It
is truly amazing how terrorists and their sponsors set the agenda of
international discourse – perhaps nowhere more so than is the case
with the discourse on democracy. This is apparent on the current
international positions on the forthcoming elections in Jammu &
Kashmir, scheduled by India’s Election Commission (EC) for October
2002.
Even
before the EC’s announcement of the poll dates, a constant refrain
emanating from Pakistan has demanded ‘international observers’
to oversee this election, and Pakistan’s dictator, President
Pervez Musharraf – who seized power through a coup
d’etat against a democratically elected government, and who is
also the architect of one of the greatest of electoral scams in the
shape of a ‘referendum’ to legitimise is continuance in power
– assures the world that ‘the United Nations would not recognise
the outcome of the elections in Kashmir without international
monitoring’. This is, of course, entirely within the established
confines of the fractious Indo-Pak discourse, but when it is
faithfully echoed by leaders of the ‘free world’ – including
many in America – there is reason for both surprise and concern.
Another
demand by the terrorist groupings operating in J&K, by their
leaders headquartered in Pakistan, and by their state sponsors there
is for the ‘release of political prisoners’ prior to the
proposed elections, a demand, once again, conscientiously echoed by
the leaders of the ‘free world’. This creates the image of
hundreds of ‘political prisoners’ languishing in India’s
prisons – which is arrant nonsense. Data available indicates that,
with over 35,540 militants and suspects apprehended by security
forces between 1990 and May 2001, on the latter date, a total of
just 321 persons were still in judicial custody in J&K on
various charges relating to terrorism (the rest had all been
released, in due course, on bail or after preliminary
investigations). There were, among these, none who could
legitimately answer to the title of ‘political prisoner.’
The
demand for the release of ‘political prisoners’ prominently
refers to Yasin Malik and to Syed Ali Shah Geelani, members of the
separatist Hurriyat Conference. As for Malik, it is a measure of the
inefficiency and licentiousness of India’s justice and political
systems that he could, till a few weeks ago, walk free. He is a
prime accused in the murder of four Indian Air Force personnel in
Srinagar in 1990; he was one of the architects of the Rubaiya Sayeed
kidnapping that set the current wave of terrorism in motion in 1989;
and as the head of the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) – the
most prominent gang of terrorists in the State between 1989 and 1993
– he directly engineered hundreds of other murders before he chose
to ‘come overground’ and ‘join the political process.’ And
it is, to its abiding disgrace, perhaps only in India among
democracies, that a former terrorist can so easily project himself
and be accepted as a political leader. Geelani, in turn, was
recently arrested (on June 9, 2002) on specific charges of illegal
transfers of large sums of money from paymasters abroad to active
terror groups in J&K. In the US, a man like Malik would long
have been dispatched to the electric chair or gas chamber; and
Geelani would have difficulty finding a lawyer to defend him in
court. It is inconceivable how the release of individuals such as
these can be of relevance to the legitimacy of a democratic
electoral process.
There
is a need, here, to begin to make clearer distinctions in the
contemporary democratic discourse, and to suspend the artificial and
absurd parity of status that is currently maintained between
positions articulated by a democracy such as India, and an
authoritarian state such as Pakistan. A separation of discourse among
democracies, on the one hand, and that between
democracies and various non-democratic, authoritarian and rogue
states, on the other, is necessary if any rationality is to be
imposed in the international discourse. While ‘constructive
engagement’ with the latter category may be necessary or expedient
in order to secure improvements in conditions within these states
– states which deny and abuse the fundamental democratic rights of
their people – such states must not be allowed to dictate the
course and character of the discourse among
democratic nations.
A
closer look at the context of elections in J&K is useful. First,
the terrorist conglomerate United Jehad Council (UJC), which
operates openly from Pakistan, has issued direct threats of violence
to disrupt the election process in J&K – and already several
potential candidates, primarily from the ruling National Conference,
have been assassinated. This, interestingly, has evoked little
response from the very vocal defenders of freedom and democracy in
the ‘international community.’
The
separatist All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) has long been
claiming to represent the ‘will of the people of Kashmir’. For
years they have been seeking negotiations to secure a privileged
place on the democratic table as the ‘sole representatives’ of
the Kashmiri people, but simply and obstinately refuse to enter the
electoral process on equal terms. The reason is not far to find –
go to Kashmir and talk to his worst critics, and they will tell you
that Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah and his National Conference –
for better or for worse – will win hands down. And they don’t
need to rig the elections. The Hurriyat refuses to participate
because it fears that its pretensions to popularity will be debunked
As
for ‘monitoring’ the elections, if the objective is simply to
ensure that these are free and fair, the conditions are more than
easily met without the uncertain and politically questionable device
of an official international monitor. The possibility of such an
international monitor is specifically precluded by India’s
Representation of the People Act, which bars both foreigners and
private Indian citizens from appointment as observers.
This
does not, however, preclude, or even dilute, the possibility of
transparency. If there is, indeed, a real and unbiased desire to see
free and fair elections in J&K – and not just to play the
‘Great Game’ in this region – let the nations of the world
saturate J&K with their diplomats and their media. The latter
will, in any event, be there in overwhelming numbers with or without
such ‘concerned’ intervention. Let the smallest infraction, the
least incident of abuse, be magnified a million-fold through the
media across the world as a measure of India’s failure. India has
made it abundantly clear that it would have no objection to – and
would, indeed, facilitate – such a presence, without any limit to
numbers. But if any Western country, or coalition of states,
presumes that it can interfere in processes of constitutional
governance in India, a lesson in rudimentary geography is, perhaps,
in order: India is not Pakistan
