PROMISE V/S PERFORMANCE: J&K MP’S IN THE PARLIAMENT

In a series of analytical articles, Daily Greater Kashmir has assessed the performance of Members of Parliament (MP’s) from J&K state. This performance balance sheet brings forth the concern and zeal of the MP’s from the three regions of the state in raising the issues and taking part in the debates in the Parliament.

Excerpts:

Peoples Democratic Party (PDP):

With the parliamentary election round the corner, it is time to assess the performance of regional parties in the Parliament. We start the series with J&K PDP, which had won all the three parliamentary seats in the valley in 2014.

In its election manifesto for Lok Sabha elections, “Mandate for a Mission”, PDP had promised to “make the parliament a forum for representing the Kashmir issue at the national level.”

“Our mission in the parliament will be to drive, persuade and convince all the parties to formalise a basic Kashmir policy,” the manifesto read, and assured a common minimum program in this regard.

“PDP aspires to change the national mindset through its interventions in the parliament,” it said.

Five years down the road, what has been done? Far from any interventions, the three veterans of PDP elected by the people to the parliament have a very poor track record of attending and intervening in the House.

Muzaffar Hussain Baig, on whom J&K PDP pinned high hopes “to build parliament as a forum for dialogue on and development of J&K” has fared the worst. With 11 percent attendance, he rarely attended the parliament, and when he did, he remained a silent spectator hardly ever participating in debates or seeking information through questions. He participated in just three debates in his five-year-long stint in the parliament. He holds a unique dubious distinction of not asking a single starred question. An average parliamentarian raised 285 questions, while Baig asked 19.

Though Mehbooba Mufti and Tariq Karra resigned midway, their track record is not much better. With attendance of 35 per cent (for the period that they were members), which is less than half of the national average of attendance, they too hardly participated in any debates. Combining these three indicators of performance into an index, the average score of the three PDP MPs at 13.9 out of 100 is a historic record of poor performance.

National Conference (NC):

In the second part of our three-part series on the performance of regional parties in the parliament, we analyse the J&K National Conference president Farooq Abdullah, who won the Srinagar seat which fell vacant after Tariq Hamid Karra resigned following his falling out with the Peoples Democratic Party.

A three-time veteran, Abdullah has a decent track record for the two years he has been in office as Member of Parliament. He has attended the House regularly, registering a 71 percent attendance. This is lower than the national average but much higher than that of PDP MPs. In fact, compared to Muzaffar Hussain Baig, it is almost seven times higher, and twice that of the PDP MP he replaced (Tariq Karra).

However, Abdullah has not been very participative in his this term. He has participated in two debates in two years. Compared to this, Muzaffar Hussain Baig has participated in three debates in his five-year-long stint in the parliament. Abdullah has fared worse than all the MPs in gathering information and holding ministers accountable for their performance. He has just asked 13 questions.

Even though the NC MP has fared much better than his PDP colleagues, he has fared very poorly compared to the Jammu MPs. Combining the three indicators of performance, attendance, participation in debates and seeking information as questions,  into an index, the score of Abdullah is 25.6 out of 100. This stands in very poor light when compared with a score of 75.8 out of 100 for the Jammu MPs. It is however twice as good as that of PDP MPs who scored just 13.9 out of 100.

Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP):

In the concluding part of our series, we assess the performance of the members of parliament from Jammu. BJP had won both seats in Jammu and also Ladakh parliamentary seat in 2014. Both MPs Jugal Kishore and Thupstan Chhewang have taken their role very seriously by recording an above average attendance. While the national average is 80 per cent, both MPs have 90 per cent attendance. Compared to the PDP MPs from Kashmir, this is an outstanding record. Muzzaffar Hussain Baig’s attendance is only 11 per cent.

Jugal Kishore has participated in 89 debates in the parliament and asked 273 questions so far. This is not only much better than the national record, it shows how poorly the parliamentarians representing the valley have fared. The combined participation of the three PDP MPs in parliamentary debates is 16 which is one-fifth of participation done by Jugal Kishore.

Thupstan Chhewang has participated in 20 debates compared to the three by Muzzaffar Hussain Baig,  four by Tariq Karra and nine by Mehbooba Mufti. He also raised 31 questions which is much less than the national average of 285, but much more than the number of questions raised by his counterparts Latest From Kashmir

Combining the three indicators of performance, attendance, participation in debates and seeking information as questions,  into an index, the average score of the two Jammu MPs is a healthy 75.8 out of 100. This, when compared to the 13.9 out of 100 for PDP MPs, shows the failure of representation for the Valley.

