SOUTH ASIA INTELLIGENCE REVIEW
Weekly Assessments & Briefings
Volume 1, No. 12, October 7, 2002

J&K Elections: The Political Space Widens Amidst Violence
Guest Writer: Praveen Swami in Kashmir
Chief of Bureau, Mumbai, Frontline

The children at Kocheypora had pulled down the first poster that appeared on the wall of the village mosque, and turned it into an improvised kite. Two nights before the third phase of voting in Jammu & Kashmir's (J&K) Assembly elections, the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM) helpfully put up another copy. "Muslims Awake!" it proclaimed. "Do not barter away your honour and the Kashmir cause by voting. Do not forget the sacrifices of your brothers and sons". In case the villagers weren't persuaded, its authors ended with a clinching argument. "All those who vote will be shot", the last line on the poster read, "the choice is yours".

Punctuated by at least 26 terrorist attacks, which claimed the lives of twenty-one soldiers and civilians, the third phase of polling on October 1 in J&K was, without dispute, the most violent so far. But bullets couldn't stop ballots, a fact which will have enormous political consequence in months and years to come.

Terrorist violence did, of course, have a demonstrable impact on voter turnout in some areas. Tral, which had seen the elimination of two potential National Conference (NC) candidates before the elections, is a case in point. Late-night fire directed at polling stations and grenade explosions outside polling stations ensured single-digit turnout in the constituency. Like other voters, not even the NC candidate Ghulam Ahmad Bhat, who had lost his father and two brothers in earlier terrorist attacks, nor the Congress (I) candidate Surinder Singh, exercised their franchise. But adjoining Rajpora, which like Tral is part of the district of Pulwama, had seen no serious pre-election violence, and registered high turnout. Similar patterns were evident in Anantnag, the second Kashmir-valley district to vote on October 1.

Little attention, sadly, has been paid to the specific political uses of armed terror in southern Kashmir. At several places, local elements of the HM appeared to have arrived at an alliance with the opposition People's Democratic Party (PDP). The leading organiser for the PDP candidate from Homeshalibugh, Ghaffar Sofi, was Mansoor Malik, father of the local HM battalion commander, Tauseef Malik. Few local people could have missed the message. In some areas, even minimal effort was not needed to decode such signs. Kullar PDP polling agent Ghulam Mohiuddin Nengroo persuaded his fellow villagers to ignore an anti-election poster. "This is not a genuine poster", he said, "it has been put up by the National Conference to scare us away. The real Hizb-ul-Mujaheddin poster tells people not to vote for the National Conference or the Congress (I)."

Most terrorist attacks on candidates and political workers, too, focussed on non-PDP formations. Of 35 political workers killed in campaigning during September, only 4 were from the PDP. 43 political workers have been killed since elections were notified on August 22 to the end of September, taking the figure for this year up to a record level of 84. Another half a dozen senior NC politicians have faced assassination attempts; one, Sakina Itoo, survived four.

It is possible that the sharp escalation in terrorist violence preceding October 1 had not a little to do with the unexpectedly high turnout in the previous phase of elections, in the districts of Srinagar and Budgam. While Srinagar district as a whole recorded low turnout, the National Conference-dominated rural segments of Ganderbal and Kangan bucked the trend. Similarly, the Shia belt of Budgam defied terrorist threats and came out to vote en masse. Since formations like the HM share an interest with the mainstream opposition in marginalizing the NC, their actions in south Kashmir may have been intended to ensure that the experience of the second phase was not repeated.

The terrorists' actions to undermine the political process, however, are also driven by larger structural concerns about the impact of democracy. Stories illustrating the point aren't hard to come by. On September 21, Abdul Ahad Dar was marched out of his house in Wakai, near Kulgam, by two Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) terrorists, tied to his party colleague Zahoor Ahmad Bhat, and shot dead at point-blank range. "My brother's crime", says his younger sister Mehmooda Dar, clutching his election identity card, "was to have tried to do something for our village. He lobbied for funds to build public baths and latrines in the village. For you urban people it means little; for us, it means better health for our children. The people who rule our villages through fear don't want that."

