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Jammu & Kashmir
‘They can kill me, they can’t make me vote’
Aditi Tandon
Tribune News Service

Srinagar, November 15
You need not venture deep into the valley to gauge the mood of the voter. Disenchantment is evident in the heart of urban Srinagar, from where the National Conference’s chief ministerial candidate Farooq Abdullah is seeking election.

A few kilometers down the lane in Hazratbal, where Abdullah recently promised to locate his party’s central office if elected, lives a man who says he would rather die than vote. To Riyaz Malik, a 35-year-old voter of this high-profile constituency, elections mean nothing; freedom means everything.

The sentiment runs across the urban and semi-urban parts of poll-bound districts, be it Bandipora, Ganderbal, Baramulla or Anantnag.That explains why political parties chose to restrict their campaigns to peripheral areas like Mandher, Gurez, Sonawari, Uri, and Kulgam, characterized by heavy troop presence and negligible separatist influence. The parties have yet not dared to enter urban cores, where hostile voters like Malik await them.

“They can kill me but they can’t make me vote. I want nothing expect the resolution of Kashmir issue. That’s the only thing that will give me peace,” says Malik, a carpenter, who has lost his kin to secession in the Valley. Very few families in Kashmir have been spared the trauma of losing dear ones to militancy.

“Our generations have been doomed; our economy devastated. What development are the politicians talking of? There has been none. The NC ruled us for 40 years. They now want another chance to deliver. Polls have become a joke,” he says, as others join him in the expression of frustration.

Most of the valley’s urban electorate remains disinterested in elections for more personal than political reasons. For them, resolution of the Kashmir problem has high emotional value. Ahmad Riyaz, a student explains, “We see freedom as our only chance for peace and progress. It will guarantee us the right to get on with our lives the way we want, without the fear of gun or strikes.”

For the past three months, the valley has seen frequent shutdowns, causing loss of business and time. No wonder the Amarnath land row remains fresh in people’s mind, with some even describing it as a political doing, aimed at dividing the Hindus and Muslims.

“These are ploys to keep us apart. In 1991, the gun had engineered the divide; now it is another issue. Politicians give different names to the same problem to suit their ends. You can’t blame the Hurriyat for giving boycott calls because they have a mission to pursue. The government should work on solutions, not problems,” says Aiyaz Bhat, a Kashmir University student, who doesn’t want to vote.

There are others in the Valley enraged over lack of investigation into the 60 killings following the land transfer row. “No headway has yet been made. It’s ironical that politicians should talk 20 years ahead when they can't deal with issues at hand,” seasons Syed Shabbir from Ganderbal, which has seen only two big rallies so far (one each of NC and Congress), both marked with stone pelting.

Political analyst Gul Wani explains the trend: “Leaders are yet to canvas in areas where mainstream as well as separatist politics holds sway. Because they were aware of voters’ alienation in urban areas, they kickstarted their campaigns from safe havens — remote and backward — where people would vote for reasons other than political.”

The Congress started canvassing from Leh, and has mainly stayed in remote Bandipora and Uri (along LoC). PDP and NC began from Bandipora’s Sonawari area, where the Sunni-Shia divide makes division of votes easy; Democratic Party’s Ghulam Hassan Mir is concentrating on Kokernag belt in Anantnag, where the voters are economically and educationally backward, and that much more pliable.

Whether the leaders enter urban turfs remains to be seen.

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