Jitendra Singh being a minister cannot be assessed on the basis of these criteria. Hence he is excluded.

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[Courtesy: Daily Greater Kashmir, Srinagar, Kashmir, January 21-23, 2019]

THE TECTONIC SHIFT - Kashmir Trends

Javaid Beigh

In an interesting and critical analysis of role of political parties, the author laments that the major political parties in the state have promoted their self interests. Ignoring the expectations of common man these parties have promoted their own kith and kin. He makes a strong case for the formation of  a ’Third Front’ in J&K.

 Excerpts: 

Need for New political formations:

“Isn’t this a part of electoral democratic process that new political formations be allowed consistently within the framework of constitutionality, especially when old and established political parties fail to inspire people? Why is it that unlike other regions of India, there is a tradition of rather “undemocratic intolerance” for the emergence of “Third Front” in Kashmir valley? And nothing explained this “democratic curse of Kashmir” more aptly than the pathetic “twitter alliance” between two main Kashmir based political parties along with a prominent national political party that indulged in a social media drama, making Kashmir politics a butt of jokes in the entire world. Historically, the “Third Front” has always been forced to remain a peripheral political entity in the electoral politics of Jammu & Kashmir state in general and that of Kashmir valley in particular. The Kashmir valley’s prominent grand old party – National Conference & Indian National Congress have dominated electoral politics of Kashmir valley and Jammu region respectively for most of the time since 1947, wherein political power largely oscillated between these two political entities. While the National Conference has remained a private monopoly of Sheikh Family, which has personally enriched immensely through their largely unquestioned and undemocratic stranglehold over National Conference, the J&K state unit of Congress has been repository of mostly handpicked sycophants of Delhi based Congress high command. This NC – Congress alternative and joint collaboration during different times has been nothing more than an opportunistic power grab that benefited Sheikh family as well as few other Congress backed Kashmiri families, with aam aadmi in Kashmir valley, Jammu region and Ladakh having remained untouched by full potential of economic development that the state of Jammu & Kashmir was actually capable of in last 7 decades”.

Resisting ‘Third Front’ formation:

“The “Third Front” in the form of smaller parties based on sub regional and religious identities have always been part of the political spectrum of Jammu & Kashmir’s electoral politics like Jammu region’s All Jammu & Kashmir Praja Parishad that remained a prominent political player in 1950s and 60s in plains of Jammu, but the arrogant, elitist and corrupt political nexus and (said as well as unsaid) alliance between Congress and NC belittled these early “Third Front” parties of Jammu region as “right wing” even as these two parties portrayed themselves as sole “secular” and “representative” political entities from Kashmir valley and Jammu region respectively. It didn’t matter to them that these “right wing” parties (as they called them) had won mandate of the people of Jammu region and won seats in the Jammu & Kashmir assembly. In the year 1987, entire Jammu & Kashmir state in general and Kashmir valley in particular had to pay an extremely heavy price for this collective arrogance, corruption and greed for power of J&K’s unofficial two-party system (NC – Congress), when this unholy alliance of greedy, corrupt, discredited and much despised political arrangement ended up stifling and shamelessly crushing the emergence of Muslim United Front – an urban young Kashmiri student driven political initiative that sought to create the space for the  “Third Front” in Kashmir valley as an alternative to much hated, corrupt and despised Sheikh family run NC and high command run J&K unit of Congress. The blatant, brazen and shameless stealing of mandate of 1987 by the unholy alliance of NC – Congress not only successfully destroyed the democratic and constitutional emergence of MUF as “Third Front” in Jammu & Kashmir’s electoral political space, it also destroyed Kashmir valley and pushed it abyss of unending death and destruction from which Kashmir valley has still not being able to come out. The emergence of People’s Democratic Party was the first successful allowance of “Third Front” (as an alternative to the duo of NC – Congress) on the political scene of Kashmir valley. Though technically, PDP was an extension of Congress as its chief patron, Late Mufti Mohammad Syed was a former Congressmen, who was from Congress party culture, the political party that he found was rooted in Kashmir and for the first time provided a political alternative to National Conference, which was hopelessly turning into a third-generation family raj”.

