Updated – August 21, 2024 12:36 pm
With the Election Commission of India (ECI) announcing the dates for elections in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) — in three phases between September 18 and October 1 — a major lacuna in the conduct of democracy in the province has been addressed. The absence of an elected and functioning State legislature, along with the abrogation of special status and the bifurcation of the erstwhile State, followed by J&K’s diminution into a Union Territory (UT) had resulted in significant despondency and alienation among the people. The absence of a legislature to express concerns and the muzzling of dissent by arresting students, journalists, lawyers among other civil society representatives under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and the Public Safety Act have been recipes for furthering the alienation. In its judgment that upheld the abrogation of special status — a flawed one — the Supreme Court had also ordered that elections to the Legislative Assembly had to be held by September 30, 2024, besides expressing its opinion on the need to restore statehood as soon as possible. The ECI has done well to heed the first directive. The absence of an elected legislature has meant that the people have lacked a voice to articulate their concerns even as they have yearned for their rights of electoral participation. This is evident in the participation levels in the local body and parliamentary elections since 2019 — the numbers were much higher than in earlier elections, especially in the Valley.
In the last-held Assembly elections nearly a decade ago, the mandate was split on communal lines with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) winning nearly all of the seats that it contested in Jammu, and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the National Conference (NC) and the Congress winning most of the seats in the Valley. Much water has flowed down the Jhelum after the formation of the coalition government between the PDP and the BJP, an unnatural alliance that was doomed to fail. The NC and Congress had fought the 2024 general election as part of the INDIA bloc and there is the likelihood of an alliance between these parties and smaller ones in these elections. The need for like-minded parties, that agree on changing the status quo in the UT by bringing back statehood and promoting secular governance, to come together, is promising not only for electoral tactical purposes. It is an imperative in order to ensure that the discourse in the province, which has been beset with fresh waves of terrorism in Jammu and south Kashmir, is not communalised. An election that is contested on civic issues and rights discourses, rather than on communal lines, would help bring back peace to India’s northernmost province.