Author: Nikhil Raymond Puri
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: March 13, 2015
URL: http://www.dailypioneer.com/columnists/oped/mufti-need-not-thank-pakistan.html

The Chief Minister of J&K wants us to believe that the Assembly election was relatively peaceful. But his claims have no empirical basis. Militant attacks during the poll were more frequent and fatal, as compared to the general election

 Shortly after he was sworn in as Jammu & Kashmir’s Chief Minister on March 1, Mufti Mohammed Sayeed thanked Pakistan for willingly contributing to the peaceful atmosphere prevalent during the State Assembly election. In his “humble submission,” the high voter turnout in the election would not have been possible if Pakistan and itsjihadi proxies had not permitted it.

 The Mufti’s statement has three parts. The first suggests that the recently concluded Assembly election were largely violence-free. Based on this premise, the second part of his statement assumes that this relative peace allowed the State’s electorate to vote in high numbers. The third part of the Mufti’s statement controversially attributes the peaceful climate and consequent voter turnout to the restraint exhibited by Pakistan and its network of United Jihad Council-affiliated militant proxies.

 Opposition to the Mufti’s remarks has focussed almost exclusively on the third part of his statement, contending that he grossly misdirected gratitude for the peaceful nature of the recently concluded Assembly election.

  Instead of taking the “anti-national” initiative to thank Pakistan and itsjihadi proxies, argue his critics, the Chief Minister should have acknowledged that the peaceful election and voter enthusiasm were ensured by the efforts of people residing on the Indian side of the Line of Control and international border. Interestingly, Opposition’s attacks have failed to draw on the most compelling critique of the Mufti’s statement: His central premise, that the Assembly election were relatively peaceful, has no empirical basis.

 The empirical argument against the Mufti’s claim is best presented by rebutting his daughter Mehbooba Mufti’s televised defence of his statement. Ms Sayeed tells us that the December 2014 State Assembly election was not accompanied by violence of the scale witnessed during the parliamentary election in April-May 2014. Contrary to her belief, however, the State Assembly election was more violent than the parliamentary election.

 According to this writer’s tally, militants active in Jammu & Kashmir engaged in 22 violent incidents — 15 attacks and seven encounters — during the 36-day course of the Lok Sabha election from April 7 through May 12, killing 14 and injuring 36 people. In comparison, Kashmir-oriented militants affiliated with the UJC supplied 21 violent incidents — 18 attacks and three encounters —during the 26-day period of the Legislative Assembly election from November 25 through December 20, killing 26 people and injuring at least 35.

 If militant violence was clearly more fatal during the Assembly election, it also occurred more frequently and resulted in more injuries when we account for the fact that the State election period was 10 days shorter than the Lok Sabha election period.

 This conclusion remains largely unchanged if we include militancy occurring in the run-up to the election. While militants killed four and injured nine people in 11 violent incidents in the month preceding the Lok Sabha election, they similarly killed three people and injured nine more in the four-week prelude to the Assembly election.

 Ms Mehbooba Mufti’s misreading of the militant landscapes during the two election can possibly be informed by her narrow preoccupation with her own Lok Sabha constituency — Anantnag. Indeed, she attributes the low voter turnout in Anantnag Lok Sabha constituency in the parliamentary election to the fact that “there was so much violence.” In the more recent Assembly election, she says, “that did not happen.”

 Again, her claim is unconvincing. While UJC militants killed 10 and injured three people in Anantnag Lok Sabha constituency during the parliamentary election, they killed four and injured 21 people in the same Lok Sabha seat’s constituent districts — Anantnag, Kulgam, Shopian, and Pulwama — in the course of the Assembly election.

 Though the Lok Sabha election admittedly hurt Ms Mehbooba Mufti’s constituency more in terms of militancy-induced deaths, this comparison also shows that militancy-induced injuries were far greater during the Legislative Assembly election.

 Moreover, militant attacks in her constituency were significantly more dramatic during the State Assembly election. While no single militant attack in the Anantnag Lok Sabha constituency resulted in more than five casualties during the parliamentary election, militants carried out two relatively high-impact grenade attacks in the constituency’s Pulwama district during the Assembly election. On March 3, 2014, they killed one paramilitary trooper and injured three of his colleagues, two policemen, and two civilians in a grenade attack in the district’s Pahoo area.

 Two days later, militants hurled a grenade at a bus stand in Tral, killing two and injuring at least nine civilians. That these two attacks occurred just days before Pulwama district’s electorate was scheduled to go to the polls might explain, in part, why three of the district’s Assembly segments — Pulwama, Tral, and Pampore — were amongst a minority of constituencies where voter turnout dropped relative to the 2008 Assembly election.

 This evidence suggests that the Chief Minister lacks an empirical basis to thank anybody, let alone Pakistan, for reduced militancy, since no such reduction in violence occurred during the most recent election.

 To the extent that he is grateful for his electoral victory, his generous words of thanks are best reserved for Jammu & Kashmir’s electorate, which turned out to vote in record-breaking numbers despite the fact that Pakistan and its proxies sought to sabotage the Assembly election through militant attacks that were more frequent, fatal, and dramatic than those witnessed during the Lok Sabha election.