Case of an unexpected Alliance:

“The 2014 mandate for J&K state assembly elections was indeed one of the most complicated election results in recent times, which, for the first-time established BJP as a major political force in densely populated plains of Jammu region, where till now Congress used to be a dominating political entity. Kashmir valley-based parties like NC and PDP and smaller sub regional parties like Bhim Singh’s Panther’s Party have at best been marginal players in plains (and even Hills) of Jammu region. The BJP has successfully managed to place itself as an alternative to Congress party in Jammu region just as what PDP did to National Conference in late 1990s and early 2000s in Kashmir valley. The result of the complicated and messy election results of 2014 J&K state assembly elections threw yet another unholy alliance between the so called ideologically unmatchable “North pole & South Pole” of Jammu & Kashmir’s political spectrum.  While there is little doubt about the fact that the political alliance between BJP & PDP has proven to be a complete disaster for the entire J&K state and especially for Kashmir valley, where last few years have seen an increase in violence, killings, pellet blinding, complete collapse of economy, collapse of governance, alienation of Kashmiri people and a near complete breakdown of law and order. There is a general air of despair and despondency with corruption (J&K has been designated as India’s most corrupt state), nepotism, elitism, pollution and environmental degradation (Srinagar city has been designated as world’s 10th most polluted city), menace of drugs, loot and plunder of limited state resources, collapse of civic and communication infrastructure, increase in crime etc. defining challenges of governance in the state, especially Kashmir valley. And amidst all this chaos, gloom and doom, the election mandate of 2014 assembly elections also provided a ray of hope in the form of the emergence of “Third Front”, a true and serious and for the first time, a formidable third political alternative from Kashmir valley that is truly path breaking in many ways, which is not only challenging the established Kashmiri political elite families, who along with their sons, daughters, daughter in-laws, grand-children, cousins, uncles, aunties and extended family clan and friends have taken it for granted as a political privilege to rule over the destiny of 1.2 crore people of J&K, especially Kashmir valley and in the process enrich themselves through opportunistic governing alliances, thinking that no question will ever be asked of them of their misdeeds ever.

Prospects of a New Front:

“While Sajad Gani Lone and People’s Conference along with many young and old political leaders and activists from PC and others parties who have recently joined or expressed their desire to join PC including Imran Reza Ansari, Muzaffar Hussain Beigh, Mohd Abbas Wani and Junaid Azam Mattoo (recently elected mayor of Srinagar city), forms the pivot of this new and emerging political “Third Front”, however this front by definition also extends to all political forces that are opposed to Sheikh family run National Conference and Mufti khandan run PDP and that includes leaders like Engineer Rashid of Awami Ittehad Party and perhaps even Mohammad Yousuf Tarigami of Communist Party of India (Marxist). In fact, the “Third Front” includes any one and every one, who is sick and tired of the rich, greedy, sycophant, corrupt, nepotism infected privileged established political elite and their extended and wide spread khandani raj in Kashmir and entire J&K, who shamelessly even use the misery of Kashmir’s death and destruction for their political agenda to capture power in Kashmir and then selectively profit their own clan or sycophants from their rule”.

“The fact that this newly emerging “Third Front” is making waves and is fast capturing the imagination of wider section of the aam awam of J&K, especially Kashmir valley can be gauged from the fact that there has been an increase in social media attacks on all those associated with or seen to be associated with this emerging “Third Front”. The fact however is that, in  this year of 2018 and in this day and age of internet, people know everything including what the “old guard” would hypocritically not talk about or tell the people of Kashmir valley and J&K state. Given the fact that both the so called “secular” NC and PDP have had political association with the same “communal” party of which they accuse PC of associating with does not cut much ice except for portraying them as hypocrites. Also, their shedding of crocodile tears for their “defense” of Article 370 and 35-A stands hollow in light of their past and present association with Congress party, which is solely responsible for damaging and diluting these constitutional provisions, the most. Unlike three generations of Chief Ministers in National Conference and two generations of Chief Ministers in PDP, the dynastic rule of NC and PDP cannot be compared with that of Late Abdul Gani Lone, who never held an all-powerful post of “wazir-e-ala Jammu & Kashmir” and the immense political clout and perks and privileges that come with that position. The icing on the cake of Kashmir’s latest tryst with stifling of the “Third Front” has been the rush with which these two Kashmir based family political enterprises staked claim (along with Congress) to form the government (which they never intended to do run) with the sole aim to force the Governor to dissolve the J&K state assembly and not let a “Third Front” and someone who is neither “Sheikh” or “Mufti” to explore and lead the possibility of forming the state government.

