India is witnessing protests against the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, a process that asks citizens to prove their citizenship in order to stay on the list. The Election Commission of India, headed by Gyanesh Kumar, is conducting it, and Kumar has been under political attack since it began. Opposition parties accuse him of helping the BJP win elections, and social media is abuzz with allegations that he is deleting voters to that end. Amit Shah recently claimed that three crore voters have been removed so far, and he spoke of it as an achievement.
A proper process for free and fair elections is never a bad idea. But targeting a particular community in the name of a special revision is democratically indefensible and must not be supported. Voting is not just how we elect a government; it is how we hand over the power to make laws that shape people's daily lives. When a government decides who votes, or where the vote goes, that is the problem.
Today the "Kashmirization" of India is being debated, and SIR has taken over the national conversation. It is rightly under question for striking genuine voters off the rolls, and that must be spoken about and stopped. But Jammu and Kashmir went through its own SIR, one that many people don't know about and that is rarely discussed.
What happened in Jammu and Kashmir in 1987?
The year 1987 changed the political landscape of the state. On 21 April 1986, the United Muslim Front (UMF) was formed under the leadership of Maulana Masroor Abbas Ansari. Its leaders included Syed Ali Shah Geelani, then a leader of Jamaat-e-Islami; Maulana Qazi Nissar, a leader of Ummat-e-Islami, also known as the Mirwaiz of South Kashmir; Prof. Abdul Gani Bhat; and many others.
In September of the same year, Governor Jagmohan banned the UMF after Qazi Nissar defied his order on Janmashtami, the birthday of the Hindu deity Krishna. Nissar was arrested.
The front was soon rechristened the Muslim United Front (MUF), a coalition of people who chose to enter the democratic process. After the rigging of 1987, however, it became a body that encouraged people to boycott elections.
Mohammad Yousuf Shah, now Syed Salahuddin, was the MUF candidate from Amira Kadal. He lost to the National Conference (NC) candidate, and the rigging turned a result that was clearly in Salahuddin's favour. Had the NC not stooped so low for power, Salahuddin might today be Yousuf Shah, a respected leader who contested elections under the Indian Constitution. Instead, he heads the United Jihad Council.
The late Syed Ali Shah Geelani, a towering leader of the Hurriyat Conference, was elected MLA from Sopore in 1972, 1977, and 1987. He took the oath on the Indian Constitution three times. What changed his mind later should not be ignored, and those who blame everything on others must reflect on that change.
After the rigging, the Valley was in turmoil. In time things slowly returned to what was officially called "normal", through the iron-fist policy of Governor Girish Chandra Saxena, a former chief of India's external intelligence agency. But nothing was normal. It was all iron fist.
In July 1992, Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao announced, at a rally in Visakhapatnam, that elections would be held in Jammu and Kashmir for the first time since the 1987 rigging. The idea was driven by Union Home Minister S.B. Chavan, who had said at the start of the year that elections should be held in the state.
Whatever one calls Saxena's policies, they gave the Centre the confidence to announce elections. The government took confidence-building measures and engaged with people who had once been Assembly candidates but were now opposed to the Constitution and everything connected with it. It ordered the release of five top leaders: Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Abdul Ghani Lone, Maulana Abbas Ansari, Qazi Nissar Ahmad, and Prof. Abdul Gani Bhat. All were members of the MUF and had been arrested in early 1990. They were released in April 1992 as a step toward restoring political dialogue, along with 97 others. The deployment of the CRPF and BSF in Srinagar was also gradually thinned, to signal that things were changing and that the Centre wanted the people of Jammu and Kashmir to live in dignity and peace.
Home Minister Shankarrao Chavan visited Kashmir and met everyone who wished to meet him, including Yasin Malik, head of the HAJY group, and Shabbir Shah. Shah was then known as the "headmaster of all" and later came to be called the Nelson Mandela of Kashmir. Unfortunately, he is in jail today. Hamid Sheikh, a HAJY member, was released from prison through an uncontested bail application. [Sentence on Hamid Sheikh's reported meeting in mid-1992 is unclear; please clarify.]
The government of the day was keen on bringing peace, but normalcy always eluded Kashmir. Shabbir Shah, Nayeem Khan, and Firdous Syed once helped the government restore the electoral process. Where are Shah and Khan today?
Who is responsible for the mess we are in? The Hurriyat? The United Jihad Council? All are part of it. But the real culprits are the National Conference leadership. From Sheikh Abdullah to Omar Abdullah, every one of them added to the suffering of the people of Jammu and Kashmir.
Sheikh Abdullah, who stood against Dogra rule, became the most prominent political figure of the state. His party, which emerged from the Muslim Conference after ideological clashes in the 1930s, won 99 of 100 seats in the Constituent Assembly elections. That Constituent Assembly framed Article 370 as the basis of the relationship between Srinagar and the Union of India. Yet, out of lust for power and with Congress's help, Sheikh Abdullah gradually eroded its provisions one after another. The Delhi Agreement was the beginning.
He was arrested in 1953 in Gulmarg, while serving as Prime Minister of the state. He later surrendered and signed an agreement, and happily accepted the post of Chief Minister. Had he been the man his party now portrays, he would never have accepted a downgrade of his own position. He would have preferred jail.
Then came his son, Farooq Abdullah, who today claims the moral high ground but is nothing of the sort. Like his father, he has always served to stay in power, whatever it took.
In 1994, the Union government was trying to bring Hurriyat leaders into mainstream politics. When the news reached Farooq Abdullah in London, he rushed back, fearing he would lose his chair, and voiced his anger to anyone who would listen. When he learned the plan would not go ahead, he returned to London. When elections were held in 1996, he came back and became Chief Minister again, annoying Shabbir Shah, who had been eyeing the top post. He kept allying with Congress, forgetting what the party had done to his government in 1986.
Farooq Abdullah will do anything to remain in power, even give up his self-respect. The NC no longer talks about the autonomy it boasted of in the 1990s. The Centre threw its autonomy proposal into the dustbin, a fact the party avoids discussing in public. His betrayals continue even now: he was reportedly promised the Vice Presidency, and that dream remains a dream.
Then came Omar Abdullah, the grandson of Sheikh Abdullah and son of Farooq, who crossed all limits. While he was Chief Minister, the Valley lost 120 young men to violence, thousands were jailed, and some still languish in prison. He strongly opposed the removal of the Public Safety Act (PSA), yet today promises to remove it if his party returns to power. The double rape and murder of Asiya and Neelofer is another black spot on his government, and he also failed miserably during the 2014 floods.
The question remains: will "Kashmirization" remain a slogan, or will it help tell the stories that are yet to be told?
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*Law student and human rights activist, Raqif Makhdoomi is a UAPA undertrial and a former PSA detainee
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