MANAGING THE TURNAROUND

From defending boycott sternly to campaigning for votes, Sajjad Lone has made a turnaround in four months. Zubair A Dar follows Lone on a campaign trail to find out how the flamboyant television savvy debater justifies his twist on ground.

 At a street corner in village Ogmun in Tangmarg area of north Kashmir, Sajjad Gani Lone stands facing a group of people, all passers-by attracted by the motor cavalcade of the ‘separatist’ leader on his poll campaign. He has just come out of the village Masjid where he offered noon prayers. As more men gather around him, 45-year-old Mohammad Akbar Mir sets the discourse.

Enquiring about Sajjad’s purpose of visit, Mir says, “We have seen militants coming to our homes and talking about Azadi. We have seen All Parties Hurriyat Conference now divided in several factions. We are also witness to your divided family – one brother in Hurriyat and other one seeking votes.” In a frail frame, pausing between sentences to regain breath, visibly ailing Mir concludes, “Are we drum-driven cattle?”

 The People’s Conference Chairman answers, though complacently. “I never asked people to take up gun. I faced the same hardships that you faced. I have also been interrogated in Papa II, the place where Mufti Sayeed now resides,” he says. Then he poses a few questions of his own.

 “I decided to contest because you people voted in the last assembly elections when I was under house arrest. Did not you?” he says. “Your vote forced me to take this route and that is what I have done. Now I have come to you.”

Sajjad, however, conveniently skips some of the questions, especially the dilemma facing every household in his battleground – north Kashmir parliament constituency that he aspires to represent in Indian parliament. The dilemma comes from two separate corners. The first question that every man wants to ask – only Mir had the courage to articulate it – is whether Sajjad would be any different from those parliamentarians that have been representing Kashmir in India’s highest law making body? Second question pertains to development. Can Sajjad fulfil these aspirations while he talks of Kashmir issue and is unlikely to have enough funds at hand if he doesn’t take a place in ministry?

Sajjad’s turnaround from a ‘separatist’ fighting war of words in TV discussions to a leader seeking votes, has come in just four months. While he maintains that he never was a typical separatist, he had been able to manage the rhetoric well. After eight years of occupying middle ground, Sajjad finally decided to take to electoral politics. Political Pundits, whose views he discarded time and again feel vindicated especially after former RAW chief and Kashmir interlocutor, A S Dulat last Saturday said that Lone was about to participate in elections earlier too.

Terming Sajjad plunge in electoral fray in Kashmir ‘a significant event to watch’, Dulat, in an interview with NDTV, said, “He (Sajjad) always had leaning towards India. He was supposed to participate in 2002 assembly elections and later in 2008 as well. But that did not mature.”

Dulat also said that Lone withdrew and had second thoughts on joining electoral fray in 2008 because of the agitation following the Amarnath land row.

Adds Prof Gul Wani of Political Science Department at University of Kashmir, “He (Sajjad) made very measured calculation. He has based it on ground realities like internal chaos in Pakistan and weakening support for separatists. In 2008 assembly elections, he did not contest because they were preceded by mass agitations and every one wrongly predicted that there would be boycott.”

Analysts term Sajjad’s decision more significant in wake of its possible fallouts on separatist politics in Kashmir. “He was a voice in the separatist camp and had an agenda for resolution of Kashmir issue. It is a setback to separatist politics in Kashmir,” says Prof Noor Ahmad Baba, head of the political science department at university of Kashmir.

Sajjad, however, rebuffs these claims. Maintaining that separatism is much bigger than any of its leaders, he says that separatists never owned him and thus should not be affected. He instead cautions against ignoring the wishes of people while terming his new found strategy as a turnaround.

“See, your problem is that you live in a world of your own. You have been with me since morning, has anyone asked this question. They oppose politicians per se, not a single question asking me why did you contest?” says Sajjad. “So is it the journalists who constitute Kashmir? There is a group of 100-150 people who think they constitute Kashmir, which they do not. That is why every prediction we make over Kashmir comes wrong. We thought that there will be 100 percent boycott, 70 percent came out and voted. We refuse to accept the reality as it exists. We become India. As they refuse to accept that Kashmirs are not with them. They are not.”

