Elections are the solution. Secular democracy is the only goal: It is what Pakistan’s founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah wanted. Kashmiris already have that.
When elections were announced on October 19, Kashmir’s leaders thought they would fail, given the heat generated over the failed transfer of land to the Amarnath Shrine, and the Hurriyat Conference’s boycott.
Few believed the elections would be this successful: The highest polling at 69 per cent, the lowest at 55 per cent.
The communist Yusuf Tarigami said “elections were no solution to the Kashmir problem”.
The secular Yasin Malik said his group, the JKLF, would campaign actively “to boycott the elections (which) was every Kashmiri’s right".
Sheikh Abdullah’s grandson Omar said his party, the National Conference, would contest, but he worried that “turnout would be low”.
Hurriyat spokesman Abdul Ghani Bhat said elections were a non-issue and, “whether or not they were held, would cause the Hurriyat no consternation.” The Jamaat-e-Islami’s Syed Ali Shah Geelani said that “so-called elections were no solution.” JKDFP’s Shabbir Shah promised a “total boycott”.
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12:55 AM
Moderate Islamist here
