Village council elections were held on Thursday across Indian-
controlled Kashmir, with the detention of many mainstream local politicians and a boycott by most parties prompting expectations that the polls would install supporters of the central Hindu nationalist-led government that revoked the region’s semi-autonomous status in August.
Indian officials are hoping the election of leaders of more than 300 local councils would lend credibility amid a political vacuum and contend they would represent local interests better than corrupt state-level political officials.
Photo: AP
Heavy contingents of police and paramilitary soldiers guarded polling stations. In some places, soldiers patrolled streets around polling stations. Police said no violence was reported.
The elections were boycotted by most political parties, including those whose leaders had been sympathetic to the central government, but are now in makeshift jails or under house arrest.
India’s main opposition Congress Party boycotted as well, possibly allowing a clean sweep for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The BJP has a very small base in the Kashmir Valley, the heart of a decades-old anti-India insurgency in the region of about 12 million people.
Predominantly Muslim Kashmir is split between India and Pakistan, with both countries claiming the region in its entirety. Insurgents in the Indian-controlled portion demand independence or a merger with Pakistan.
In Thursday’s elections, members of more than 300 Block Development Councils formed last year chose the councils’ leaders. Each block comprises a cluster of villages across Jammu and Kashmir, a state that the Indian Parliament downgraded in August to a federal territory, a change that takes effect on Thursday next week.
About 1,000 people ran in the elections. In at least 25 councils, candidates ran unopposed.
Most of the candidates and thousands of council members have lived for months in hotels in Srinagar, the region’s main city, because of security concerns. In the past, militants fighting against Indian rule have targeted candidates.
Officials tout the councils, which would be responsible for allocating government funds, as grassroots democracy, but observers say the system lacks legitimacy in Kashmir.
Political scientist Noor Ahmed Baba said the exercise, at least in theory, is an “important layer of democracy,” but questioned conducting it in “extremely difficult and abnormal times.”
“When most people are bothered about their basic freedoms and livelihood, facing crushing restrictions, you’ve these elections,” Baba said. “This is more like completing a formality. It looks more like an artificial exercise.”
Council elections held in December last year were boycotted by separatist leaders and armed rebel groups that challenge India’s sovereignty over Kashmir. Both rebels and separatists have called elections in Kashmir an illegitimate exercise under military occupation.
About 60 percent of the 21,208 village council seats in the Kashmir Valley are vacant because no one ran for them. The winners of another 30 percent were elected unopposed.
Before downgrading Kashmir’s status, New Delhi sent tens of thousands of additional troops to the already heavily militarized regions, imposed a sweeping curfew, arrested thousands and cut virtually all communications.
Authorities have since eased some restrictions, lifting roadblocks and restoring landlines and some mobile phones. They have encouraged students to return to school and businesses to reopen, but Kashmiris have largely stayed home, in defiance or fear amid threats of violence.
The Modi government says removing a constitutional provision that gave Kashmir some measure of autonomy since independence from British rule in 1947 was necessary to give rights afforded other Indian citizens, usher in greater economic development and do away with the sense of separateness that BJP leaders say has cultivated the separatist movement.
However, as the crackdown continues, Kashmiris have quietly refused to resume their normal lives, confounding India at their own economic expense. Shops have adopted new, limited hours of operation in the early morning and evening.
Jammu and Kashmir Chief Electoral Officer Shailendra Kumar said the government had planned for the polls in June.
Conducting the elections during an ongoing crackdown “could be a discussion point, but should we delay it for another year? I don’t think so. This is a clear-cut system governed by rules, and rules don’t ask me to gauge mood and sentiments but to facilitate the process,” Kumar said.
Some Kashmiris view the polls cynically as a move to create a new political elite loyal to the Modi government that found its plans widely rejected in the region.
“Every election here is meant to pull wool over eyes of Kashmiris and create a smoke screen that everything is fine here,” college teacher Mohammed Abdullah said. “It’s also meant to convey to the world that India is a democracy and Kashmir is part of this vibrant democracy.”
To Abdullah and other Kashmiris still reeling from the changes in the region, the polls suggest the opposite.
In months, Lo Yuet-ping would bid farewell to a centuries-old village he has called home in Hong Kong for more than seven decades. The Cha Kwo Ling village in east Kowloon is filled with small houses built from metal sheets and stones, as well as old granite buildings, contrasting sharply with the high-rise structures that dominate much of the Asian financial hub. Lo, 72, has spent his entire life here and is among an estimated 860 households required to move under a government redevelopment plan. He said he would miss the rich history, unique culture and warm interpersonal kindness that defined life in
AERIAL INCURSIONS: The incidents are a reminder that Russia’s aggressive actions go beyond Ukraine’s borders, Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said Two NATO members on Sunday said that Russian drones violated their airspace, as one reportedly flew into Romania during nighttime attacks on neighboring Ukraine, while another crashed in eastern Latvia the previous day. A drone entered Romanian territory early on Sunday as Moscow struck “civilian targets and port infrastructure” across the Danube in Ukraine, the Romanian Ministry of National Defense said. It added that Bucharest had deployed F-16 warplanes to monitor its airspace and issued text alerts to residents of two eastern regions. It also said investigations were underway of a potential “impact zone” in an uninhabited area along the Romanian-Ukrainian border. There
A French woman whose husband has admitted to enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her while she was drugged on Thursday told his trial that police had saved her life by uncovering the crimes. “The police saved my life by investigating Mister Pelicot’s computer,” Gisele Pelicot told the court in the southern city of Avignon, referring to her husband — one of 51 of her alleged abusers on trial — by only his surname. Speaking for the first time since the extraordinary trial began on Monday, Gisele Pelicot, now 71, revealed her emotion in almost 90 minutes of testimony, recounting her mysterious
The governor of Ohio is to send law enforcement and millions of dollars in healthcare resources to the city of Springfield as it faces a surge in temporary Haitian migrants. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine on Tuesday said that he does not oppose the Temporary Protected Status program under which about 15,000 Haitians have arrived in the city of about 59,000 people since 2020, but said the federal government must do more to help affected communities. On Monday, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost directed his office to research legal avenues — including filing a lawsuit — to stop the federal government from sending
RSS