Yawar Hussain
SRINAGAR: By selecting two ministers from the Pir Panjal belt of Jammu region in his compact cabinet, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has sought to achieve three goals.
One is an expanded outreach to the Jammu region. The inclusion of three out of five ministers from the Jammu region where the National Conference (NC) won only seven out of 43 seats is largely being seen as a major political reconciliation with Jammu province that handed 29 out of 43 seats to the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP).
However, the composition of the cabinet reflects more an attempt by the NC to consolidate its base in the twin border districts of Rajouri and Poonch in the province and stymie BJP’s ambitions in this belt.
Of the three – Surinder Choudhary (who took over as the deputy chief minister), Javed Rana, and Satish Sharma (a Congress rebel who decided to support the government as an independent) – two are from the Pir Panjal region.
The decision to grant two ministerial positions, along with key portfolios such as Public Works (R&B), Industries and Commerce, Mining, Labour and Employment, Jal Shakti, and Forest, Ecology & Environment, to legislators from the region where the NC-Congress Alliance secured five out of eight seats is more than just a reward for the vote.
While one seat of Rajouri was secured by the Congress, NC won four seats. Two seats of Surankote and Thannamandi were won by rebel NC candidates, Chowdhary Akram and Muzaffar Iqbal Khan, who contested as independents. They are now back in the National Conference, taking the NC’s tally to 6 and that of the alliance to 7 in this belt.
Political Strategies
With the inclusion of Surinder Choudhary, who won the elections from Nowshera after trouncing Ravinder Raina, the president of the J&K unit of the BJP, and old party loyalist, Javed Rana from Mendhar, the National Conference has not only made a major concession to the region that has given the NC overwhelming support.
More importantly, the NC aims to take the wind out of the sails of the larger BJP project in Pir Panjal.
Since 2020, a year after the J&K Reorganisation Act stripped Jammu and Kashmir of its autonomy and statehood, the BJP’s strategy to make in-roads into the area has involved the machinations of putting its weight behind the Paharis, an ethnoreligious community comprising Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs, at the risk of intensifying the polarisation in the region on ethnic lines.
BJP had hoped to make major gains in this belt by granting the Paharis Scheduled Tribe status and escalating divisions between the Gujjars and the Paharis, thus exploiting the existing faultlines.
Reservation to Paharis
With an eye on the region, the BJP has taken consistent and systemic steps to create and fortify its voter base, primarily by offering sops to the Paharis.
The first card was the grant of four percent reservation, for the first time, to Pahari Speaking People (PSP) with a promise of inclusion into the Scheduled Tribe (ST) fold in January 2020.
The promise was made by the Union Home Affairs Minister Amit Shah leading to protests by the Gujjar-Bakerwal community across the Union Territory even at the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Gujjar-Bakerwals were brought under the ST fold in 1991by the then Congress government at the Centre, leaving out Pahari-speaking people who argued that they were equally deserving of the status, owing to the backwardness and the fragility of these hilly twin border districts.
However, the ST status to Paharis was finally granted in February 2024 with the passing of the contentious Constitution (Jammu and Kashmir) Scheduled Tribes Order (Amendment) Bill, 2023, ahead of the Lok Sabha polls held earlier this year.
Demography of Rajouri-Poonch
As per the sources in the BJP, the party’s reservation card for the Paharis stemmed from the religious demographic composition of the community in Rajouri and Poonch. Nearly half of them are Hindus and Sikhs while the other half are Muslims. A religious census of Paharis is scheduled to be held with the general census due in 2021. On the other hand, the Gujjar-Bakerwal community is primarily Muslim.
Paharis comprise 8.16 percent (over 10 lakhs) of the total population of the union territory as per the Jammu and Kashmir government’s 2018 survey for the community. As per the survey, Rajouri district tops the list in Jammu and Kashmir with 56.10 per cent (360409 persons) Pahari population followed by Poonch with 56.03 percent (267194) of Pahari population. The population survey was based on the National Census of 2011.
Gujjars and Bakerwals are nomadic tribes that constitute 11.91 per cent of the total population of Jammu and Kashmir as per the 2011 Census. In Rajouri, Gujjars account for 32.9 percent of the population while Bakerwals comprise 20.5 percent. In the neighbouring Poonch, the Gujjar population stands at 34.6 percent while Bakerwals at 30.8 per cent.
As per the 2011 Census, Rajouri has a total of 62.71 per cent (4,02,879) Muslims, 34.53 per cent (2,21,880) Hindus and 2.41 per cent (15,513) Sikhs while Poonch has 90.44 per cent (4,31,279) Muslims, 6.83 per cent (32,604) Hindus and 2.34 per cent (11,188) Sikhs. Until 2024, the Paharis in the region weren’t classified as a tribe and were part of the general category, unlike Gujjar-Bakewals who were counted separately under the Schedule Tribe fold and were primarily Muslims.
The BJP, which had already consolidated its base among the Hindu Paharis, saw a dividend in this demographic composition and hoped to further strengthen its hold by wooing the Pahari community across religious identities.