“This is especially ironical for PDP, which created a space for itself in 1990s by challenging the monopoly of National Conference in Kashmir’s electoral politics and the same PDP is today partner in creating hurdles for the emergence of the “Third Front” under the umbrella of People’s Conference. Beyond the realm of social media, the fact on ground  is that the emergence of the “Third Front” has come as a breath of fresh air by allowing an entirely new breed of young political activists from an entire social spectrum of Kashmir valley including rich, poor, educated, women, etc., any one with political ambition, who does not have any place in undemocratic and nepotism infected NC and PDP to carve a place for himself and / or herself in electoral politics of J&K (especially Kashmir valley), signaling a major tectonic shift in Kashmir valley’s mainstream electoral politics. This is a part of natural democratic evolution and any attempt to create hurdles in this process can have the disastrous consequences as the history of modern Kashmir from 1987 onwards tells us very clearly”.

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[Courtesy: Daily Greater Kashmir, Srinagar, December 20, 2018.]

PULWAMA KILLINGS - Kashmir Trends

In an editorial comment, Daily Kashmir Images writes that while dealing with the militants, security forces should ensure that civilian population is not harmed. However, as the comment concludes that Kashmir society should ponder over the issue that when a gun battle is taking place involving militants and security forces, civilian should avoid jumping in the fray.

Excerpts:

Civilians Killings: – 

In a bid to kill three militants, if you end up killing seven civilians and injuring dozens others, there definitely is something wrong with your operational preparedness and also with your attitude towards the people amongst whom you are operating. What happened at a Pulwama village on 15^th December morning was uncalled for and no matter what explanations are put forth by the security forces involved in the operation, no saner element in the world will buy those explanations. Seven unarmed civilians were killed and all of them were fired upon directly hitting in heads and chests. It was a fire to kill and not some ‘frightening fire to disperse an unruly mob’. Yes, the forces involved in the operation may be patting themselves for killing three militants and thus doing a ‘great service to the nation’. But then pause for a while and think – while doing so, they have ended up killing seven civilians, shattering seven families and alienating countless others.

Explanation: –

The explanation by police that “crowd came dangerously close” to the site of the gunfight can’t be accepted as a valid reason to open direct fire on civilians. There was nothing new in what happened at Pulwama encounter. From past more than two years it has been happening. Crowds have been trying to disrupt the operations by throwing rocks on forces. So it has become a norm and when something, you know, is going to happen, you prepare your operational strategy keeping that thing in view and thus should have by now come up with something tangible to avoid civilian casualties in such circumstances. But nothing of the sort has happened and the security forces are reacting the way they reacted to first civilian intervention during an operation in 2016. Means, no lessons have been learnt and that is tragic.

Looking Inwards:

That said, we as a society too have to look inwards and question ourselves. Aren’t we also somewhere responsible for such killings? Aren’t we shutting our eyes to certain realities? When a security operation is going on, the area becomes restricted for all civilian movements. This happens everywhere in the world and Kashmir is no exception. What started in Pulwama village was a military operation. Armed rivals were engaged in a gun battle. Both had the capacity to kill and will to die. Three militants and an army man got killed. Combatants fighting combatants – fair enough (though intention is not to justify any kind of violence but both the sides are holding arms out of their own choice). Question is, why should civilians march towards a wrong place at a wrong time? When two sides, armed to the teeth, are busy in a gun battle any unarmed civilian jumping into the fighting arena can either be insane or having suicidal tendencies. That is the question we as a society have to ask ourselves. What the security forces did at Pulwama is barbaric and inhuman but what we as unarmed civilians are doing at encounter sites is insane and suicidal. It is the responsibility of the leadership, from all schools of thought to do something to arrest this dangerous trend. We as a society have to do something and do immediately to stop our children jumping into harm’s way. Galvanizing martyrs is okay but saving lives is more important and much needed.”

Visit here: http://www.kashmirtrends.in/jammu-and-kashmir-news/pulwama-killings/

[Courtesy: Daily Kashmir Images, Srinagar, Kashmir, December 17, 2018.]