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| Poor polling in elections enhances isolation level for Kashmiris | | | Early Times Report
Jammu, Apr 26: When Foreign Office in Islamabad made it known that Lok Sabha election held in Jammu and Kashmir was not a substitute for plebiscite as provided for in the 1948 UN resolution on Kashmir, it hardly created ripples in the rivers in India. It is so because even the separatists, who had been campaigning for poll boycott in Kashmir, have been holding this view.
As the voting for Lok Sabha polls in Anantnag constituency in Kashmir started on Thursday, Pakistan has said any election in the state is not a substitute for plebiscite. "Absolutely not," said Pakistan's Foreign Office spokesperson Tasnim Aslam when asked if the election in the state was an alternative to a plebiscite.
She added, "This is the position of the United Nations resolutions as well that any elections in Indian Occupied Kashmir are not an alternative to the exercise of their right to self-determination".
And the Kashmiri separatists hold a view similar to the one dished out by Tasnim Aslam. These separatists say that had the Assembly or the Lok Sabha elections been a substitute for a plebiscite the Kashmir issue would have been resolved in 1951 when the state went to the polls for the first time. If this has been the case why then people have been participating in the Assembly and the Lok Sabha elections right from 1951 and 1952 ? Why those who are now on the other side of the fence, including Syed Ali Shah Geelani, have contested the Assembly elections in the past and Geelani even got the mandate for being a member of the state Assembly.
And whenever he was asked about his participation in the poll process he would say that he and his colleagues contested the Assembly election and were elected to the House with the sole purpose of raising the Kashmir issue so as to force India to settle the dispute. How many times Geelani raised the Kashmir issue ?Not relentlessly. And even if he did raise the issue, did it yield any solution to the issue ?
And if the separatists have been calling upon people to boycott the poll process why should then they seek help from militants in securing enforcement of their call for poll boycott? It was the scare created by militants that resulted in very poor polling, three to four per cent,in Anantnag and Baramulla Lok Sabha constituencies in 1989 and Srinagar seat going to the NC candidate without a contest. After that separatists have been giving calls for poll boycott and the polling percentage, recorded in the previous Assembly and Lok Sabha elections in the state, has ranged between 30 and 55. And if on Thursday Anantnag constituency witnessed 28 per cent polling it was one per cent higher than the one recorded in 2009. And had not militants killed four civilians three days prior to Polling and not opened fire on a CRPF vehicle in Pulwama-Shopian belt polling percentage in the entire Anantnag constituency would have touched 40.
And had the separatists been confident about their poll boycott call getting full response from people they should have not encouraged militants for triggering incidents of violence. If very poor polling in 1989 Lok Sabha election did not provoke or motivate or force India to resolve the Kashmir issue through the process of dialogue with Pakistan, it can be so even if polling percentage in the ensuing Lok Sabha poll in Srinagar and Baramulla constituencies remained below 28.
People in Kashmir need to learn a lesson or two from people in Maoist and Naxal infested states of Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Assam where polling percentage ranged between 59 and 77. This indicated that despite violence people wanted to be part of the national phenomenon.
And the tragedy with the people in the Kashmir valley is that they are being misguided by the separatists by telling them they need to be an entity different and separate from the rest in the country. And whether under the influence of separatists, or under the scare of militants or under the umbrella of Article 370 people in Kashmir try to maintain an exclusive identity which may simply lead to misgivings and mistrust between Delhi and them. |
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