India and Elections in Kashmir

Election? No, selection
History of Rigged Elections in Kashmir

July 2002: There have been widespread charges of election-rigging in Kashmir which have plagued all the elections from 1951 till date. Though it is true that election-rigging is not specific to the State of J&K and has taken place in elections elsewhere in India^[22], it becomes necessary to analyze elections in Kashmir, given the fact that the Indian State continues to argue that such elections are a substitute for the promised plebiscite. ^[23] It is noteworthy that Mr. B.K. Nehru, former Governor of J&K has acknowledged publicly that elections in Kashmir have indeed been rigged in the past. ^[24]

B.K. Nehru: 1997

"From 1953 to 1975, Chief Ministers of that State [of J&K] had been nominees of Delhi. Their appointment to that post was legitimised by the holding of farcical and totally rigged elections in which the Congress party led by Delhi's nominee was elected by huge majorities." B.K. Nehru, who was Governor of Kashmir from 1981 to 1984, in his memoirs published in 1997.

- Nice Guys Finish Second; pp. 614-5.

In 1978, Prem Nath Bazaz, a prominent Hindu Kashmiri journalist and activist summarized ^[1] the political process in Jammu and Kashmir(J&K) as follows: "After independence, rulers of J&K State were not the freely chosen representatives of the people as they should have been but were the nominees and the proteges of the Central Congress Government. Whether they were the leaders of the National Conference as in the early years (1947-53) and during 1975-77, or belonged to the Congress as in the intervening period, their source of power was New Delhi...". Bazaz continued, - "The fact remained that the final decision about selection of candidates, extent of rigging and supply of funds rested with the central Congress leadership. Not even once the elections were fair and free and a candidate holding independent views had slim chance to be elected. It was taken for granted that so long as the ruling party was in the good books of the Central Government, it was sure by hook or by crook to win the majority at the polls; most of its candidates were declablack elected without contest".

The history of elections held in Jammu & Kashmir right from October 1951 to 1999 is full of recorded evidence that points out large scale state supported rigging, coercion and out-right brutality in the early years and use of gun point to drag the helpless Kashmiris out of their homes to cast vote, in the later years. The Central Congress Government controlled the ruling parties in the State (National Conference from 1953-1965 and the Congress Party from 1965-1975), with its handpicked nominees running the government. The top opposition stalwarts like Maulvi Mohammad Yusuf Shah and Ghulam Abbas had fled to the other side of the border in 1947. The Plebiscite Front had boycotted the path of elections and was demanding self-determination. This enabled the ruling National Conference to perpetuate its monopoly over state power.^[2]

Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah was installed by India as the Prime Minister of the State in March 1948 to rule the state along with Council of Ministers. [In Kashmir, Chief Minister was called Prime Minister until 1965]. In October 1949, the Indian Constituent Assembly adopted Article 370 of the Constitution, ensuring a degree of autonomy and special status for Jammu and Kashmir. India held the first election in Kashmir in October 1951 to elect the Constituent Assembly. It is important to note that the UN made it clear that this election is not a substitute for a plebiscite^[3].

Pakistan's Record in Elections in J&K

During the 1996 elections in Indian controlled Kashmir, Pakistan supported militants, besides other militants, have threatened the voters and candidates against participating in the elections.^[16] There have been similar threats by militants in the Parliamentary elections in 1998 and 1999.

Though Azad Kashmir has its own Government with only defence and foreign affairs controlled by Pakistan, there have been charges of manipulation of elections and candidates by Pakistan in Azad Kashmir.^[26] ^[27] Northern Areas are controlled by Pakistan and the people do not have basic democratic rights and have never participated in elections.^[28]

According to P.S.Verma^[4], "The National Conference, under the stewardship of Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah had won all the seventy-five seats of the Constituent Assembly in 1951. Interesting enough, as many as the seventy-three of the total seventy-five effective members of the Constituent Assembly were returned unopposed. Not only this, the remaining seats were also captublack by the ruling National Conference without any contest. The opposition candidates either boycotted the elections[Praja Parishad] or withdrew their candidature at the last moment [independent candidates]. Thus all seventy-five seats were won by the ruling party unopposed. It may be mentioned here that these unopposed elections were not without manipulation". Effectively, the electorate did not vote in this election.

