On the face of it, Kashmir is buzzing with electoral activity as it goes into assembly polls in three phases, beginning from Wednesday. Political constituencies that last took part in elections in 1987 are now back in the fray. In the dramatis personae for these polls – former members of the banned Jamaat-e-Islami Jammu and Kashmir, sons of separatist Hurriyat leaders, a jailed cleric known as “Azadi Chacha” after he helped galvanise the 2016 protests in Kashmir, the brother of Afzal Guru, hanged for his involvement in the Parliament attack of 2001.

The assembly elections of 1987, widely believed to be rigged, are said to be the tipping point for militancy in Kashmir. It prompted an exodus from the electoral mainstream in Kashmir and a disillusionment with democratic processes. Now, the same constituencies that called for poll boycotts through decades of militancy have returned to the electoral fold.

But this sudden flurry of activity may not mean a democratic reawakening in Kashmir. The return of dissidents may not be proof of the capaciousness of the electoral fold to include all kinds of political ideas. It may, instead, be a symptom of the democratic freeze that has taken hold of Kashmir since August 5, 2019, when it lost both statehood and what vestiges of autonomy remained under Article 370.

Fight for personal liberty

There is, of course, the smoke and mirrors that has distorted every election in Kashmir for decades. Various Kashmiri parties have accused each other of being proxies for the Bharatiya Janata Party, allegedly bent on forming a government in Jammu and Kashmir. The efflorescence of independent candidates is seen as a ploy to divide the Kashmiri vote to ensure that no Valley-based party wins a majority in the assembly. Conspiracy theories in the Valley see the hand of state agencies behind certain candidates.

Whatever the truth of such theories, the driving force behind the participation of several candidates is no mystery. Elections offer reprieve from the punitive measures taken by the government in the last five years, when political dissidence was branded as terror and opposition leaders were labelled as threats to national security.

It started with the Lok Sabha elections, when “Engineer” Rashid, incarcerated since 2019 in a terror funding case, became a surprise entry to the fray. Abdul Rashid Sheikh is popularly known as “Engineer” Rashid. His son asked for votes not only to secure Rashid’s release but also in the name of hundreds of others imprisoned under the Public Safety Act, a preventive detention law, or under flimsy terror charges. Rashid won, beating the National Conference’s Omar Abdullah by a large margin. On September 10, he was granted interim bail. He has now returned to Kashmir to campaign for his Awami Ittehad Party.

Sarjan Barkati, the “Azadi chacha” of South Kashmir, took a cue from Rashid to contest the assembly polls from jail. Once again, a terror accused is in a direct contest with the aggrieved Abdullah, who has levelled charges of sabotage. But at least some of the electorate seem willing to vote for him if it will ensure his release, even if it does not ensure them better roads, water or electricity.

The Jamaat, for its part, has made no secret of the fact that it is ready to fight elections if it will help lift the ban imposed on it in 2019. Since then, many of its leaders and activists have been jailed, its assets have been frozen and its properties seized. Early attempts at a rapprochement with the government were seen when the Jamaat indicated it was willing to vote in the Lok Sabha elections. The ban has not been lifted in time for the assembly elections, forcing the Jamaat to support former members contesting as independent candidates.

The party has, however, held several rallies in Kashmir, a first since 1987. So far, there has been a vast difference between the rallies of the past and the present. In the ’80s, the Jamaat had banded together with other parties of a religious bent to form the Muslim United Front, which brought anti-government energies into the democratic arena. In the decade that followed, it was closely linked to the Hizbul Mujahideen. This time, a deracinated Jamaat campaign avoids the politics of the “tehreek”, the word used in Kashmir to describe the movement for self-determination. Instead, its leaders claim the group has always operated within the limits of the Indian Constitution.

It is true that, at various points in its history, the Jamaat has experimented with electoral politics. It has even drawn allegations of cutting deals with the party at the Centre to erode the vote share of other Kashmiri parties. But these may be the politics of survival for a party that has always existed just this side of legality in the Indian state, periodically banned for its ideology and hunted down for its alleged sympathies with militant groups.

No Kashmiri party remained unscathed in the crackdown that followed August 2019. Former chief ministers, from the National Conference’s Farooq and Omar Abdullah to the People’s Democratic Party’s Mehbooba Mufti, were locked up. Even the People’s Conference’s Sajjad Lone, seen to be close to the BJP, spent months in detention. So the question of personal liberty has become a major electoral plank. Not just Engineer’s Awami Ittehad Party but also the National Conference promises torepeal the Public Safety Act, passed by its own government in 1977. Most parties claim they will petition the Centre or state agencies for reprieve for the hundreds of youth still in jail.

This is a low bar for electoral politics – candidates asking for votes to safeguard basic rights and liberties that should be a given in a democracy.

A silent public

After August 5, 2019, it seemed the once vibrant Kashmiri public sphere was shut down overnight. The adversarial local press, which reported on human rights violations by security forces and held the government to account, was decimated. Government funds were pulled from newspapers unless they toed the official line. Several journalists have been arrested. Journalists’ associations not vetted by the government have been disbanded.

For ordinary Kashmiris, there is no telling what could lead to police summons, detention, terror charges – a social media post deemed inflammatory, membership of a WhatsApp group or just the suspicion that you may be a threat to law and order. Over the past year, courts in Kashmir have struck down several detention orders under the Public Safety Act, hauling up state authorities for abusing the law.

While the media and online spaces have largely gone silent, street protests on political issues are out of the question. For thousands of Kashmiris, the only way to express a political opinion, any political opinion, is to vote. Election turnouts in the Valley were driven up in the Lok Sabha election by voters anxious to stave off the BJP, the architect of the August 2019 changes. Rashid’s victory over Abdullah in North Kashmir may also be seen as a vote against the status quo, where traditional Kashmiri parties made noises of protest against Delhi’s policies but then joined forces with the central government.

A low-stakes election

Finally, it may be asked, what is at stake in this flurry of activity? In real terms, not much. A recent culling of powers by the central government has meant the legislative assembly will be little more than a glorified municipal council.

It has also drawn unflattering comparisons with the Praja Sabha, first elected in 1934, a legislative body with limited powers within the Dogra autocracy. The reallocation of powers has meant the lieutenant governor, Delhi’s emissary in Kashmir, will have substantive powers over the police, public order and bureaucratic appointments.

This is not the shape of a truly representative democracy, where a government elected by the people has the power to decide on crucial matters of state. No matter who wins, it will be a largely symbolic victory. Look beyond the surface, and these elections seem to cement the democratic erosion that has gained pace since 2019.

Ipsita Chakravarty is a writer who lives in Kolkata.