Demythifying ‘ Kashmir’s Communal Vote’ There was not even one single party that was trying to ‘polarize’ the Muslim votes to get them for itself Did the Kashmiri Muslims cast their votes on the basis of communal affiliations in the recently concluded elections to the J& K Assembly? Let me explain the context of this rather provocative question. There seems to be a great deal of animated discussion going on in the social media along the following lines: ‘ If Jammu is called communal for voting BJP, how come Kashmir’s Muslim- dominated regions that have voted against BJP are not called communal? How can one call Muslims voting for Muslims secular and Hindus voting for Hindus communal?’ in short, the argument many analysts seem to be putting forth is that if the spectacular victory of the BJP in Jammu is due to Hindu communalism and polarization of Hindu votes of the Jammu region, the defeat of the BJP in Kashmir is also due to Muslim communalism. I have seen similar questions being asked on TV during expert discussions without any satisfactory answers given by the Kashmir experts. Here’s my view on the issue. Indeed, there has been an unprecedented amount of communal polarization in the Jammu region which primarily explains BJP’s victory in the Hindu- dominated seats of Jammu. Such polarization has undoubtedly been BJP’s primary election strategy from day one. BJP not only spoke about the need for having a ‘ Hindu Chief Minister’ in J& K, but more importantly separated its Jammu agenda – which is its core constituency – from its election agenda in Kashmir. All of this was to polarize the Hindu votes of Jammu in a meticulously pre- planned manner. BJP was clearly doing what it knows best: engaging in communal politics for electoral benefits. There was no such polarization of Muslim votes in Kashmir. For that matter, there was not even one single party that was trying to ‘ polarize’ the Muslim votes to get them for itself. The primary objective of the various political parties other than the BJP was to get the Kashmiris to vote in the first place by ensuring that the boycott calls did not keep the voters away from polling booths. The BJP, on the contrary, was not only banking on boycott calls and Kashmiri Pandit votes ( who are Hindus). But to the BJP’s disappointment, the Pandits did not bother voting in great numbers. Unlike in Jammu where the BJP benefitted from the communally polarized Hindu votes, not only was there no communal polarization in Kashmir but more importantly, the Muslims of Kashmir voted for more than one party - PDP, NC, Congress, PC, and Independents – none of which is a communal party peddling Muslim communal causes. In other words, the Muslim votes of Kashmir were ever more fragmented among the various secular parties rather than being polarized for any communal cause. And, clearly, the Kashmir Muslims did not vote for communal parties. Despite all its flaws, the Congress party continues to be secular while PDP is a Kashmiri nationalist party and the NC is a pan- J& K party. PC’s Sajad Lone is also far from being communal. How, then, can the voting behavior of the Kashmiri Muslims said to be communal? Communalism Vs. Kashmir nationalism The PDP ( to a great extent) and NC ( to a lesser extent) are Kashmiri nationalist parties and it is important to realize that there is a clear distinction between religion- based communal politics and non- religious nationalism. That is, Kashmiri nationalism is not primarily Islamic in nature, even though Kashmiri leaders like Ali Shah Geelani would disagree with me on this, but religion happens to be just one of the factors informing Kashmiri nationalism. So if people vote for secular nationalist parties, how can they be called communal and be compared to BJP’s unapologetically communal assertions and appeal? In any case, Kashmir’s political history is unique – which much of Jammu clearly does not share – and so its vote for Kashmiri nationalism, and those parties which still believe in that nationalism, needs to be understood in that historical context. Both PDP and NC, the major mainstream political expressions of Kashmiri nationalism, have always sworn by secular principles and have consistently resisted mixing religion with Kashmiri nationalism. Of course, there was a certain anti- BJP feeling in Kashmir. But was that communal? Not at all. For one, because BJP is not equivalent to Hindus and so being anti- BJP is not being anti- Hindu. Hence voting against BJP is not equal to voting against the Hindus of India. Secondly, BJP is not a secular party; its agenda and ideology are based on the Hindu religion, or so they claim. If so, how can voting against a communal party be termed communal? If anything, voting against a communal party is a fundamentally secular act. The vote against the BJP in Kashmir is also a befitting response to the political positions of the BJP, its policies vis- à- vis Kashmir ( it’s stated plans to abrogate Article 370 and deemphasize the resolution of the Kashmir issue) and the anti- minority tirade its sister organsations like the RSS have been indulging in the rest of the country. That’s how, I would say, one should read Kashmir’s vote against the BJP. When state after state in India is falling like dominos unable to withstand the communal politics of the BJP, resisting the onward march of such a party is indeed a noble political feat. So Kashmiris should be congratulated for resisting the BJP rather than being called communal. In short, what we have just witnessed in Kashmir is an example of counter- polarisation and a valiant attempt to stop the saffron invasion into the essentially secular politics of the Kashmir valley. STATECRAFT HAPPYMON JACOB happymon@ gmail. com
Posted on: Sun, 28 Dec 2014 16:06:12 +0000
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