Langate is quiet just as it was in the beginning of the Lok Sabha election in April. But the sleepy north Kashmir town is expected to buzz soon with political activity, and erupt, much like it did in May, in support of the jailed Awami Ittehad Party leader Engineer Rashid.

Langate is the hometown of Rashid, who had never been a big player in Kashmir’s politics – at least not until he defeated heavyweights such as former chief minister Omar Abdullah and People’s Conference chief Sajad Lone with a margin of over 4.5 lakh votes. It was a victory that hurtled him to the centre-stage as a dark horse. And now he can unsettle many established political equations in the upcoming assembly elections for 90 seats in the erstwhile state.

After all, the voters who stood behind him in the parliamentary polls form the majority across nearly 15 of the 18 assembly seats in north Kashmir. And should the momentum his two sons – Abrar Rashid and Asrar Rashid – had built in the parliamentary elections carry over, Rashid could potentially sweep north Kashmir, and even emerge as a challenger in central and south Kashmir if his party decides to contest from there. 

Because a large separatist constituency which otherwise boycotted polls may vote for him this time as they see him as a politician who stood up to New Delhi after the abrogation of Article 370 and as someone who chose to be in jail rather than surrender. 

But Rashid isn’t the only potential disruptive factor in the polls. 

The Jamaat-e-Islami, which prior to the advent of militancy in 1989 was the only viable opposition to the then dominant National Conference, has also shown a willingness to contest polls if the ban on its activities is lifted. Even if it doesn’t contest the election, the outfit has a significant network of supporters across the valley to influence the polls, and at least four of its leaders have expressed their wish to contest as independents.

While Jamaat has been a declared separatist outfit, a strand of political and media commentary has also portrayed the politics of Rashid’s AIP as hewing closer to separatism even though the AIP denies it.

‘Lull before tsunami’

Rashid had lost the parliamentary election from Baramulla to National Conference’s Mohammad Akbar Lone by around 30,000 votes in 2019. But the key to his success this time was the  groundswell that began in Langate – which has twice elected Rashid as the MLA – and soon radiated out to the adjoining villages and towns, including major urban centres such as Kupwara, Handwara, Baramulla and Sopore. 

“This quiet is a lull before the tsunami,” said Firdous Baba, chief spokesman of the AIP. “History will repeat and now on a larger scale than in the parliament election.”

The party has so far released a list of nine candidates and is expected to announce more names soon.

“This time, we wouldn’t contest the seats only from north Kashmir but also from central and south Kashmir,” said Abrar Rashid, the 22-year-old son of the jailed leader. “God willing, we hope to emerge as a major party in the assembly.”

Rashid was arrested in the run-up to the abrogation of Article 370 in August 2019 and charged under the UAPA by the NIA, which accused him of receiving money from Pakistan to fund separatist activities in Jammu and Kashmir. Rashid, who has denied the charges, is no stranger to controversy. He was beaten by BJP leaders inside the J&K assembly after holding a beef party in 2015. And his campaign against the Indian Army while accusing it of “bonded labour” has earned him support among a section of voters in Kashmir.

On the charge that Rashid is pro-separatism, Abrar said, “No, we are not separatists. We have never been one…My father took an oath on the Indian constitution every time he won elections, twice as MLA and now recently as MP. He didn’t take an oath on the constitution of Pakistan.”

Abrar also maintained that his father had never indulged in any anti-national activity. “If Engineer Rashid had done so, there would be an FIR against him…From 2008, when he first plunged into politics, to 2019, when he was arrested, my father has never been accused of any anti-national activity…on the contrary, my father has turned his constituency Langate into an oasis of peace. During the 2010 unrest, he made around 3,000 youngsters from the town take an oath that they would not pelt stones, and they listened to him.” 

Different dynamics now

The National Conference and the PDP acknowledge the challenge posed by Rashid but don’t think the “goodwill” his sons whipped up in parliament polls will hold in the different dynamics of an assembly election.

“Engineer Rashid was just a name when he fought the Lok Sabha election. His party has other faces now and some of them have baggage which doesn’t reflect well either on Rashid or his party,” senior PDP leader Naeem Akhtar said. “This certainly will have an impact on the chances of the party. Rashid is not as big yet as (NC founder) Sheikh Abdullah…But he remains a factor nevertheless.”

As for Jamaat, Akhtar didn’t think that the independent candidates affiliated to the outfit would make a big difference. “They are contesting more out of compulsion than conviction. People know this and the Jamaat cadre knows this,” Akhtar said. 

The NC, on the other hand, denies that Rashid and Jamaat can influence the poll outcome in any conspicuous way.

“In the case of Engineer Rashid, the last election was fought on emotional issues. His children said they didn’t have fees for school. This resonated with people in the parliamentary election and it wouldn’t be repeated in the assembly polls,” party spokesperson Sarah Hayat Khan told Newslaundry. 

“It would be interesting to see how Jamaat fares in the election. Given their politics of the past three decades, we would like to see whether Jamaat’s decision to contest now would get public support and translate into votes.”

