In India’s political structure, the individual regions have a large life of their own, diverse alliances are forming in the states, and these power centers have repeatedly set limits even for a party as powerful as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Although the BJP dominates in many places, it has just won elections again in the state of Haryana. However, in the crisis region of Kashmir in the Himalayas, which is torn apart by the rivalry between the two nuclear powers Pakistan and India, Modi’s party has to realize that it cannot win broad trust there and is encountering resistance.
In any case, the result does not match the grandiose announcements made by Modi, who likes to paint the picture of a “new Kashmir” in the clouds. In this ideal image, the youth find enough work, businesses prosper for everyone, and the violence in the mountains comes to an end. But the BJP’s rhetoric does not generate widespread support. The party did score points in the Hindu-dominated districts in Jammu. But in the Kashmir Valley, which is predominantly populated by Muslims, voters are staying away from the BJP.
An alliance of BJP opponents won a solid majority of seats. The winner is Omar Abdullah, 54, scion of a well-established Kashmiri political dynasty, with his alliance giving him 48 of 90 seats. His party, the Jammu and Kashmir National Conference (JKNC), is making a pact with the opposition Congress party, which ruled India at the national level for decades before the BJP triumphed in Delhi in 2014.
A referendum on Delhi’s course
In Kashmir, the latest vote is seen as a significant milestone; for the first time in ten years, people are allowed to elect their own parliament. The result is interpreted primarily as a referendum on the BJP; more specifically, about their explosive decision in 2019 to deprive the state of Kashmir of its special status with autonomous rights.
At that time, Modi’s camp initiated a process to downgrade the status of the troubled region. A regional state with autonomous rights became two so-called union territories: one in Ladakh and the other in Jammu and Kashmir. These are not full-fledged federal states with parliaments and locally elected governments. Rather, they are led directly from Delhi by a respective governor.
The territorial status quo in Kashmir is already complicated, and the region is deeply divided: Beyond a dividing line, the so-called Line of Control, lies the part of Kashmir controlled by Pakistan. Both nuclear powers claim the strategically important region and have already fought three wars over it.
In the Indian-controlled part of Kashmir, many residents perceived Delhi’s move to strip Kashmir of its autonomy as a severe humiliation and deprivation of entrenched rights. In 2019, thousands of people were arrested in the region, and Omar Abdullah, the current election winner, was also imprisoned for almost eight months. Delhi feared protests and violence.
Many see the army as an occupying force
Many of Kashmir’s problems remain unresolved. As South Asia expert Michael Kugelmann writes, the massive security apparatus restricts people’s freedoms and makes them afraid to express themselves openly. Kashmir has been extremely militarized for decades; in the Indian-controlled part, many see the army as an occupying force that has a largely free hand and cannot be held accountable even for unjustified attacks.
India, in turn, points to the danger of separatists and extremists who are controlled by Pakistan and carry out terrorist attacks. Delhi has been barring foreign journalists from traveling to Kashmir for several years, and local reporters have to expect reprisals if they report freely.
The Constitutional Court of India has now ordered that “statehood” in the region must be restored “as quickly as possible”. India’s Interior Minister Amit Shah, a BJP hardliner, has now also promised this.
This demand is now also coming to the fore of election winner Abdullah; his voters want to see him as head of government as soon as possible. However, it remains unclear how much leeway a new chief minister will actually have, nor does the governor appointed by Delhi have extensive powers in the region.
Considering the many tensions, the elections were relatively calm. And unlike previous votes, which were often accompanied by calls for boycotts from local forces, voter turnout was high: more than 63 percent.
Apparently, the Kashmiris wanted to use the election to send a clear signal to Modi and his loyalists: the shame of being demoted to a Union Territory is still deep.