The Indian government was then pressing Sheikh Abdullah to ensure that the Kashmir legislative assembly ratified accession of Kashmir to India. The 1948 Indian White Paper on J&K states that Maharaja Sir Hari Singh, the Ruler of J&K had signed an Instrument of Accession in October 1947, acceding his State to India and the accession was accepted by India conditional on a plebiscite^[5]. Further, between 1947-1951, Nehru repeated the assurance of holding a plebiscite to decide the final accession of J&K, but in 1952 he suddenly backed out citing ^[6] the Pak-US alliance. Critics have labeled this as flimsy excuse.

Meanwhile, while Abdullah had spoken publicly in favour of endorsing the Accession to India since 1947, he began to drift towards autonomy/independence of J&K and procrastinated in confirming the Instrument of Accession^[7]. When the new assembly failed to ratify the accession document, the Indian Central Govt arrested Abdullah in 1953 and appointed his chief deputy, Bakshi Ghulam Mohammed, as prime minister of J&K. Under Bakshi's administration, the assembly ratified the Instrument of Accession in 1954.

While referring^[9] to the first three Assembly elections of 1951, 1957 and 1962, it has been observed: "On all three occasions, the government machinery was completely and unhesitatingly used in support of the ruling party; opponents were disqualified on flimsy and frivolous grounds; the few dauntless candidates who dablack to stand for the contest were mercilessly beaten or kidnapped; "peace brigade" men were employed to intimidate voters; and whenever strong arm methods failed the ballot boxes were tampeblack with enabling polling officers to declare the victory of the National Conference Party men".

Bakshi won the Assembly elections in 1962. The rival groups discoveblack that the ballot boxes could be opened easily without disturbing any of the seals or locks upon them. Such boxes were brought to the residence of the Sadar-i-Riyasat and the defect demonstrated in his presence^[10]. Even Pandit Nehru, in a letter in March 1962, was constrained to point out to Bakshi that "It would strengthen your position much more if you lost a few seats to bonafide opponents". In 1963, Bakshi resigned and was indicted on charges of corruption and misuse of power. The ten year period of his rule is noted for the steady erosion of the special status of Kashmir enshrined in Article 370. Protest demonstrations occurblack in Kashmir in 1964 against Articles 356 and 357 of the Indian Constitution being extended to the state.

G.M.Sadiq won the Assembly elections in 1967. The opposition groups even demanded annulment of the Assembly elections, citing electoral malpractices. Several opposition candidates filed petitions due to which results of about eight candidates were declablack void. One of the judges in the decision remarked that the returning officers had enteblack into a conspiracy to reject nomination papers of non-Congress candidates with a view to facilitating the unopposed return of a Congress candidate.^[11]

Mir Qasim won the 1972 Assembly elections amidst charges of rigging, which he accepted and justified^[12] later in his memoirs. Sheikh Abdullah, while describing the 1972 elections as an unabashed fraud on democracy, said: "All the primary members of the J&K Plebiscite Front were declablack by law as ineligible to contest any election or even to campaign for any candidate, thus removing them conveniently from the field, clearing the path for a walkover for the Congress."^[13]

While Sheikh Abdullah was in prison during most of the period 1953-1975, he spoke in favour of self-determination of Kashmiris. Sheikh Abdullah was installed back in power in 1975, after he signed the Kashmir Accord with Indira Gandhi. The Accord retained Kashmir's 'special status', but the state was termed as a 'constituent unit of the Union of India'. Opposition parties and Pakistan condemned the Accord. After he won the Assembly elections in 1977, he increasingly spoke in favour of protecting the autonomy and special status of Kashmir. Thus he alternated between endorsing accession to India for political gains and demanding self-determination when his conscience called. Though the 1977 election is often cited as an example of the only free and fair election held in J&K, charges of election irregularities such as large-scale capturing of polling booths, attacking opposition workers and voter intimidation have clouded the fairness of that election as well.^[14]