The reservation policy was a weapon to that end.
Redistricting of Boundaries
The BJP’s second card in the region was revealed after the delimitation report of 2022 which redistricted the electoral boundaries in accordance with the the J&K Reorganisation Act that mandated six extra seats in Jammu as compared to one in Kashmir.
Rajouri district got an extra assembly constituency – Thannamandi- as per the delimitation commission’s recommendations, increasing the total number of seats in the Pir Panjal region from 7 to 8.
The BJP had won two seats in the region for the first time in 2014 and was eyeing at least four out of the eight seats in the current election by redrawing the assembly constituencies in a way that consolidated the Hindu vote-bank.
The BJP’s third strategy was similarly related to the delimitation recommendations that severed Rajouri and Poonch from the Jammu parliamentary constituency and added the two districts (barring Sunderbani-Kalakote) to the Anantnag parliament seat despite a lack of geographical or cultural congruity between the two regions.
With this move, the BJP hoped to dilute the Kashmiri homogeneity of this parliamentary constituency and wrest the seat as a quid pro quo by the Pahari voters.
From Proxy Parties to Joining The Fray
A senior BJP leader, wishing anonymity said that after reports from the ground, the party decided to not field its candidate on the Anantnag-Rajouri seat as the Kashmiri voters would oppose the party vehemently.
“We sided with Apni Party’s Pahari candidate, Zafar Manhas, thinking that Pahari Muslims across the Pir Panjal’s divides would back him along with the Hindu and Sikh Paharis as well. But many Pahari Muslims didn’t vote for Apni Party. This was a debacle both for the Apni Party and us,” the BJP leader said.
The results in the parliament polls astounded political pundits as well as the BJP. Manhas of J&K Apni Party – backed by BJP – lost to NC’s veteran Gujjar leader from central Kashmir Mian Altaf Larvi by 2,81,749 votes. He finished third with just 142195 votes, way behind PDP’s Mehbooba Mufti who secured 240042 votes.
In the last few years, especially during the ongoing season of two back-to-back elections, the promise and subsequent grant of the ST status did draw a good number of Pahari leaders to the BJP including former minister Syed Mushtaq Bukhari, former Legislative Council member (MLC) Shahnaz Ganai, former MLC Rafiq Shah; former MLC Murtaza Khan; Pahari leader Mohamad Ayub Pahalwan; and prominent Pahari singer Tariq Pardesi.
Following a debacle in the parliament poll on the Anantnag-Rajouri seat, the BJP unleashed its final and fourth salvo for gaining ground in Rajouri and Poonch to secure a near majority in the elections.
BJP’s Strategy Came a Cropper
“If we had won four seats in the Pir Panjal region like we did in Chenab valley, our tally would have reached 33 With independents and five nominated MLAs, it was easy to form the government as we would have been the largest party in the UT,” a Kashmir-based BJP leader wishing anonymity said.
The importance of the region’s seats can be gauged from the BJP’s extensive campaigning in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself led from the front flanked by Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh. The latter duo shared six rallies among themselves.
Shah campaigned in Mendhar and Surankote areas of Poonch district) along with Rajouri and Thannamandi seats in the Rajouri district while Singh addressed three rallies in Poonch and Surankote.
Union Health Minister and BJP president Jagat Prakash Nadda addressed a rally in Rajouri while Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari campaigned in Budhal (Rajouri). The Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami and Union ministers G Kishen Reddy and Dr Jitendra Singh also campaigned across the region.
Instead of relying on Hindu faces, they put up six Muslim candidates on eight seats of the twin districts while opting for Gujjar leaders on the other two seats.
This card didn’t pay the expected dividends for the party as seven out of its eight candidates including five Pahari leaders lost. The only Pahari leader of the BJP to win his seat was Randhir Singh from Kalokote-Sunderbani—a seat with a larger Hindu population. The BJP even lost in Nowshera and Rajouri – both constituencies with substantial Hindu population.
BJP’s J&K President Ravinder Raina, a Pahari, lost Nowshera seat by 7819 votes; BJP General Secretary and Rajouri candidate Vibodh Gupta (Pahari) lost by 1403 votes; Thannamandi candidate Mohd Iqbal Malik (Pahari) lost by 6179; Surankote candidate Syed Mushtaq Bukhari (Pahari) lost by 8851 votes; and Mendhar candidate Murtaza Ahmad Khan (Pahari) lost by 14906 votes.
As an aside, it may be recalled that Bukhari died of a heart attack weeks after the polling.
The BJP’s two Gujjar candidates – Choudhary Zulfiqar (Buddhal) and Choudhary Abdul Gani (Poonch-Haveli) – both lost their seats to NC candidates. While Zulfiqar lost to a fellow Gujjar Javed Iqbal Choudhary, Gani lost to NC’s Pahari veteran Ajaz Jan from the region.
Overall, the BJP garnered 1,77,726 votes on the eight seats of Rajouri and Poonch while the NC-Congress along with the two winning rebel NC candidates, now part of the government, garnered 246864 votes.
