Engineering Rashid?

By Faisul Yaseen

In politics snakes marry rats and bulls chase lizards. This holds particularly true about the politics of Kashmir.

Engineer Rashid’s political comeback in Kashmir after his release from Tihar Jail is an unfolding chapter in the region’s turbulent political saga. Outspoken and often virulently critical legislator, and with politics in the most unorthodox of flavours, Rashid’s reentry comes just at the time when the waters of Kashmiri politics run very turbulently – a seat of dominance of the regional parties and decay among the youth.

Rashid’s meteoric rise in the parliamentary polls was not at all an electoral fluke. His soft-separatist stance sang to that particularly excluded voice of Kashmiris in the post-Article 370 era. Catering to pro-Kashmir sentiments, he often challenges the New Delhi’s narrative. Rashid tapped into an undercurrent of discontent, especially among Kashmiri young voters. The triumph over two heavyweights of local politics – Omar Abdullah, the former chief minister, and Sajad Gani Lone of the Peoples Conference (PC) – marked the shift in Kashmir’s political mood.

Abdullah and Lone have been stalwarts in mainstream politics for long. Their defeats at the hands of Rashid indicated an increasing impatience with traditional power structures. Traditionally, the NC and the PC, and for that matter the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), have had to walk a tightrope between Kashmir’s regional aspirations and their engagements with New Delhi. For Rashid, there was no intent to walk this tightrope: The message stayed squarely on a pro-Kashmiri and anti-Delhi plank – a message of identity and autonomy.

To much of the young generation, Rashid’s anti-establishment rhetoric is especially attractive. They have grown up in an age that has seen greater military presence, more frequent curfews, and a clampdown on digital expression.

For these voters, then, his categorical criticism of New Delhi and his commitment to Kashmiri offer a refreshing alternative to the PDP and the NC stances-that seem so placatory. His ability to question New Delhi with openness has made for him a loyal constituency of citizens who feel disenfranchised by both New Delhi and the old party networks in the region.

The youth was a significant factor in Rashid’s success in parliamentary polls. Unlike the mainstream parties, Rashid has been candid about his reservations regarding the kind of concessions he feels have been made to New Delhi and has stressed the importance of dialogue and negotiation more than once. His politics is boldly strident and that goes down pretty well with the youth in Kashmir who will have little time for sweet talking. He is the voice for their issues in their minds and is, by his own words, ready to fight for the very rights they are denied. Rashid gives voice to the frustrations, hopes, and aspiration for a freer tomorrow.

The rising Rashid might fracture the erstwhile hardcore electorates of both the NC and the PDP or the Congress. The NC and the PDP have traditionally called the shots in regional politics, and voters have felt them to be the best bet in the mainstream political establishment. But what Rashid has done, with his very straight, often combative politics, is in contrast sharply with the more nuanced New Delhi-oriented politics of Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti, which was where his strength actually lay.

The NC and the PDP, though contesting over the traditional votes of each party, have, over the years itself, found it difficult to sustain these voter bases because of the respective internal divisions and shifting allegiances both these parties had to contend with. The regional parties will now face the challenge of forming their political identities yet better enough to satisfy voters not satisfied with the established political elite; in which Rashid is trying to present an alternative. They can no longer rely only on the politics of representing New Delhi in Kashmir but have to turn around, not just the narrative but deliver by representing Kashmir in New Delhi. Rashid has shown that a more direct approach to politics can yield most political benefits, at least for voters who feel they have been excluded from old political frameworks.

Rashid’s rise is also intertwined with fluidity of the contours of a relationship between Kashmir and the BJP. Pro-BJP stance subscribed by some regional parties has furthered that polarisation of the electorates. While the NC and the PDP have found it hard to retain any level of autonomy in talks with New Delhi, the PC and the Apni Party have hitched their wagon to New Delhi, a strategy that they claim makes sense in terms of bringing development and stability to the region.

However, this alliance with the BJP has antagonised a considerable section of the Kashmiri electorate who view it as a party that functions with policies detrimental to Kashmir’s special status and cultural identity. Rashid’s anti-BJP rhetoric has capitalised on these feelings. His political rise, in part, becomes a reaction to the growing feeling that just like the PC and the Apni Party thought to be furthering Delhi’s agenda, the regional parties – the NC and the PDP have sidelined Kashmir’s interest always when power was on their side. In positioning himself as a bulwark against this perceived erosion of Kashmiri identity, Rashid has marshalled the support of the disillusioned voters who felt let down by the pro-BJP stance of other regional players.

Rashid’s return to the stage of Kashmir politics reflects a larger shift in the electoral landscape of the region. His ability to ride the soft-separatist wave, attract youth, and split the traditional vote marks him as a force to reckon with for any contender. His politics, based as they are on pro-Kashmir posturing and anti-Delhi sentiments, resonate with a population increasingly feeling itself to be marginalised in today’s political climate. As the regional parties reorient themselves to his challenge, will Rashid’s role in shaping up Kashmir’s political future increase or will he by being close to New Delhi end up eroding his own support base like Ghulam Nabi Azad, only time will tell.

It does not take long in Kashmir for things to change. The new Mehbooba Mufti became the old Omar Abdullah. Today’s Rashid might be the new Mehbooba Mufti. Tomorrow’s Rashid might be the new Sajad Lone and G N Azad. In politics, nothing is stagnant. Everything changes. And in Kashmir politics, doves turn into hawks and hawks into doves. How will the dice roll in the game of snakes and ladders? Only time will tell.