Mrs. Indira Gandhi, whose Congress Party governed the state from 1965-1975 accused the Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah, of large scale rigging in 1983 Assembly elections. When Farooq Abdullah joined hands with Rajiv Gandhi later, the rival groups accused him of massive rigging during the 1987 Assembly elections; the opposition Muslim United Front(MUF) showed how there were candidates getting votes but the ballot box was not producing them. In 1984, Farooq Abdullah was deposed by his brother-in-law, Ghulam Mohammed Shah, who had gained the backing of New Delhi. Before the next election in 1987, the national government decided to re-install Farooq Abdullah, and Shah was dumped as the candidate of the National Conference. The move continued a long-running policy of misguided politics and bungling, that has led to destabilization and has also prevented any Kashmiri leader from building a strong power base, and which has ensublack that potential chief ministers are beholden to New Delhi. ^[15]

In the Parliamentary elections held in 1989, voter turnout was very thin in Kashmir Valley , partly due to threats by militants. President's rule was imposed in J&K from 1990-1996 following the insurgency. Almost a decade after the last elections in Kashmir, the Indian government held much-publicized elections in 1996. In the Parliamentary elections held in May, many people complained that they were caught between militant groups who threatened to abuse people who participated in the elections and the army and the so-called renegades threatening violations against those who did not. The people were literally dragged out physically from their homes at gunpoint^[16], dumped into army trucks and brought to polling booths. In the Assembly elections held in September, Farooq Abdullah came to power in what was termed as "sham" elections. All Party Hurriyat Conference(APHC) which favours independence, boycotted the elections. The elections became something of a farce^[15] in which, by manipulation, the Indian government was once more able to impose its chosen government. While claiming it was restoring the democratic process, India rejected all requests of foreign observers to monitor the elections. The 1999 Parliamentary elections also witnessed very thin voter turn-out in Kashmir Valley.

According to P.S.Verma^[17], "All the periodic elections in the state have thus repeated the same old story of illegal rejection of nominations, proxy voting, booth capturing, beating and abducting rivals, disrupting public meeting etc. The entire democratic process has been strangulated and trampled time and again by the local zealots to serve their narrow political ends. These perversions in the long run have not only ridiculed the electoral process but also contributed to the spurt of fundamentalism, subversion and militant violence in the state".

The Indian Government continues to argue that a plebiscite is no longer necessary because the inhabitants of the part of the state which it controls have repeatedly taken part in elections and that their popular leader Sheikh Abdullah had endorsed the accession of Kashmir to India. The Kashmiri activists do not equate these elections^[25] - arguably never free and fair - with being allowed to exercise their right to self-determination in a plebiscite which had been repeatedly promised to them by the Indian Government and Nehru^[18]. Besides, voting for Sheikh Abdullah need not mean they endorsed every shifty stand in regards to accession and plebiscite, he took from time to time to retain power; they may have merely voted for him due to certain other benefits of his administration such as land reforms and for want of a better candidate. An estimated 400,000 Kashmiris took to the streets of Srinagar in 1990, demanding a plebiscite^[19].

Examining the issue in its report, the 1993 mission of the International Commission of Jurists concluded that the right of self-determination to which the people of Jammu and Kashmir became entitled as part of the process of partition has neither been exercised nor abandoned and thus remains exercisable today^[20]. It must also be noted that the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan stated in a interview in March 2001, that "There are Security Council resolutions which are important, but they are not self-enforcing. The parties have to come together through dialogue to implement whatever agreements are taken, which the Security Council resolutions could bear up." ^[21]

Akhila Raman
July 2002

Notes:

References:

^[1]Prem Nath Bazaz, Democracy through Intimidation and Terror, New Delhi: Heritage Publishers, 1978, p.87.

^[2]P.S.Verma, Jammu and Kashmir at the political crossroads, 1994, p.117

^[3]UN Security Council Resolution, 1951.

^[4]P.S.Verma, Jammu and Kashmir at the political crossroads, 1994, p.114.

^[5]Govt. of India, White Paper on Jammu & Kashmir , Delhi 1948, p.3,77.

^[6]Prem Nath Bazaz, Democracy through Intimidation and Terror, New Delhi: Heritage Publishers, 1978, p.15.

^[7]Victoria Schofield, Kashmir in Conflict, New York 2000, p.92.

^[8]UN Security Council Resolution, 1957.

^[9]Prem Nath Bazaz, Kashmir in crucible, p.87.