Post-2019, Jammu and Kashmir has witnessed a significant shift in the conduct and essence of its politics. The critical dynamic guiding this transformation in the electoral process is deeply rooted in the emotional spectrum, both individual and collective, which will likely determine the course of future elections.
In recent weeks, whenever I log into social networking sites such as Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, the first visuals that greet me are captions like “Sher Aaya Aher Saya” (the lion is coming) and “Padar Sehe” (father of lion), among others.
One cannot ignore the backdrop of election rally music, which ranges from Imran Khan’s campaign tunes to Kashmiri folk songs and Bollywood tracks.
The mode of traditional election campaigning has drastically evolved from phrases like “mouji seni kah ronuth” (Mother, what have you cooked?) to “Inqalab Aaya Ga” (Revolution is coming).
Additionally, the method of campaigning has taken a shift; where once Kashmiri political leaders addressed election rallies under heavy security in confined spaces, now these leaders prefer door-to-door campaigns with significantly less security. This adjustment demonstrates the current acceleration and fluidity in political rallies and campaigns.
The people of Jammu and Kashmir, previously a state and now a Union Territory, are prepared to elect their assembly representatives amid chaos and confusion. In the last state assembly election, there were three to four prominent political parties with conventional manifestos and slogans like “Your Dignity, My Dignity, 370-370” and others demanding demilitarization, autonomy, and the revocation of laws such as AFSPA and PSA.
However, all these demands have been muted with the changing morphology and physiology of Jammu and Kashmir, i.e., the transformation of the state into a Union Territory.
In the recent parliamentary elections, it was evident that especially the first-time voters of Kashmir showed massive involvement and participation. The people voted in favor of parties like the National Conference, Bharatiya Janata Party, and Awami Ittehad Party.
Revisiting the streams of these parliamentary elections, we observe that Omar Abdullah, a stalwart of the National Conference, was defeated by the jailed Engineer Rashid.
Before the elections, Abdullah was confident of a victory, but the people of North Kashmir rejected him in favour of Engineer Rashid, highlighting an emerging trend across the political realms of increasing recognition of affectivity.
The emotionally charged political rhetoric, excessive politicking, and the district-wise wave of youngsters acted as vectors in revisiting the ‘affect turn’ in the realm of political emotions.
Mehbooba Mufti of the People’s Democratic Party also faced defeat against the Gujjar ethnic NC leader Mian Altaf Ahmad, while the BJP secured two seats in the Jammu region.
Message of Parliamentary Elections
The parliamentary elections clarified that Kashmiri youth, particularly those voting for the first time and those from the 1990s generation, started evaluating their candidates not based on performance but on the structure of their speeches, political ambience, and aesthetics.
Both the NC and PDP are still entrenched in their traditional political ambience without presenting any new political agenda or significant engagement for the forlorn youth of Jammu and Kashmir.
Some parties, like the PDP, are attempting to renovate and revive their existence, while others like the NC, BJP, and Congress are vying for power equations. The once dominant Sher-i-Kashmir’s NC is now struggling to regain power and maintain its political influence in Jammu and Kashmir.
The Congress, which is also the largest opposition party at the centre, seeks to claim its stake in the uncertain political landscape of Kashmir following setbacks like the Amarnath land row and the Afzal Guru case.
The energetic Congress stalwart Rahul Gandhi has learned to maintain a presence everywhere.
Meanwhile, the BJP, which was once non-existent in Kashmir, now marks its presence through rallies fully supported by top brass leaders like Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, and the ideologue for Kashmir, Ram Madhav.
The political and election space in Kashmir is not just about these major parties; we cannot underestimate the emergence of new political waves, especially personalities like Engineer Rashid, Altaf Bukhari, Sajad Lone, and other independent candidates.
Jailed Engineer Rashid still possesses an emotional appeal that can attract voters through various tactics.
New faces like Sarjan Barkati, once a pied piper of Shopian, will contest against Omar Abdullah; Barkati’s daughter, too, possesses emotional sensibilities that appeal to the younger generation. She can wield her charm of innocence and the politics of misery to challenge Omar Abdullah.
Abdullah, sensing the future of election campaigning, has also begun to engage in what can be described as a politics of pleading, asking for a mercy chance. It is evident how the National Conference is hell-bent on trying to save the face of its leader, Omar Abdullah, who, being a symbolic figure of the NC, is contesting from two constituencies to ensure he does not lose in this election.
The current trend of ‘virality’ in both public and political conversations, driven by the diversification of emotions in this era of over-information, underscores the significant shift in the political morphology of Jammu and Kashmir.
Emotional Implications
The divisive and polarizing effects of the newly independent candidates and parties have strong emotional implications behind their motives.
Another ‘event’ brimming with the interplay of emotions and the mass-driven movement is the scenario involving the jail-tagged upcoming contestants, which reflects a pattern of disempowering established parties like the NC and disengaging the youth from their dynastic political spaces.
In the politics of Jammu and Kashmir, metaphors speak loudly. New metaphors like “Tihar jail,” “Jailed Father’s Daughter,” and “Politics of Misery” are driven by a herd mentality, aiming to access the freedom of expressing themselves within their emotional degrees of freedom.
Every metaphor carries a community message, purposefully designed to stir the same group of people sharing a common convergence of emotions. Moreover, Instagram and reel-consuming voters need a cosmetic show to vent their emotions of excitement.
They show little interest in political history or any scholarly discourse. They are always in search of a thrill. This generation is beyond the gravitational pull of Kashmir politics; they exist in an excited state, constantly seeking stimulation.
One more interesting chapter of the new post-2019 wave of politics in Jammu and Kashmir is the entry of erstwhile groups that constituted Hurriyat and members of banned Jamaat-e-Islami, who previously denounced electoral democracy and elections as a ‘Taghuti Nizam‘ (Evil System).
The new wave has engulfed them, and they now accept electoral spaces as spaces of worship. By engaging in soft campaigning and moral politics, they too are eager to appeal to the electorate. They juggle with the pace of slogans like “Koun Aaya Koun Aaya” (Who is coming?) and “Sher Aaya Sher Aaya” (The lion is coming), capturing the emotional and political currents of the time.
Jammu and Kashmir previously had a significant vacuum of contestants; it was a competition among a few. Now, the trend has changed entirely. People from different regions, castes, religions, genders, and ethnicities are contesting this election.
This turbo race of contestation makes Kashmir once again a massive political market with many political drivers trying to rescue statehood while others maintain their party stature.
Directly or indirectly, political parties labelling each other as BJP’s A team and B team must be invoking laughter among BJP ranks. They are silently watching and observing this game of labelling.
On the other side, the silence of the BJP and Ram Madhav’s involvement raises significant questions about the nature of politics after the election results and the fate of alliances. That will be an interesting question or puzzle to solve or unfold.
*Suheel Rasool Mir is a sociologist working on the borderlands of Kashmir and Ladakh, the sociology of Ethnicity and sociology at the margins. He is the author of the “Cultural Encyclopedia of Dard Tribe”.
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