Writings on the Valley wall - 2

This is the second set of excerpts from Shekhar Gupta's "Writing On The Wall" from the poll-bound Kashmir Valley

What’s the toughest job in India? The most challenging, dangerous, and ultimately thankless? The short answer: It is being governor (now lieutenant governor) of Jammu and Kashmir. 

Manoj Sinha, the dhoti-clad politician from eastern Uttar Pradesh’s Ghazipur, sports a generous tuft and a constantly buzzing mind. As chief administrator of the Union Territory with no elected legislature, he is probably the most powerful official in the country. He lists the things he has done to straighten things out: Denial of jobs to the immediate family members of top militant/separatist leaders being one.

It is a territory of about 13.5 million people with 480,000 sanctioned government jobs. Another 127,000 are routinely hired as daily wagers with written commitments for confirmation after seven years. The place was a racket. Compare this with Bihar’s 517,000 sanctioned jobs for an estimated population now of about 140 million.

More importantly, all government contracts are now e-tendered. No more informal word-of-mouth contracts with no paperwork. 

Evidence, again, speaks from the walls: In the political, social and cultural heart of Kashmir, Srinagar’s Lal Chowk.

In New Market, one of the quaint lanes leading to the Jhelum River from Lal Chowk, I find a shop with a sign that simply says “E-Tendering”. Inside, the owner, Owais, sits with four computer screens in front and two heaps of what look like keychains, but are actually DSCs (digital signature certificates).

His business is helping people file e-tenders and his clients — hundreds — have left these DSCs in his care. He tells me he used to be in the garment business earlier. At just ~200 per e-tender, he says, it has more remunerative possibilities than garments. “Whatever happened to the old business?” I ask. “It was the same shop,” he says.

The Kashmir Valley is actually quite a small piece of territory, 135 km at its longest and 32 km wide.

With 7.2 million people, it is also quite thickly populated, endless rows of orchards and paddy fields dotted with small towns and villages that are still faithful to the traditional architectural aesthetic, even in new constructions. Kashmir’s villages are also among the cleanest in India.

I ask my driver: “How come there is so much new construction, so much apparent prosperity in the Valley?” All those building these nice houses now, he says, have made money from “both” sides.

What looks good in the Valley, in fact, also tells us what’s so wrong with it. The most profitable business in these decades has been what we might call conflict entrepreneurship. India and Pakistan — militaries, diplomats, but most importantly, intelligence agencies — have fought a 77-year blood feud over the Valley. Both have had plenty of cash to dispense, and on the Indian side, the establishment has tended to look away as the smartest — including politicians, businessmen and generations of government officers — have vacuum-cleaned the money the Centre keeps throwing at the problem.

The Modi government has had five years to build a new political class in Kashmir, but failed at it. So stark is this failure that it isn’t even fielding candidates in the three seats of the Valley. It has decided to do it top-down, with native talent to create new parties.

Check out what Union Home Minister Amit Shah has been saying: Vote for anybody you wish, but not for the National Conference (the Abdullahs), the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP, the Muftis), or the Congress. Translated, it means, vote for the Apni Party, founded by hugely successful entrepreneur, former Mufti loyalist and minister Altaf Bukhari.

“Are you close to the BJP, are you working with Delhi?” I ask him during a campaign break at the village of Brenti Bat Pora near Anantnag. “Of course I am. I am never shy of saying that. Who will you work with if not with Delhi? Islamabad?” he asks.

Kashmir’s tragedy is that everybody works with Delhi but pretends they don’t. And they keep looking at the “other” side, too. That has to change now. The future of Kashmiris lies in working with Delhi and giving up all ambiguity. That’s Bukhari’s view. Is he going to win? He doesn’t seem overly concerned if he doesn’t.

He sees a new future for himself. This is the closest you’ll see to an old-fashioned king’s party. All he wants the Centre to do right now is to look kindly at people it has punished -- the thousand-plus in long detention, many in jail in faraway states. It is all about making peace with the young people, he argues. Not one of the stone-throwers or militants was older than 20 or so. They have a full life ahead of them.

We hear similar words from some of his younger, equally articulate rivals. Waheed-ur-Rehman Para of Mehbooba Mufti’s PDP is asking for a reconciliation process, an amnesty for the jailed youth. He has spent the better part of the past six years, since that coalition broke, in jail, with the charges against him including terror funding. “We accept the Constitution, we accept India, where is the problem then? Why won’t the Centre trust us?”

The second is Sajad Lone in Srinagar. He’s revived his slain father’s People’s Conference, is contesting from Baramulla, and is seen as favoured by Delhi. His father, Abdul Ghani Lone, was a founder and key figure in the now banned and defunct Hurriyat. He was assassinated in 2002, obviously on the orders of the Inter-Services Intelligence.

You can find a thousand Kashmir experts. But anybody halfway honest will tell you its politics confounds them. Think of Kashmir as an Indian Premier League equivalent that’s gone on for 77 years, with the same franchises, shuffling the same players. 

A new player has risen in this old gathering. Sheikh Abdul Rashid, mostly known as Engineer Rashid, has been in jail for five years on charges of terror funding. He is contesting the Baramulla seat from Tihar. He’s drawing the largest, most enthusiastic crowds. Responses to his absentee campaign, led by his college-going son Abrar Rashid, have been nothing short of messianic. The slogan is “zulm ka jawab vote se” (we will fight oppression with votes).

The unprecedented voter response in this campaign — the highest everywhere since 1996, and the highest ever in Baramulla — is telling us something. As is a coaching centre called Hope Academy in Anantnag and a lively café named Cuppa Curiosity in Baramulla.

So far, so good. Just don’t rush to conclude that it means the problem in the Valley is over. That would be over-interpreting a positive change. This voting has given a quietened people a new voice, an outlet and also an opportunity to vent — if only through the vote. It is one giant catharsis. And it is still a work in progress.

The full article can be read on www.business-standard.com

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