The official assertions often want us to think of the political traditions and concepts of democracy and citizenship in Jammu and Kashmir same as shared among other states in the Indian mainland. But as the events of Kashmir’s history would indicate – especially the difficulty with which common masses are attempting to reclaim their right to be seen and treated as ‘public’ and not just the ‘political other’ – the concepts of democracy, equality, and civil society seem to have very specific and different cultural and political meanings here. No wonder there is popular belief in Kashmir that democracy stops on the other side of the Pirpanchal ridge and so do all other rights and privileges guaranteed to the common people by the laws and constitutions.
In Jammu and Kashmir, as the history has it, the relationship between the common masses – the public – and the state has never really been perceived in terms of collaboration and consensus but rather in terms of mutual hostility and antagonism. This is, perhaps, the reason for the state to have always kept some repressive laws handy – to tame and torment the belligerent masses. With the help of these laws, the state uses its executive arm – the police and other armed forces – to the hilt in a bid to keep everything and everyone, which challenged its writ and authority, at bay.
Notwithstanding what constitution and the laws say, democracy and equality here have all along been mediated by traditional notions of hierarchy, privilege and distinction. The public space has been constituted for a small, elite group of a few political families and figures, who have, in turn, ensured that democracy and liberty remains the exclusive preserve of the dominant minority of their own stooges in politics and bureaucracy and a handful of those this elite is comfortable with. In a culture of widespread sycophancy, civil liberties and even human rights are cast as ‘privileges’ and ‘favours’ bestowed by superiors on subordinates within relations structured by notions of loyalty. ‘Favours’ include everything from personal protection to material goods to jobs.
Although on the face of it the law is based on the democratic principles of universalism and equality, in practice it diverges from theory and it is applied selectively to different classes of people. Here the laws are used for the exploitation of masses rather than for the liberation and emancipation of the society. Those who are wealthy and who have political connections manage to slip under or over the legal barriers, while the ordinary masses, the have-nots have to struggle for getting the police to register an FIR even in case of a theft of a mobile phone or a wallet!
The events of past few years, when the ordinary people were crying for justice, and in doing so facing repeated injustices, those sitting on judgement had either no time for them. It goes without saying that the political violence in Kashmir has over the years steadily morphed into its structural manifestations, which people having developed a general cynicism about almost everything. Then there is general culture of insensitivity towards the ordinary mortals, as also the official despise for their life and liberties. All these things make for a deadly cocktail which has every potential to send situation deeper and deeper into the recesses of the conflict trap. Popular perception that the governments would do nothing to address the political concerns will always work in favour of the status-quo, and keep pushing an entire population to the wall. The challenge of dealing with the alienation in Kashmir is too big to be tackled by minor administrative reshuffles or announcing economic packages or putting together some or the other infrastructural utilities. It needs a political will to deal with the POLITICAL.