Such stories abound in areas where politicians have attempted to use the political system to secure gains for rural communities. On the day elections were notified, Kocheypora sarpanch [village head] Ali Mohammad Dar was shot dead in the courtyard of his village home. Like the Communist Party of India - Marxist (CPI-M) activists in Wakai, this long-standing National Conference activist had started using village development funds to bring tangible benefits to his community - in this case a road. "I don't know why anyone would kill a man for building a road", said Abdul Hamid Dar, Ali Mohammad Dar's son-in-law.

The reason isn't, in fact, all that hard to see. The rebirth of political institutions after 1996 had started to erode the long-standing control terrorists have had over civil society. If, as most observers believe, the next government will be built on an alliance of political parties, the processes of coalition building will accelerate. The fact that the numbers of candidates has increased in most seats, despite serious and credible terrorist threats, indicates that the democratic space is widening.

One immediate post-election impact will be on the National Conference, which many expect to retain power, albeit with a sharply reduced majority. A powerful opposition should be able to limit the party's reputation, deserved or otherwise, for corruption and inefficiency. But secessionist formations will also come under intense pressure to review their anti-election position, notably centrists within the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC), like Mirwaiz Umar Farooq. The HM's ambiguous posture on the PDP also shows that its ground-level cadre anticipate some forward political movement, which could again lead the militant group into confrontation with mainly Pakistani organisations such as the Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM).

Much, of course, will depend on the conduct of another major party, which isn't fighting elections - Pakistan. United States ambassador Robert Blackwill's recent endorsement of the elections as fair, and the decision of a United Kingdom parliamentary delegation not to meet secessionist leaders during a visit to Srinagar last week, has done a great deal to bring pressure to bear on the APHC. International diplomats have also decided not to directly monitor the last phase of voting on October 8 in six constituencies in Doda and one in Kupwara, further underlining the legitimacy of the election process itself.

Democratic political systems cannot, however, function at gunpoint. An effort still needs to be made to pressure Pakistan to terminate its support for cross-border terrorism; without this, voters in J&K may find life under the new government depressingly similar to life - and death - under the old one.

INDIA

Arunachal Pradesh: Anti-terror Law Agitates an Indian Frontier
Wasbir Hussain
Associate Fellow, Institute for Conflict Management, New Delhi; Consulting Editor, The Sentinel, Guwahati

Not many outside the region would have heard of the new anti-terror law in Arunachal Pradesh, the remote and sprawling northeast Indian State of 1.09 million people, that stretches across 83,743 square kilometres on the frontier with China, Myanmar and Bhutan. The Congress (I) party, the leading Opposition Party at the Centre, rules Arunachal, and has pushed through what is called the Arunachal Pradesh Control of Organised Crime Ordinance, 2002 with a visible sense of urgency: since the State Legislature was not in session at the time, the Governor passed an Ordinance on April 3, 2002. Subsequently, on August 23, the State Assembly passed the Arunachal Pradesh Control of Organised Crime (APCOC) Bill, 2002, and it became law after receiving the Governor's assent on October 3, 2002.

Inhabited by tribes' people, apart from a sprinkling of plainsmen and Tibetan and Buddhist Chakma refugees, Arunachal Pradesh was not in the troubled region's insurgency map until a few years ago. Even today, the State is not among the major theatres of insurgency in the area, unlike adjoining Assam, Tripura, Manipur and Nagaland. With its strategic location, inaccessible interiors and dense jungles, however, Arunachal Pradesh has emerged as a safe hideout for Naga rebels, who are outsiders to the State, besides turning into a temporary parking area for separatist militants belonging to the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) and the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) - groups that are fighting for separate 'homelands' to be carved out of Assam.

In an extended telephonic interview, Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Mukut Mithi confirmed on September 29, 2002, that rebels of both the Isak-Muivah and Khaplang factions of the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (NSCN-IM and NSCN-K) have set up bases in the Tirap and Changlang districts that share borders with the States of Nagaland and Assam, besides a porous international border with Myanmar. Mithi asserted, "These rebels are not only indulging in kidnapping, extortion, murder and intimidation, they are also encouraging and motivating bands of local Arunachali youth. If we don't tackle the situation now, things will go out of hand later."

