India - Path to the polling stations in Ganderbal was paved with grief

Praveen Swami

GANDERBAL (J&K): Early on Sunday morning, Abdul Khaliq Bhat brushed past a gaggle of young people who were shouting anti-India slogans near the Khir Bhawani temple, and lined up to vote.

Given that almost half of Ganderbal’s voters braved the grim November weather to exercise their franchise, Mr. Bhat’s action wasn’t exceptional. But his decision to sport blue ink on his index finger, defying calls from secessionist groups and jihadist organisations, had a special significance.

Until the Jammu and Kashmir Police unit eliminated him in a March, 2000, shootout, Mr. Bhat’s son, Hamid Bhat, was among the most feared commanders of the Hizb ul-Mujahideen. Hamid Bhat was responsible for dozens of killings. The most horrific among them was the 1998 massacre of 26 Kashmiri Pandits in the hamlet of Wandhama.

Dozens of residents of Wandhama made their way past the burnt-out shells that used to be the homes of Hamid Bhat’s victims on Sunday morning, to vote in the neighbouring village of Barsoo. If Ganderbal was until recently best-known as a centre of jihadist violence, it has now become the centre of Jammu and Kashmir’s most high-profile electoral contest.

National Conference leader Omar Abdullah, who was defeated here in a stunning 2002 upset, was fighting to regain his political honour. So was his principal rival, Qazi Muhammad Afzal, the People’s Democratic Party’s giant-killer of the last election. Mr. Afzal went on to become the Forest Minister and sign the orders assigning land to the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board which sparked the violence that claimed over 70 lives this summer.

Both men saw an unexpected challenge from police officer-turned-Congress politician, Ishfaq Sheikh. Mr. Sheikh represented himself as a change to the political establishment. Eighteen years ago, his father, Abdul Jabbar Sheikh, who served as a Minister in Chief Minister Gul Mohammad Shah’s short-lived 1986 government, was assassinated at the family home in Lar.

Hamid Bhat’s Hizb ul-Mujahideen was suspected of having carried out the assassination.

Under pressure, both the National Conference and the PDP sought to leverage the anti-India sentiment to their advantage. Mr. Abdullah’s first campaign gathering in the constituency was targeted by PDP supporters chanting pro-All Parties Hurriyat Conference slogans. His party workers returned the compliment by surrounding one of Mr. Afzal’s processions and forcing the politician to chant anti-India slogans.

Intense contestation between the three main candidates appears to have energised the constituency’s politics, driving the increase in voter turnout from the 35.21% seen in 2002, a development that flies in the face of predictions that the Kashmir Valley would reject the election process.

“I’m voting,” says Watlar shawl-weaver Abdul Majid Khan, “to punish our dishonest leaders.” A few years ago, he says, the police arrested his son on charges of hiding a weapon. “I had to pay a politician Rs.20,000 to have him released. That meant I had to take a loan to buy yarn. I had to pay Rs.10,000 once again to secure the release of my loan of Rs.35,000. Our politicians see my life as a business.”

“Our shawl industry is in crisis,” says Watlar-based shawl trader Ajaz Ahmad, who had travelled home from his base in Jaipur to cast his vote, “because young people do not want to work as weavers and we are threatened by cheap products from Punjab. I want to elect a politician who has a vision for our economy.”

Mr. Bhat, who has long made a living serving pilgrims to Kashmiri Hindus’ most sacred shrine, hopes that the elections will help still the fires of the summer. “When I saw all these young people willing to die for some cause which they saw was heroic,” says Mr. Bhat, “I was reminded of my son.”

“Some things are healed by time,” he went on, “and some wounds stay raw. But I always hope tomorrow will be better than today. That’s why I’m voting.”