Democracy is a continuing process and it should be seen like that only. The framework of democracy in Jammu and Kashmir has changed in the past five years. The announcement of the schedule for the Assembly polls on Friday by the Election Commission has added yet another dimension to it. It could conceive and spell out the poll plans as it discovered a sound ground where the voters could make a choice of their elected representatives in a free and fair manner.
The Election Commission, it admitted candidly, has a task to build on the foundation that was laid by the people of Jammu and Kashmir in 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The people in the Valley surprised themselves and left the world awestruck as they participated in large numbers which broke the record of almost 40 years. The voting percentage is a sign of health of democracy in any place, and Kashmir was no exception that recorded substantially high voter turnout in the Lok Sabha polls.
NEWS ANALYSIS
The ground did not surface overnight. It took lot of time and effort on the part of the government and the people , both sides complimented each other. The result is that the people all across J&K have hailed the announcement of the poll dates. The cynicism of the past has been replaced by optimism; it is a long journey that J&K had embarked after the abrogation of Article 370 , learning that each and every election matters. The public representatives gain credibility only when they face and win elections , be those of Panchayats, municipalities , Assembly or Parliament . No particular election has a monopoly on the spirit and content of democracy.
There are many unique features of the upcoming Assembly polls. It is the first election after the abrogation of Article 370 that Prime Minister Narendra Modi hailed as watershed moment in nation’s history . This watershed moment needs a little explanation . On August 5, 2019 , the day Jammu and Kashmir’s special status was scrapped and it was announced that henceforth the state would be known by its two different entities as Union Territories of J&K and Ladakh , was a declaration that the former state will come out of its captivity of the past – no more violence , no more unnatural deaths, and no more scare of stepping out of doorsteps , and freedom to send children to schools and help them shape their careers.
The democracy and conflict zone stand at odds to each other . No conflict can ever allow the genuine democracy to grow, as the very idea of conflict is an antidote to people’s will . The people don’t want conflict , they want freedom from fear and violence . They love peace and to live life on their own terms. That is what happened in J&K since August 2019 . Today, Kashmir has taken a new birth. It has shunned the troubles of the past and embraced prospects of high-value future.
A positive change has set in . The people demonstrated that how they wanted to defeat bullets and boycott in the Lok Sabha polls . Another opportunity has come knocking their door, the assembly polls in which they will elect their own government that will have to make and live up to promise of peace and development . It is no longer a battle of emotional politics versus emotional politics. The election will be contested on issues as to which party can offer better and brighter prospects of peace and opportunities to grow.
This Assembly poll will be the first in which the people will find that the parties will have to talk about them and their issues not of their agendas which only fuelled the ideas of conflict .The people want fresh ideas, not the trappings of the self-rule, greater autonomy , for they know the truth that all these selling points have been locked for once and for all with the Article 370 becoming a history . It’s time to write new chapter of history within the Indian democratic landscape.