Sajjad claims that ignoring people’s wishes amounts to treating them as slaves. “We refuse to accept that most of the Kashmiris do not think that boycotting elections is not a way to achieve freedom. They are freedom loving, but they simply know that it multiplies their problems,” says Sajjad. “We are treating our own people as slaves and the result of which is that a strong anti-India sentiment has been erroneously projected as a pro-India vote.”

The People’s Conference chief, however, is not the lone vote-seeker in this parliament election with a separatist past. In his home district Kupwara, another separatist Ghulam Rasool Shah alias Imran Rahi is also seeking votes. Now in Awami National Conference (ANC), Rahi was a militant commander when armed rebellion broke out in Kashmir in 1989. Twice arrested before being finally released in 1995, Rahi formed the Forum for Peaceful Resolution to push for a dialogue over Jammu and Kashmir dispute along with other militant commanders Babar Badr and Bilal Lodi. The group was the first to initiate a dialogue process with New Delhi when they met then home minister S B Chawhan and later also met prime ministers P V Narsimha Rao and H D Devigowda.

“People and parties outside mainstream are always alleged of lacking people’s mandate,” says Rahi. “So we decided to contest as aspirations of people are blacked out from both sides (mainstream as well as separatist).”

Sajjad too appeals people to give him one chance to represent their aspirations in Indian parliament. “If your heart and conscience tells you, please vote for me. But let me assure you, my representation would make you proud,” Sajjad tells people, while shaking hands with people in villages where most knew his father.

They have seen Abdul Gani Lone – first as a Congress MLA and education minister and later as a separatist leader. Some of them admire senior Lone. “Sajjad is the son of a leader who would challenge Sheikh Abdullah in assembly,” says a youth, Bilal, while wooing votes for Sajjad in nearby Karhama village. It is this admiration that Sajjad wants the voters to recall while giving him a chance.

“If you vote for me and I reach the parliament, you would be proud that you had voted for me. I am speaking from my heart and not mind,” he tells his audience.

Campaigning in these small hamlets in Tangmarg area of Baramulla district, Sajjad aims to exploit traditional voters with no party affiliations. The strategy to meet people on street corners and shop pavements in small groups is a well thought out one. Sajjad says that bigger rallies are not as effective as meeting people one by one.

To him, a door to door campaign is more effective than mass rallies where “attendees are dedicated cadres who vote otherwise as well”. He aims to convince common people that his new route is in tune with their aspirations and the force behind the turnaround is people’s participation in assembly elections.

Analysts vary, first about his win possibility to win and second about the ability to represent people’s aspirations.

“If Sajjad wins, he will be representing Kashmir issue in the same way as Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti do,” says Prof Wani. “Speaking about issues like human rights violations, revocation of Armed Forces Special Powers Act, economic drain of Kashmir and power projects is well within the ambit of mainstream politics.”

Wani says that low turnout in south Kashmir could continue and dent his chances of winning. In that case, Wani says, he will be thrown into political wilderness. “He will have no option that to drift more towards unionist politics,” Wani says.

Prof Baba agrees. “If he looses, he will loose his politics as he will be disowned by all. There is no looking back for him,” he says.

Prof Baba, however, believes that Sajjad’s route will be keenly watched. “In case he wins, the line he adopts will be keenly observed,” he says. “Though ground reports suggest that chances of his win are thin.”

Sajjad, confident that he will win given the support he enjoys in Kupwara and Bandipora area, says that his victory would be historical because “it would mean reorienting the struggle and give credibility to Kashmiri clout.”

“Till date, Kashmiri leadership has not been able to assert itself in a vocal manner,” he says. “I always felt that they (Hurriyat) are not fighting a Kashmiri war. They are fighting some other war. There was no strategy. Even when my father was alive, I used to tell him that you guys will never achieve anything because there was no strategy. And when I came in active politics, I just found out that,” he says.

He, however, agrees that a loss would be more personal. “I loose, it will be my personal loss. It will not be detrimental for the Kashmir cause. It will be because people felt that I do not represent the ideology I am taking about,” he says.

Do people receive Sajjad’s turnaround well? In his campaign, the people he meets express development concerns while Sajjad stresses representing political aspirations.

“None of them (voters) is averse to putting Kashmir issue forward. None of them said that do not represent Kashmir,” says Sajjad. “One person in a village came to me and said ‘do not become a traitor’. Same happens at other places,” Sajjad says. “Just because a person is poor and has economic problems doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have political aspirations.”