So far, four Jamaat leaders from south Kashmir have filed their nomination papers. They are Talat Majeed, Sayar Ahmad Reshi, Mohammad Sidiq, and Nazir Ahmad Bhat. The Jamaat-e-Islami has also formed an eight-member panel to negotiate with the centre to uplift the ban on it and decide on electoral strategies, supported by key figures such as Dr Hameed Fayaz and Faheem Ramzan.

Jamaat volte face 

The irony of the Jamaat’s decision to contest hasn’t been lost on anyone and has been met with some social media backlash, largely from unidentified accounts. Omar Abdullah was the first mainstream politician to publicly articulate a widely felt sentiment. 

“An organisation that spent the last 30 plus years telling the people of Kashmir that elections are haram (prohibited) and that they should not participate in these elections is now turning around and doing the same,” Omar told reporters in Srinagar. “The organisation that was talking about Jammu and Kashmir not being part of India is today willing to take the oath on the Constitution of India that mainstream political parties have taken. This is a huge development. Let’s see now what happens.”

In the previous assembly elections, the Jamaat cadre has been perceived to have been the lynchpin of the PDP’s support base, especially in south Kashmir seats. Jamaat leaders are now likely to contest from the same seats. This may or may not affect the PDP’s prospects.  However, few expect Jamaat candidates to win a single seat as their participation is widely seen as a betrayal of the separatist cause they earlier espoused, in pursuit of which thousands of lives were lost. 

Jamaat candidates, when confronted with difficult questions about their party’s past role, claimed that they became a part of the separatist movement and militancy more by circumstance than by conviction. 

“First of all, we didn’t bring the gun to Kashmir in 1989. We were subsequently forced to support it,” Talat Majeed, the independent candidate from South Kashmir’s Pulwama constituency, told Newslaundry. “And not just Jamaat, everyone supported militancy. But while others withdrew from it earlier, Jamaat took longer to get out.”

Majeed said his agenda was now “education and economy,” and as for a political stance, his goal was “political stability.”  

But Majeed and his colleagues are struggling to convince people of their bonafides. 

On the contrary, between the two, Rashid is perceived to have more credibility, considering he is in jail.

“Support for our party is not just based on emotion, although emotion is a factor.  It also stems from the reigning political vacuum in the valley whereby traditional political parties like the NC and the PDP are no longer seen as relevant to the altered political reality,” Baba said. “In contrast, we are a party without any baggage. We have fought and sacrificed for the rights of our people.”

The party expects Rashid to get bail, if only for a short duration to campaign for his party. But whether Rashid is released, his presence – and absence too – looms large over the polls.

Three poles

Politics in the valley currently operates at three levels: at one extreme are the perceived pro-BJP parties forged over the past five years, like former Congress party leader Ghulam Nabi Azad’s Democratic Progressive Azad Party, business tycoon turned politician Altaf Bukhari’s Apni Party, and even Sajad Lone’s PC. Although the PC is an old party, founded in the early eighties by Lone’s father Abdul Gani Lone, who later became a top separatist leader and remained so until his assassination in 2001, its new avatar owes itself to the political restructuring of the valley following the withdrawal of Article 370. PC ranks were beefed up in recent years by the influx of leaders from the PDP, some of whom have now returned to the parent party. 

The middle ground is represented by established regional mainstream parties like the NC and the PDP. Before 2019, the two parties took turns to govern the erstwhile state in alliance with either the Congress or the BJP. 

On the other extreme are Rashid’s AIP, a hardline party obliquely nodding to the separatist sentiment if not endorsing it, and Jamaat, which is separatist but is now willing to adjust to the post-370 Kashmir reality. 

The current election is thus a battle royale among these political forces and its outcome will, in part, capture more minutely the public opinion that has evolved in the valley in the aftermath of the loss of the regions’ special constitutional status in 2019.  

Although the NC and the PDP remain the principal political entities in the valley, more so the former with its extensive organisational structure and wide presence, Rashid and Jamaat are expected to be potentially game-changing. 

But few, on the other hand, place their bets on parties like the DPAP or Apni Party over their perception as pro-BJP parties. This was also proven in the outcome of the Lok Sabha election, where the first two sank without a trace. 

The DPAP has suffered a further setback with Azad expressing his unwillingness to campaign. 

In a recent statement, he said that on the night of August 25, he suffered acute chest pain in Srinagar. “Following morning, I took the earliest available flight to Delhi and was admitted to AIIMS hospital, where I stayed for two days,” he said, urging his party leaders, who have filed their nomination forms, to assess whether they can continue without him. “If they feel my absence would impact their chances, they have freedom to withdraw their candidacy.”

The PC, on the other hand, remains in play despite the perceived BJP taint, as the party boasts an organic cadre going back to the eighties.

This essentially leaves the NC, the PDP, the PC, Engineer Rashid and Jamaat independents in the fray as serious contenders, with the last two as imponderables in the game. 

“Engineer is a factor. But it is also true that the dynamics since parliamentary elections have changed. Being the first major electoral exercise since the abrogation of Article 370, Lok Sabha election helped release pent-up resentments,” said Gull Wani, a political analyst and a former professor of political science at Kashmir University. 

“We can expect that the public mood may have sobered up since then and the pragmatism of rallying around the NC-Congress alliance to keep the BJP at bay may eventually triumph over the emotion. Or we may still have an Engineer Rashid reprise.”

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