Down But Not Out
The BJP’s plans were ambitious but not fully unrealistic. For a party considered a pariah in the region, it has been able to consolidate its vote bank and increase it substantially.
The BJP has lost but it cannot be declared out. Its vote share has increased in the twin districts from a meagre 6.68 percent in 2008 to 24.56 percent in 2014 and to 32.21 percent in 2024.
It has finished in the second spot in constituencies like Mendhar and Poonch-Haveli where it did not have a presence, revealing how it has still benefitted from the vacuum left by the People’s Democratic Party and Congress – now decimated or relegated to non-entities.
In Surankote, the BJP has garnered 23773 votes in this election compared to just 1472 in 2014 and 321 in 2008 polls.
Nazim Manhas, a Poonch-based journalist opines that the increase in vote share of the BJP in the region from 2014 itself depicts that the Pahari Muslims voted for the party in good numbers.
“In Surankote, the Hindu Pahari population is in the hundreds but the party’s candidate Syed Mushtaq Bukhari (now deceased) garnered over twenty thousand votes. Where did these votes come from?” Manhas said, adding that the BJP’s problems in the region stemmed from the party’s internal factionalism.
“BJP leaders were pulling each other down.”
However, Mumtaz Mehmood, a Chenab valley-based political science scholar said the BJP’s expectations of garnering grassroots support from the Pahari community by rewarding the ST status to them was flawed because they couldn’t just expect the Muslim Pahari voters to forget the nation-wide persecution of the Muslims by the BJP’s Hindu majoritarian policies and actions since 2014.
“Article 370 also mattered to some, if not all, Pahari Muslims. They saw the BJP as anti-Muslim and anti-J&K party. There was anti-incumbency factor coupled with the denial of democratic rights in whole of J&K. BJP didn’t take these things into account,” Mehmood said, adding that the NC never opposed the reservation for Paharis and had brought a resolution for the purpose when they were in power in 2014.
“So, Pahari Muslims didn’t completely see NC as a party which was against their reservation,” he said.
Despite all the political maneuvering of the BJP, the NC registered impressive victories in Pir Panjal,
Attempt to Stonewall Lotus March
However, giving the region a larger share of the pie in the ministerial cabinet reveals that the NC is wary of the BJP’s dreams of hoisting its saffron flag in the region.
The BJP’s increased vote-bank in the region is also a red herring for the NC which would try to limit the lotus’ march in these twin hill border districts. The inclusion of two ministers from the region in the streamlined cabinet stems from this need.
Jamshed Malik, a Rajouri-based journalist said that the NC has hit three targets in the Jammu region with one arrow by appointing Surinder Choudhary, a Hindu and a Pahari, as deputy chief minister and then by appointing Javed Rana, a Gujjar Muslim as a cabinet minister.
The NC has added a Hindu face and given a sense of inclusion to the Hindu-majority Jammu region. It has engaged the Paharis and it has also sought to bridge the Gujjar-Pahari divide.
“The BJP’s politics in the whole Jammu region has been silenced by this move. While NC had no other Hindu face in the Jammu region apart from Choudhary, they also needed to get in Rana who has won thrice from Mendhar, he said.”
He said the exponential increase in the vote share of BJP in the region is only because of Pahari reservation issue but still majority of the Pahari community didn’t vote for the party.
He attributed the inflation in BJP’s vote bank in the region, not to the saffron’s appeal but owing to the political heavyweights they were able to woo. The people voted for individuals, not the party, he says. He elaborates with an example.
“Mohammad Iqbal Malik, BJP’s Thannamandi candidate, would garner the same vote even if he goes to Shiv Sena, or any other party, tomorrow. Nobody here who voted for BJP has his heart with the party. So, this isn’t BJP’s vote but in favour of individual leaders who might not be there in the party in the future,” Malik said.
Tussle for Pir Panjal Ahead
The BJP’s desires in the region coupled with its increased vote bank and the National Conference’s attempt to scuttle those ambitions with its resurgence and attempt to consolidate its position are likely to make the Pir Panjal area a focal point of future regional politics.
With the panchayat and local body polls likely to be held soon, the border districts would be an interesting and pivotal battlefield.
Would the lotus bloom in the hills or will the plough turn it over and break it down?
Political Science scholar Mumtaz Mehmood says that BJP’s presence in the region is now going to be a factor that will help the party but the performance of the NC-Congress government will also determine the fate of the saffron party in the local body polls.
“Also, the Maharashtra and Jharkhand elections are going to be a factor on the overall public opinion development in the entire Jammu and Kashmir.”
On the other hand, Jamshed Malik opines that the BJP would do good in the municipal areas of the twin regions but not in the Panchayats because most of them are Gujjar-dominated areas.
“The elections in the region are fought less on development issues and more on political lines. The Panchayat and Urban Local Body polls too would likely be contested on similar lines.”
Much, however, will depend on the future strategies of the stakeholders.
—–
Have you liked the news article?