The Chief Minister also disclosed that as many as 14 rag-tag bands of militants or 'organised terror groups' have sprung up in Arunachal Pradesh in recent months, backed by the 'outside insurgent groups.' Intelligence officials have listed, among others, the following groups in the State: the East India Liberation Front (EILF), Liberation Tigers of Arunachal Pradesh (LTA), United Liberation Tigers of Arunachal (ULTA), National Liberation Army of Arunachal (NLAA), and the Revolution Army of Arunachal Pradesh (RAAP).

State authorities argue that the new law was necessary to clamp down on 'organised crime' in Arunachal Pradesh, because the national anti terrorism law, the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) 2002, does not include in its schedule rebel outfits such as the NSCN, whose cadres are 'creating a reign of terror' in the area. Rights activists, however, are quick to point out that other 'draconian laws' are already in force in militant-infested areas, including the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act and the Disturbed Areas Act, both of which provide sweeping powers to the security forces engaged in counter-insurgency operations.

This debate aside, the Arunachal Pradesh Control of Organised Crime Ordinance does contain some stringent clauses: there is no provision for anticipatory bail; punishments include three years in jail to life imprisonment, and fines ranging from Rs 100,000 to Rs 500,000. But, by far the most controversial provision is the modification of Section 167 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), which empowers the police to keep an accused in police remand for up to 30 days under the new law, as against 14 days as provided in the CrPC; and judicial remand for 90 days, extendable to 180 days if ordered by a Special Court set up by the State government with approval from the High Court, as against 60 days under the CrPC. The law also empowers the police to intercept telephone and other modes of communication of a person suspected to be involved in 'organized crime' or aiding or abetting such crime.

A unique problem has been created by the new law in Arunachal Pradesh, where a peculiar administrative arrangement prevails as a result of which the executive doubles up as the judiciary. The result is not only that justice is administered by magistrates, many of whom are not professionally qualified in law, but worse, are officers under the full control of the State Government. To cap it all, there is not a single jail in the whole state, leading to uncomfortable questions as to where the authorities intend lodging an under-trial prisoner if he or she is to be in judicial remand for as many as 90 to 180 days.

This has become a delicate case of counter-insurgency versus human rights. Organisations like the All Arunachal Pradesh Students' Union (AAPSU), the State's apex students' body, Arunachal Pradesh Women Welfare Society, Tirap Human Rights Organisation, and political parties like the Bharatiya Janata Party, Arunachal Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party have already joined hands to demand a repeal of the new law. On September 18, AAPSU enforced a statewide general strike. Before that, on August 21, the day the Bill was introduced in the State Assembly, the student group staged a sit-in demonstration in front of the legislature; and on August 23, the day the Bill was passed by the Assembly, the AAPSU called a general strike in Itanagar, the State capital. Local rights groups have also moved Amnesty International and the People's Union of Civil Liberties (PUCL).

Chief Minister Mithi has confirmed that 10 people, including two NSCN-IM activists, had been booked under this law till September 29. He claimed that documents recovered from the possession of the two NSCN-IM cadres revealed that the rebel group had planned to prevent legislators from reaching the State Assembly on the day the Bill was to be passed, besides exposing the militant group's links with a "broad spectrum of the State's political leaders." Evidently, the threat posed by rising terrorist activities in the State is significant, as indeed, are the collusive arrangements between militant groups and various overground organisations, including 'human rights' fronts and political parties.

The difficulty, however, is that, with no independent judiciary, events in Arunachal Pradesh would need to be closely watched. The situation is curious, with the CrPC followed in the State only name. A 1993 judgement by Chief Justice U.L. Bhat and Justice Manisana in a case at the Guwahati High Court makes the following observation on the executive-judiciary issue: "...administration of justice (in tribal areas) is mainly in the hands of deputy commissioners and their assistants who are executive officers: the position does not alter even if these officers are described as deputy commissioner (Judicial). Whatever be the description, they are essentially executive officers under the full control of the state government. Appointments are made without reference to the High Court. It is not even certain that all the officers are law graduates or have experience in the practice of law."

The judgement goes on to bluntly declare: "We have observed in many cases that the quality of justice rendered to the seekers of justice in these areas is of inferior kind."

Under the circumstances, the passage of the APCOC Bill may well be the forerunner of deepening troubles for the Congress government in Arunachal Pradesh.