Modi faces new test in Kashmir after bruising election fight

Three months after his worst election performance to date, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is facing another challenging vote: this time in the fragile region of Jammu and Kashmir, where separatist sentiment is strong and voters are angry with their loss of autonomy.

Jammu and Kashmir will hold local elections in three phases starting Wednesday — the first such polls since Modi’s government stripped the region of its special status and brought it under federal control in 2019. Almost 9 million registered voters will choose candidates for 90 seats in the local assembly.

Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party has promised to bring investments, jobs and tourism to the region, but that message isn’t resonating with voters, especially in Muslim-majority Kashmir. They want a return to the semi-autonomy they enjoyed as a state for more than seven decades, and the ability to control key functions like policing, health and finance — a key campaign pledge of regional parties who are seeking to keep the BJP out of office.

“If the BJP doesn’t win a majority, it’s safe to assume that people have rejected what was done on the 5th of August, 2019,” when Jammu and Kashmir was stripped of its statehood, said Omar Abdullah, leader of the Jammu and Kashmir National Conference. “That’s an important message to send out.”

Abdullah, 54, is seen as a likely candidate for chief minister if his party wins a majority of the constituencies in the three-phase voting, which ends on Oct. 1. His party has formed an alliance with the Indian National Congress, the country’s main opposition group. Rahul Gandhi, Modi’s key rival and the public face of the Congress party, has been campaigning in Kashmir on behalf of Abdullah’s party.

Regional parties want Jammu and Kashmir to be given full state powers again after it was relegated to a union territory in 2019. That’s something the BJP has said it’s open to doing and is also supported by the country’s Supreme Court.

Restoring Article 370 of the constitution — which gave Jammu and Kashmir special rights to make laws over and above other states — would require approval from the national parliament and is something locals aren’t pushing for, Abdullah said.

“While people are emotionally connected to Article 370, they are not willing to make it the cornerstone of their existence,” he said.

While an election loss in Jammu and Kashmir region won’t directly affect Modi’s position as prime minister, it’s likely to further dent his popularity after his party failed to win an absolute majority in the parliament in national elections that ended in June. The BJP was forced into a coalition with regional partners in order to form a government. Modi has since tried to project a picture of stability by sticking with most of his key cabinet ministers and focusing on his economic goals.

A loss for the BJP could also embolden the opposition alliance under the leadership of Gandhi and the Congress party ahead of several upcoming state elections. In Haryana in the north, which goes to the polls on Oct. 5, Modi’s party is struggling to hold onto power. Results for both Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir elections will be released on Oct. 8.

Modi’s Hindu-nationalist BJP is also facing a challenging vote in Maharashtra state, which houses the nation’s financial capital Mumbai and is expected to vote in November. In the national elections, the opposition alliance won almost double the number of seats than Modi’s party in the state.

Elections will also take place over the next five months in two opposition-ruled states, Jharkhand and Delhi.

In Jammu and Kashmir, the BJP is promising to create 500,000 jobs, bring in investments, and give handouts like free laptops and stipends to students. But for the region’s Muslims, there’s suspicion about the BJP’s pro-Hindu agenda. The party has promised to bring back Hindu families that fled the state at the start of militant action by separatists in the late 1980s.

And under the constitutional changes made in 2019, owning property and government jobs are no longer restricted to residents of Jammu and Kashmir alone, but opened to any Indian across the country. That’s fueled concerns of a possible demographic shift in the region.

Muslims make up about 8.6 million of the region’s population of 12.5 million.

Abdullah’s National Conference party and its regional rival, the Jammu and Kashmir People’s Democratic Party — a former BJP ally — are campaigning to restore statehood for the region along with its autonomy if they win the local elections.

“There’s a sense of dejection, humiliation, despondency, and to address that, you have to go beyond promises of employment and manifesto promises,” said Iltija Mufti, daughter of PDP leader, Mehbooba Mufti, who was also previously a chief minister. “My immediate priorities is to give them that sense of security.”

The 37-year-old Iltija Mufti, who is making her political debut in the elections, said the PDP is open to working with rivals to prevent the BJP from taking control in the region.

Investment proposals

The BJP government is touting the local economy’s gains to highlight its success in managing the region. Manoj Sinha, the New Delhi-appointed lieutenant governor, who heads the regional administration in Jammu and Kashmir, said the local economy has doubled in size to 2.45 trillion rupees ($29.3 billion) in the past eight years, and is expected to grow to 2.63 trillion rupees in the current financial year ending in March.

The region has received investment proposals worth 1.25 trillion rupees since 2021, compared with a total of 140 billion rupees between 1947 and 2021, Sinha said in an interview in Srinagar. There are proposals to invest in everything from commercial real estate to private medical colleges and steel plants, he said.

However, local businesses have a more pessimistic outlook.

“There’s no basis to these figures,” said Faiz Ahmad Bakshi, the secretary general of the region’s oldest trade body, the Kashmir Chamber of Commerce & Industry. The government should focus on helping local industries before attracting new business, he said. “If 80% of the industries in the state are sick, why would new ones come,” he added.

Shahala Ali Sheikh, who runs a walnut-wood furniture and interiors business from Srinagar, says the government should focus on building infrastructure such as roads before trying to attract new investors. As an environmentalist, she also wants the government to be mindful of damage to ecologically sensitive areas.

“You can’t vandalize, you cannot kill the goose that lays the golden eggs,” she said.

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(With assistance from Swati Gupta.)