‘People desperate for alternative’: Why Congress got warm welcome despite heavy snow in Kashmir

On Monday morning, Abrar* convinced his friends to come out of their homes – despite continuous snowfall since the night before – to watch a movie in Srinagar’s recently opened cinema hall. That was the lure, his friends said, to bring them to the Sher-i-Kashmir Stadium where Rahul Gandhi was addressing the final event of the Bharat Jodo Yatra.

This was the first time this group of friends, all residents of the nearby Maisuma area, participated in a political rally by any mainstream party. An environment of repression in Kashmir and the overall mainstreaming of hatred against Muslims across the country had compelled them to hear out the alternative vision for the future offered by Gandhi.

It helped that the event paused briefly out of respect for the azaan, the Muslim call to prayers, to end. After more than a 100 days of walking in his signature white T-shirt, Gandhi finally donned a pheran and a woollen cap but chose to make his address without an umbrella even as it snowed heavily.

"I did not undergo this yatra for myself or the Congress but for the people of our country,” Gandhi said in the same stadium where prime minister Narendra Modi made an address in 2015. “Our aim is to stand against the ideology that wants to destroy the foundation of this country."

Gandhi spoke of his own experience with violence, recalling being informed over phone calls of the killing of his father Rajiv Gandhi and grandmother Indira Gandhi, both prime ministers when assassinated. "Those who incite violence, like Modi ji, Amit Shah ji, the BJP and the RSS will never understand this pain,” he said, adding it was families of soldiers and Kashmiris who understood it. “The aim of the yatra is to end the phone calls announcing the deaths of loved ones.”

It was this empathy and promise to stem communal polarisation and forge a more inclusive environment that Abrar and his friends said was the exact opposite of the BJP’s politics, and also the reason why they were in attendance despite not being supporters of any mainstream party.

As Gandhi was still in between his speech, these young men dressed in pyjamas and gum boots to brave the freezing wet weather stood on plastic chairs, like most attendees, to get a better view of the leaders on stage. What was different about this rally? “Nobody paid us to be here,” one of them said. “Other parties have to pay people to come but here everyone has come voluntarily just to hear [Gandhi speak].”

An unprecedented welcome

The yatra was received by an unprecedented gathering as it entered the Kashmir Valley on the morning of January 27. Starting out at 9 in the morning, early by standards of Kashmir’s harsh cold, the yatra marched on potholed roads made worse by melting snow and mud. 

A large number of people gathered on elevated spots along the route, all eager to get a glimpse of Gandhi. However, within a few hours of marching in south Kashmir, Gandhi was escorted away in a vehicle after his security team advised against further movement.

The Congress later alleged a security lapse as a crowd of enthusiastic supporters reached too close to Gandhi, who was accompanied by former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah.

“Unfortunately the police arrangement completely collapsed,” Gandhi said at an unscheduled address to the press that afternoon. “The police people who were supposed to manage the crowd and hold the rope either left or were nowhere to be seen.”

Speaking at the press conference later, former Congress state president and the party’s pointsman in Kashmir, Ghulam Ahmad Mir, said the incident “was an attempt to sabotage” the yatra and it was likely “an authority at some high level” who gave directions to officers on the ground. 

Gandhi was scheduled to halt in Vessu, where a large colony of Kashmir Pandit migrants who were employed by the government under a 2008 rehabilitation scheme are housed – they are on a protest against the J&K administration for nearly half a year. 

On its part, the Jammu and Kashmir police admitted that it didn’t anticipate a big crowd. “Organisers and managers of BJY did not intimate about large gathering from Banihal joining the Yatra,” the police said in a statement. “There was no security lapse at all. We will provide foolproof security.”

The next day, an outer cordon – missing in Kulgam – was formed by paramilitary troops holding a rope as the yatra proceeded towards the outskirts of Srinagar city on the highway through Kashmir's famed saffron fields. Gandhi was joined by J&K’s last elected chief minister and former BJP ally Mehbooba Mufti, who also brought her daughter to the yatra.

Gandhi led a small march from the outskirts of the Srinagar city to the party’s regional office in the main city centre. Gandhi also hoisted the tricolour in the city's historic Lal Chowk area amid tight security.

As per varying estimates, about 5,000 to 10,000 people showed up for the yatra on its first day in Kashmir – an unprecedented turnout for a central party after the effective abrogation of Article 370 in August 2019. A sizable crowd assembled on Saturday and on Sunday as well, and what lacked for numbers was ostensibly made up in enthusiasm. 

“We came here today to see him,” said Manzoor Bhat, a 35 year old Congress supporter as he marched behind Gandhi on Friday, January 27. “But also to show support. The [BJP] has made things worse for all of us and we are all desperate for an alternative.” 

Bhat said his business was suffering because of the central government’s policies. “If I used to earn 2,000 rupees a day earlier, I earn only a thousand and I am saving nothing because of inflation,” he said. “They [BJP] don’t even let us talk about it.”

370 in the air

“If we tell you the reality of what our problems are, we will be booked under UAPA,” a young Kashmiri, who stood waiting for Gandhi in south Kashmir’s Qazigund on January 27, told former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Digvijaya Singh, who was marching much ahead of the yatra.

The man talked about repression in Kashmir, citing the reaction to Singh’s recent remarks about the surgical strikes as an example, and also mentioning alleged scams in government recruitments since August 2019. Singh, however, marched ahead without responding.

In J&K, the Congress was faced with direct questions on the party’s stand on Article 370. While the resentment over the abrogation was not as directly vocal in the Jammu region or in the conversation with the Ladakh delegation, the grievances raised with Gandhi arose from the move.

To many, it was a safe platform to vent frustrations against the current administration. 

Abdul Majeed Itoo, a farmer in his late 50s from Qazigund, said he was a Congress voter and was marching because of the “wounds” inflicted on Kashmir in 2019.

The Congress, Itoo said, “never went back on their promises all those years despite so much pressure to remove Article 370. But Now we have a party in power that is robbing us of our money, snatching away our lands.”

Itoo said there was anger over the land eviction drive in J&K. “The only solution is a leader who returns us the rights that were stolen...all we want is balm on our wounds and only Rahul Gandhi can do that. He comes from the family that freed and made India.”

Marching in Qazigund, Mohammad Ashraf, a Congress supporter from Dumhal Khashipora, said the party “will not break and remake Kashmir like the BJP”. “Even if someone makes a mistake, they are more forgiving unlike [the BJP].”

‘One can hope’

While Congress workers from J&K have repeatedly stressed on issues pertaining to Article 370 and its abrogation as being unacceptable, understandably for local reasons, the party itself has shied away from clearly denouncing the BJP’s move. In the final press conference, Gandhi dodged the 370 question nearly a dozen times.

Srinagar-based political analyst Noor Baba said the strong support for the Bharat Jodo Yatra in Kashmir despite the Congress traditionally lacking a support base was indicative of the public anger against the BJP. 

“They may not necessarily be supporters of the Congress or its policies but politics has been completely suspended for the last three years and they got an opportunity to vent their emotions against BJP’s policies,” he said. “They found this a safe opportunity because this is part of a larger mainstream party. Nobody is going to dub anybody participating in this rally as anti-national.”

The Congress didn’t risk expressing support for the restoration of Article 370 but for the people of J&K, Baba said, “it would be easier to hope that the party would be much more available to accepting and [granting] some degree of security on these issues” of land rights and job security for locals.

“People can at least hope with the Congress. There is no hope with the BJP that has taken away all these things.”

* Names changed to protect identity