For long the political landscape of Kashmir has gone through radical changes both in structure and the thought. With time and political treachery, several credible leaders and many political bigwigs got decimated; several others popped up from nowhere in this seven-decade political confusion.
Kashmir politics since 1947 was interpreted and adopted by every politician on his terms and ways to suit him and his masters. The unfortunate part of Kashmir politics has been innocent Kashmiri people trusted almost every politician and their politics. The result of this blind faith [in politics] created a political muddle.
Anyways, this is election time, and it is of no use to regret the political past. The present election is unique in many ways. Several political parties have jumped into election fray making it multi-dimensional rather than earlier one or two parties political dominance.
Many individual political entities have created comfortable political space and influence the elections with their innovative political ideas and attractive slogans. And most importantly this time around the boycott voice is not as powerful as it used to be earlier.
The only aspect that makes this election no different thanthe earlier ones is the dream selling by the politicians. Every political partyand politician in the contest are making people believe that they are theultimate saviors and if elected they will ensure peace and bring prosperity.Few of them are loudly selling hybridized autonomy and half-baked azadi.
Undoubtedly over the period, Kashmiri people have maturedpolitically a lot, but at the end of the day, this gullible race gets swayedwith laced promises and beguiling slogans. From the times of independence inthis subcontinent, Kashmiri people have never experienced the real politicalguidance and every time got trapped into catchphrases and deception. Even theonce saviors turned into political tricksters. Later it became free for all.
A cursory look into political parties, politicians and their politics reveal an interesting pattern! The widely established National Conference possessing strong grassroots level organizational setup with changing shapes has experienced many ups and downs in its long history. Once the only political successor of Kashmiri politics was in recent past compelled to share power with its onetime worst political adversary.
Its journey from once propounding plebiscite then settling for autonomy and now selling restoration of the eroded authority of the state as a special constituent of the Indian union speaks a lot about its policies and the leadership.
Come election time its leadership turns sanctimonious [holier-than-thou] and the ultimate liberators bothering very little to peep into their earlier statements, performances, and opinions. At present, they not only sell autonomy which for years of being in power they never bothered to even retrieve from the political dustbin but also lure the masses into rosy past of Kashmir.
Overnight turning nationalist from a power-hungryconventional politician is nothing but political gimmickry. The same analogyholds good to other Kashmir centric political party—PDP (People’s DemocraticParty).
This party stormed into Kashmir politics when the conflict was at its peak and tried to cash on the sentiments of Kashmiri people with the better articulation of its agenda—to gain power.
To pursue its power doctrine the party and its leadership walked extra steps (proverbial miles) and laced the susceptive Kashmiri sentiment with the opium of ‘self-rule.’ However, this doctrine died its death with the departure of late Mufti Mohammad Syed from the political scene.
At present, PDP is excessively and very brazenly involved inreshaping its image as protectors of Kashmir people and their rights. PDPleadership, in reality, is not contesting this election seriously for gainingpower but painting itself back to ‘white and green’ from ‘red and black’ it hadturned with the arrogance of power.
The others engaged in present battle for political power arenot to be blamed for misleading the Kashmiri masses. The earlier leadership whoare in this trade [politics] for almost a century are responsible for thepolitical mess more than these fly-by-night turncoats.
The murky politics in Kashmir has given birth to many political individuals and gangs who make the people believe in their leadership and woo them to their political designs.
And out of this lot, a seemingly saner voice of Engineer Rashid has completely dominated and swept the Kashmir political scene. This one-man political army is worrying many established, and shrewd politicians and only the results will reveal what will be his future.
Engineer Rashid too during his campaign was a masterstrokein exploiting the sentiments of people. However, he is entitled to the benefit ofthe doubt as he has not yet tasted the power and maybe he is sincere in hisintentions and true to his political dreams. Only time will tell. The rest isall a political dream and sheer lust for power!