An Editorial in the Daily Kashmir Images laments on destructive behavior of separatists
Hartal politics
With the Parliamentary elections over and north Kashmir recording very good poll percentage in comparison to south and central parts of the Valley, the question that needs to be answered is whether the poll boycott call given by two factions of Hurriyat and other separatist leaders has helped poor Kashmiris in any form. Answer is a simple no. Election is a democratic process wherein people are given a chance to elect representatives who they want to run the affairs of the state. They choose people for administrative purposes. Things can’t happen in a vacuum and therefore governments are needed to make things move. If those who run the government have peoples’ mandate, they are more accountable and have to deliver. In the lack of elected governments, the people have no access to the rulers and thus their voices go unheard.
Those who advocate boycott of polls are linking the broader Kashmir issue with the poll process. Respecting their perceptions, one needs to ask them – in 1989 only two per cent voters voted in Valley. So was Kashmir issue resolved? And in 2008 elections, the poll percentage was above 50 per cent – did that change the status of Kashmir issue? The answer is simple no.
Linking broader Kashmir issue with polls is not going to help anyone. These elections this time were held for forming government at New Delhi. Whether a few million Kashmiris would have voted or stayed away, the government would still be formed. Those who reject elections and want people to stay away from the process need to be asked that have ever their boycott call forced the Election Commission to stop conducting elections? No, it will not and therefore the only thing that happens in the wake of low turn out is that unwanted people get elected and the general masses suffer.
We can’t stop our kids from going to school till Kashmir issue is resolved. We need health care, pure drinking water, good roads, power projects, employment avenues and all these can’t wait till resolution of the issue. Elections are for electing a group of people who people believe can deliver better than others.
Anyway, the elections are over so the boycott debate too must end now. Valley has seen too much of hartals during the election period. People have suffered too much. The economy of this place is already in a shambles and the unending hartals and protest calls are finishing whatever little of it is left. The frequent strikes have ruined the academic calendar. Agreed that separatists have every right to pursue their political agenda but politics is a game of strategies and you can’t keep trying a method of agitation endlessly knowing that the method helps neither your cause nor the common people.
Now that elections are over, the separatist leadership should stop calling hartals and agitations. The post Friday prayer agitations always turn violent and scores get injured besides economic loses to the people living in those areas. Therefore the separatist leadership needs to stop calling for these protests and allow normality to return to Kashmir. Kashmiris are looking ahead to a good tourist season, let separatist not shatter their dreams by calling strikes and protests.