India’s New Voter Rights In Kashmir Could Strangle Local Political Parties, Muslims
A man shows the ink on his fingernail that marks that he voted in the elections in Kashmir. Creative Commons photo.
SRINAGAR, Jammu-Kashmir— A political storm has erupted after Jammu-Kashmir’s Chief Electoral Officer Hridesh Kumar recently announced that anybody living and working or studying in the contested Jammu-Kashmir region, even temporarily, can vote in the assembly elections, likely next year.
Local political parties say the move is intended to inject Hindu votes from outside the region and influence the upcoming elections in favor of the Bharatiya Janata Party that rules India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The Muslim-majority region is claimed in full but ruled in part by both Pakistan and India, nuclear rivals that have fought two wars over the northern Himalayan territory that harbors access to water among other resources. The BJP campaigned on a promise to strip Indian-ruled Kashmir of its semi-autonomy, which the Indian constitution had guaranteed. The Modi government delivered on that promise in 2019, changing the Indian constitution to allow non-Kashmiris to vote and own land there.
The BJP revoked Article 370 with the stated aims of bringing development to Kashmir, ending separatism and bringing the region closer to India, but Kashmir-based parties say the motive behind ending Kashmir’s special status was to erode the region's unique identity and change its demography.
Kumar said 2.5 million new voters are likely to be registered in Jammu-Kashmir. He said there was no need to be a permanent resident of Jammu-Kashmir to enroll in the voter list, and nonresidents living in Jammu-Kashmir for a seasonal job, education or business purpose can cast their vote in the region.
The move to give voting rights to nonresidents could increase the voter count in Jammu-Kashmir by a third.
Kashmir had acceded to India at the time of India’s independence in 1947 rather than merging with a Muslim Pakistan under a constitutional provision called Article 370 that allowed a semi-autonomous rule in Kashmir. When the Indian government repealed Article 370 in August 2019, Jammu-Kashmir was split into two union territories and brought under direct rule of New Delhi. Security forces patrolling Kashmir enforced a strict lockdown and total internet and phone blockade that lasted more than six months.
The rights to assemble and protest were revoked, and hundreds of Kashmiri men and teens were arrested and detained under a law called the Public Safety Act, by which anybody in Kashmir can be detained up to two years without a trial.
New domicile and land laws were also introduced to pave the way for outsiders to own property and settle in Kashmir.
Jammu-Kashmir is 68% Muslim and 30% Hindu. Nearly 7 million people live in the Kashmir Valley, 97% of whom are Muslim.
In the last three decades, about 47,000 people have been killed in conflict, mainly between Indian security forces and Kashmiri militant separatists, according to government estimates.
In the 1990s many Kashmiri Hindus fled for their lives and settled outside Kashmir in places like Jammu and Delhi. In 2022, Hindus again moved out of Kashmir after a fresh wave of violence targeted Hindus. Many are now refusing to return to their government jobs in Kashmir.
Local political party responses
The chief electoral officer’s statement has drawn a sharp response from regional parties like the People’s Democratic Party and the National Conference. The Kashmir-based parties have hit at the BJP, terming this a ploy for disempowering the people of Jammu-Kashmir and turning the electoral results in its favor.
Former chief minister of Jammu-Kashmir Mehbooba Mufti said the decision to allow nonresidents to cast a vote in the assembly elections is the last nail in the coffin of electoral democracy.
“They have removed Article 370 from Jammu and Kashmir in an unconstitutional manner,” Mufti told the media. “The Indian constitution was subverted, and people were told that all this was being done in the name of national interest, but all of it (was) being done in BJP’s own interest.
“Jammu and Kashmir has become an experimental ground. Democracy is not only under threat in Jammu and Kashmir but the process of rigging (elections) is underway in the whole of the country.”
Another former chief minister, Omar Abdullah, questioned the BJP in a tweet, saying such a move won’t help the BJP at the time of elections.
A year after the abrogation of Article 370, the regional parties set aside their differences to merge and contest the local bodies’ elections jointly, successfully disrupting the BJP’s plan to extend its reach to Kashmir and render local opposition parties irrelevant at the grassroots.
The alliance of Kashmir-centric parties, called the People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration, swept the local bodies elections, winning over 100 seats — mostly from the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley — while the BJP won 70 seats, mostly from the Hindu-dominated Jammu region.
Kashmir elections under Indian rule have traditionally seen low voter turnouts, with separatist leaders calling for a poll boycott. But at the time of local bodies’ elections, the separatists didn’t call for a boycott.
The BJP has, meanwhile, welcomed the induction of new voters and hit at the regional parties, stating that they are now feeling the heat of democracy.
“Welcome the induction of 2.5 lakh new voters, especially the youth in the new voter list,” BJP’s Jammu-Kashmir spokesperson Altaf Thakur said. “Democracy (is) flourishing in Jammu and Kashmir. Also a great step by Election Commission of India for giving voting rights in Assembly polls to non-local laborers, those who have come for studies, and those here for security purposes.”
Analysts say the BJP is aware that the regional parties pose a challenge to its chances of coming to power. The BJP is hoping to reap the benefits of scrapping Jammu-Kashmir’s special status in the Indian Union. It is also hoping the west Pakistan refugees who have benefited from revocation of Article 370 will throw their weight behind the BJP.
There are close to 150,000 west Pakistan refugees living in Jammu; all are Hindus or Sikhs who fled religious persecution, some at the partition of India in 1947. Before the revocation of Article 370, they had the right to contest and vote in the Indian parliamentary elections as citizens of India, but since they were not born in Jammu-Kashmir, they could not contest or vote in state elections and were denied state government jobs and even a ration card for benefit programs.
The BJP had made an electoral promise of giving rights to those refugees, including the right to vote, own property and gain greater access to higher education and state government jobs.
Analysts say there is still no clarity on the amount of time nonresidents must spend living in the region to become eligible to cast their vote.
“It is difficult to imagine similar rules applying in the rest of the country,” said Zafar Choudhary, a journalist based in Jammu-Kashmir.
Zaffar Iqbal is a journalist based in Kashmir, India. He has reported for 18 years on armed encounters, environmental issues, crime, politics, culture and human rights. He’s formerly the bureau chief of Jammu-Kashmir for NDTV.