POLITICS-INDIA: Hopes Improve for Coalition Government in Kashmir

By Ranjit Devraj Reprint | | Print |

Ranjit Devraj

NEW DELHI, Oct 23 2002 (IPS) - Hopes revived Wednesday that a coalition government in troubled Kashmir could be formed between the two parties that two weeks ago soundly defeated the state’s ruling party, an ally of the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that rules India’s national government.

The two parties that dislodged from power the ruling National Conference party are the Congress party and the regional People’s Democratic Party (PDP), which have for days been locked in bitter wrangling about how to form a government in Indian-controlled Kashmir.

On Wednesday, PDP leader Mehbooba Mufti telephoned Congress party president Sonia Gandhi from Kashmir’s capital Srinagar, asking for a final round of talks on Friday to settle the issue of which party would lead the proposed coalition.

Earlier, Mehbooba had rejected any arrangement in which her PDP, which proved its strength in the Kashmir valley – the predominantly Muslim area of the sprawling state disputed by neighbouring Pakistan – would not hold the chief ministership.

The Congress party’s claim to lead the coalition is based on the fact that it claimed 20 seats – more than the PDP’s 16 – in the election. But even together, the two parties have less than the 44 seats needed for a simple majority and must depend on smaller parties and independents to rule the state.

Although it won more seats in the Kashmir assembly, the Congress party did not gain a single seat in the Kashmir valley. There, its popularity remains doubtful since it is seen as having joined hands with the National Conference to rig elections in Kashmir in the past.

Although it lost control of the state, the National Conference remains the largest single party with 28 seats in the 87-member assembly.

Allegations of rigging in 1987 were to transform a movement for independence in the valley into a phase of violence, which spiralled dramatically after it was taken over by militant groups which want to see the state accede to Islamic Pakistan.

The National Conference, which is run by the Abdullah family and ruled Muslim-majority Kashmir for the last 27 years, switched allegiance from the Congress party to the BJP-led central government. It stayed with it through the three years that have seen increasing attacks on Muslims elsewhere in the country, but especially in western Gujarat state.

On Friday, when Mehbooba’s father and PDP chief Mufti Mohammed Sayeed meets Gandhi, he is expected to discuss various power-sharing arrangements – including one in which the chief ministership would be held on a rotational basis.

Although the PDP has not abandoned its secessionist agenda, popular in the Kashmir valley, the fact remains that the party fought the elections under the Indian constitution and did so in the face of death threats from militant groups and a boycott call by the All-Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC), a 24-member alliance of separatist groups.

The Kashmir polls, which saw a surprisingly high 45 percent turnout, were judged ”free and fair” by western diplomats who observed the elections and by international media invited by the Election Commission to cover the process.

Although the BJP managed just one seat in the state elections, the central government in New Delhi quickly claimed the high turnout as a success for democracy and for continued Indian rule in the state, opposed by Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf as ”illegal” and likely to be ”rigged”.

But the success of the elections, carried through in spite of the killing of nearly 400 people, was marred by the bickering between the Congress party and the PDP that followed.

”These differences have to do with egos rather than ideology,” said Yusuf Tarigami, one of two Communist party members who were elected in the Kashmir polls.

Tarigami and several other independent groups, including the Panthers Party that has four members, have pledged support for the Congress party. This has emboldened the party to make a bid to form the government on its own.

Analysts said the Congress party’s tough stance, taken after a meeting of its high command in New Delhi, may have pressured the PDP to return to the negotiating table and abandon its insistence on retaining the chief ministership.

The PDP in coalition with the nationalist Congress party may also be forced to dilute an election pledge to release all political prisoners and disband the special operations group (SOG), a crack force with the police that has been discredited for indulging in extortion and abuses in the name of cracking down on militancy.

However, both the Congress and the PDP are in agreement that draconian anti-terrorist laws in the state must go. They agree that the State Human Rights Commission must be revived and that dialogue must be revived with all parties, including militant groups.

Likewise, both parties have opposed a move to divide Kashmir state into three – the Hindu-dominated Jammu region, Muslim-dominated Kashmir valley and Buddhist-dominated Ladakh. This is plan on which the BJP fought the elections and paid a heavy price for it by losing even in mainly Hindu Jammu.

Analysts saw in the elections, fractured as they were, a rejection of extremism, both by the militant groups and the now discredited APHC as well as the BJP, which lost its former stronghold in Jammu.

The Congress party’s chief minister-designate Ghulam Nabi Azad has said that the party’s high profile as leader of India’s national opposition and one which already rules 14 major Indian states would help Kashmir bargain for a better deal for itself within the federation.

For now, however, the government has ironically reverted to direct federal rule of Kashmir state for want of agreement among the political parties that call themselves ”secular” and ”democratic” and opposed to the pro-Hindu BJP.

POLITICS-INDIA: Hopes Improve for Coalition Government in Kashmir

By Ranjit Devraj Reprint | | Print |

Ranjit Devraj

NEW DELHI, Oct 23 2002 (IPS) - Hopes revived Wednesday that a coalition government in troubled Kashmir could be formed between the two parties that two weeks ago soundly defeated the state’s ruling party, an ally of the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that rules India’s national government.
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