India hails Kashmir polls as normalcy in a dominated region

World
By Editor_1
Dozens of police and paramilitaries carrying machine guns surrounded each voting station - AFP
0
By Emily Schmall

SRINAGAR — Votes were counted Tuesday (22) in the first local elections in Kashmir since the Indian government waged a harsh political and security crackdown in the restive region last year. Officials hailed a solid turnout as a sign that democracy has been restored, but little in Kashmir feels normal.

“The voting shows democracy being alive at the grass roots,” the region’s top civil servant, B.V.R. Subrahmanyam, told a group of reporters. “People taking value of their own lives is visible, palpable.”

The election — a vote to choose rural development officials — was called suddenly, giving parties only a week to register candidates before the first round of the eight-phase polling began in November, political leaders said. Many prominent Kashmiri politicians and public figures remain in detention with no recourse, or under threat. And hundreds of thousands of political workers for India’s Hindu-nationalist ruling party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), travelled through the region carrying banners and signs, hoping to make a strong showing in a mostly Muslim territory where it has traditionally been loathed.

The BJP did appear to make some inroads, winning at least three seats and leading in several dozen races in the 280-seat District Development Council. But some of the voter engagement appeared to stem more from defiance than satisfaction.

“We’d never want BJP to be in power in Kashmir,” said Kulsoom Chopan, 21, while waiting to vote in Bandipora, a northern district. “We would never vote for India.”

This relatively small-stakes election was the first time that India has allowed foreign reporters into Jammu and Kashmir since August 2019, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government revoked the constitutional provision that gave the region some political autonomy. Jammu and Kashmir, which used to be India’s only Muslim-predominant state, is now a federal territory ruled directly by the Indian government.

Modi said at the time that Kashmir’s special status had helped fuel a 30-year-old armed separatist struggle that resulted in tens of thousands of deaths of security forces, rebels and civilians, and was an impediment to outside investors.

Activists say hundreds of people, including separatists, political moderates, civil society advocates and journalists remain in jail after they were swept up last year.

-New York Times

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