Rekha Chowdhary
Mufti Mohammed Sayeed had a long political career in the politics of the state of J&K. He donned various roles including that of the Home Minister of India. However, it was during last one and half decade that his politics left deep impressions in the politics of the state. His major contribution remains in shifting the political discourse of Kashmir and creating a space for mainstream politics in an environment in which no politics other than the separatist politics was considered legitimate. This he did by floating the People’s Democratic Party in 1999.
To understand Mufti’s contribution in changing the course of Kashmir’s politics, it is important to trace the background of Kashmir’s politics in post-1989 period when militancy and separatism overtook it. One major consequence was the complete erosion of the mainstream politics. So completely overtaken was the political space of Kashmir by separatism during that period that all political parties and political actors had gone into political hibernation, especially after January 1990. Even after a prolonged period of six years, when the elections were conducted and the National Conference government was put in place, separatism continued to be ascendant. This had its implications for the mainstream politics. It was still facing the crisis of legitimacy.
Much changed with the formation of PDP. The 2002 Assembly election in which the PDP was able to win 16 Assembly seats from Kashmir, was widely believed to be a credible election despite the fact that the voter turnout was much lower than the 1996 election. What contributed to the credibility of election was the intensified competition between the NC and PDP and the electoral outcome. This was for the first time in the history of state’s politics that a ruling party was unable to win majority and was replaced through the electoral process. By 2008, the mainstream politics was so extended in Kashmir that despite a massive separatist upsurge around the Amarnath land row, the 2008 election was quite participatory and the separatist call for boycott was generally rejected. By the time the 2014 Assembly election took place, one could see as to how the mainstream politics had fully extended itself and not only it was a completely ‘normal’ election but also intensely and aggressively competitive.
It is in the context of the change that was brought in Kashmir’s mainstream politics in a short period that PDP and Mufti need to be credited. While forming the PDP in 1999 Mufti was faced with the two-fold challenge. Of these the first challenge was how to create a space in the Kashmir’s mainstream politics which was monopolised so far by the National Conference. It was not an easy task because NC had its roots in history and was the only mass and cadre-based party of the region. However, much more difficult was the second challenge – that being – how to find relevance for PDP’s politics in the face of overarching presence of separatist politics. When this politics had made an entrenched party like NC irrelevant, how could PDP become relevant?
It was Mufti’s strategic response to these twin challenges. He used the second challenge to beat the first challenge – in other words, he used the challenge coming from separatist politics to compete successfully with the National Conference. Teaming along with his daughter, Mehbooba, he, borrowed heavily from the separatist agenda and created the PDP’s ideological base around the issues that were till now raised exclusively by the separatists. Much emphasis was laid on the issues of Human Rights violations and apart from demanding ‘dialogue’ with separatists, the party offered a formula of ‘Self-Rule’ as a part of its programme of conflict resolution. Meanwhile, it introduced the discourse of ‘Healing Touch’ to provide succour to people impacted by conflict situation.
With the ‘mainstreaming’ of the issues that were till now in the ‘separatist’ domain, the party was not only able to succeed in popularising itself vis-a-vis the National Conference but also in diminishing the role of the separatists. The separatists, as one can see were increasingly losing their relevance in Kashmir’s politics in the post-2002 period and it was their crisis of relevance which was reflected during their bid to assert themselves in 2008-2010 period.
It was Mufti’s politics in the post-1999 period that was game changing and helped extend space in Kashmir not only for PDP but for the mainstream politics per se. With NC as the only player till 1999, the mainstream politics of Kashmir was not only monotonous but also quite de-linked from ground situation. Assured of its victory in any election, the NC was not as sensitive to the popular responses and therefore often resorted to unpopular political moves. As a result, it was increasingly alienated from the people especially in post-1986 period. However, with PDP emerging as another regional party of Kashmir, the electoral politics of Kashmir became an open game and for any party to win election it became important to link with ground situation. Hence not only the PDP but the NC also reinvented its politics and sought to respond to local sensitivities. It is in this process that the democratic politics has gained credibility. Today it is the situation that a space has been created for many other parties. Not only the PDP and NC but also the Congress, the People’s Conference and even the BJP competed during the 2014 elections. What is more important, ‘governance’ has assumed a priority in Kashmir and for this purpose even the Panchayat elections are taken seriously in Kashmir. So enthusiastic was the response of people during 2011 Panchayat elections that around eighty percent voter turnout was recorded.
(The views of the author are personal)
feedbackexcelsior@gmail.com
Trending Now
E-Paper
Follow our WhatsApp channel