election is symbolic. It is true that the people of Jammu and Kashmir will be electing an assembly that doesn’t have nearly as much power as the previous ones, but it is not without power.
Unlike Delhi or Pondicherry and other union territories that we are compared to, we have a commitment to the Supreme Court of India by the Government of India that statehood will be returned to Jammu and Kashmir after the election. The timeline is vague, but should the government be unwilling to restore statehood of its own accord, we will go back and remind the court of what had been promised and we will take it from there. The fight will not be easy. A lot will depend on what the assembly looks like after the elections.
Also, an elected government by the very nature of being representative of the people’s will, will be able to push back against the use of the powers by the lieutenant governor. Up and till now the LG has utilized the authority of his office completely unchecked, completely unquestioned, even without a scrutiny by the media. It is absolutely non-consultative. This is an important election and a lot will change in Jammu and Kashmir after this election.
In the context of the intensifying conflict between centrally-appointed governors and opposition-ruled state governments, how difficult do you think will it be to run a government in J&K?
Jammu and Kashmir is going to have a very difficult time initially. First and foremost because it has been downgraded into a union territory, which in itself is going to be a unique experience. But the bigger challenge is that our bureaucratic set-up and the police had somehow convinced themselves that an elected government was never going to come back; therefore, they have been operating unbridled. They spent the last five years being their master’s voices, seeking to marginalize and demonize traditional political parties and leaders. The task ahead is to get these officers back to a mindset where they have to report to elected representatives.
What do you have to say regarding the role of the Election Commission (EC) over the past five years? Do you suspect these elections may be manipulated in any way?
I don’t want to point the finger of blame or talk about it because then immediately my opponents will start saying that I have already lost the election, and preparing grounds to justify the outcome.
I mean manipulation not in terms of the EC’s handling of the polls but the bureaucratic facilitation of perceived pro-BJP parties that we witnessed in the local District Development Council elections in 2020.
I don’t think so. The District Development Council elections were conducted purely with the local government’s involvement. I think the Election Commission of India would worry about its credibility. I think it would be reluctant to allow any sort of misuse of administrative machinery – unlike after the DDC elections, where the results were withheld for a month or two so that they [the BJP] could cobble up the numbers, make and break groupings, and then appoint chairpersons who didn’t enjoy the support of the majority of the elected members.
Will you be able to keep your flock together?
We can’t challenge the might of the BJP’s money power and muscle power but what we have is strong backing from the people, and it would be very foolish for a newly elected legislator from the secular parties to cross over to the BJP, given the mood amongst the people here.
Your party, the National Conference, in its manifesto has promised to restore Kashmir’s special status. But an interaction with a cross-section of Kashmiris gives the sense that they think this goal is unrealistic. What is your plan of action?
We are not giving false hope that it is going to happen in days or weeks or even during the term of this government should it be elected. We are realistic to know that something that took the BJP decades to roll out is not going to be undone by us in five years. What we want to tell people is that we are going to keep the issue alive. If the BJP could continue to talk about Article 370 even after three Supreme Court judgments upholding it, then why is it that we can’t talk about rolling back [the abrogation]?
You had earlier stated that you would not personally contest the assembly election so long as J&K remained a Union Territory, but reports suggest you may be reconsidering it.
We will come to that in some other time.
As a potential chief minister, you are aware you will have to reckon with a population that shares a collective, suppressed anger and is dealing with annihilation of hope. The situation calls for a compassionate leadership and pioneering a positive new vision for the future. What is your vision?
Our vision is in the manifesto, and I think it is an extremely positive one. It talks about exactly what you brought out in your question. Yes, I think Jammu and Kashmir more than anything needs compassionate leadership. What they have got was the strong arm of the government. They have been browbeaten into submission over the last five or six years, which is not to say that the moment an elected government comes there will be permission to go completely berserk. But this heavy-handed response of the government, where all you have is a hammer and everything looks like a nail, is not the way to deal with Jammu and Kashmir.
Whosoever is chief minister – this election could throw anybody as chief minister – needs to look at Jammu and Kashmir from a very compassionate point of view.
Will there be release of political prisoners and rolling back of some new legislations that have come up under the LG’s aegis, such as the repressive New Media Policy?
Again, all of this has been touched on in our manifesto, which is probably why the home minister attacked us in his response to the Congress party over its alliance with us. We are talking about exactly these things: Compassion, release of political prisoners, and other positive interventions.
You had once enthralled the nation by saying “I’m a Muslim and I’m an Indian, and I see no distinction between the two.” In what critics aver is an undeclared Hindu state, how would you describe being Muslim in India?
I would struggle to use those words today. I think every effort is being made to paint Muslims as second-class citizens in this country. Successive governments belonging to the BJP, whether at the center or at various states that they run, leave no stone unturned to berate Muslims.
There is a chief minister in a big northeastern state with a significant Muslim population constantly talking about some jihad or the other – land jihad, water jihad, food jihad. Jihad seems to be the only word that he loves putting in every sentence when he wants to target Muslims. A journalist asks a question and this chief minister loses his cool because the question came from a Muslim, even though it was a legitimate one. Shopkeepers along the route that the kawariyas [Shiva devotees] take during their annual pilgrimage are asked to declare the names of the owner so that pilgrims can choose not to buy food from Muslims. The bulldozers are used to demolish houses, purely selectively. There is no shortage of examples.
What will be more difficult to address, the political leadership that deploys a language of hate or the mobilization of public opinion seen in the Modi years?
I think it is the mobilization of the public opinion that will be tougher to combat. It’s so deep-rooted now that even a change of government in New Delhi won’t be able to put that poison out immediately.
When it comes to countering the majoritarian politics of the BJP, opposition parties’ actions do not uphold their secular discourse. Whether in condemning the Gaza killings, or espousing Kashmir’s case for human rights and dignity, giving tickets to Muslim candidates, or even speaking up against the escalating culture of mob lynching and right-wing legislation curbing people’s food choices, they, particularly the Congress, seem to co-opt ingredients of Hindu nationalist politics. As a member of the opposition’s INDIA bloc, have you advocated the need to be more forthright in condemning majoritarianism? Do you feel sidelined in the alliance?
I don’t feel sidelined. I will say there are times when you would like all political parties to speak up on issues that you think are important. But it is not for me to dictate how other political parties see things.
We had conversations on this in meetings. I particularly pointed out from a Kashmiri perspective how we wanted to see them a bit more vocal on matters of concern for us. Some agree, some don’t. They have to live with the challenges that their political parties encounter.
Imagine a situation in which a government cannot be formed in Jammu and Kashmir without involving the BJP. How would your party respond?
We are not even going down that road [allying with the BJP]. Because I don’t believe an assembly, especially a multiparty assembly like ours, can ever throw up a result that does not allow for multiple options.