By creating conditions that forced a deferment of the by-poll to the Lok Sabha from Anantnag, the people of the Kashmir Valley have sent out a horribly disturbing signal. They have “voted” a lack of confidence in the management of their political and administrative affairs. That is the message to New Delhi, Srinagar/Jammu, and both the major “local” political forces ~ the People’s Democratic Party (which along with the BJP forms the state government) and the more traditionallyfavoured National Conference: with the Congress, as in so many other places, having been reduced to a bit-player.

The fate of the by-poll from Srinagar now falls in the “dubious” category: the lowest-ever 7.14 per cent voter turnout, eight deaths and over 200 instances of violence having set the stage for the Election Commission’s eleventh-hour decision on Anantnag. Whether a mere deferment of that poll to 25 May will have a positive effect is a matter for speculation, triggering apprehensions that, as had happened earlier too, the security forces may be drafted to “get out the vote”.

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It would be living in the fools’ paradise in which Raisina Hill now thrives, politically convenient as well, to blame the low turnout and violence on the Pakistan-backed separatists ~ although there is nothing to suggest that people had come out to vote in Srinagar but were driven away by stonepelting mobs. For the past eight/nine months the situation in the Valley has been on the verge of collapse.

The ugly spat between the union home ministry and the EC over the original poll schedule only re-confirms a reality that false prestige had prevented New Delhi from discerning. It is significant that the participation of key figures of both the NC and the PDP in the Srinagar and Anantnag polls had no persuasive effect on the voter.

Maybe that does not confirm the claim of the separatists ~ the All Party Hurriyat Conference in particular ~ to be the “true representatives” of the people but it does underscore the diminishing credibility of the political forces more acceptable in New Delhi. Which could prove disastrous in the long-term: is the vacuum to be filled by those now “commanding” the streets?

Clearly, a very heavy price is being paid by the NDA government for its refusal to believe that the “muscle” of the security forces could turn around the situation in the Valley. Ever since the death of Burhan Wani there has been seething resentment; even “warnings” from the Chief of the Army Staff have not deterred the mobs from hindering antimilitant operations of the forces. What more will it take for Modi sarkar to put its pride in its pocket, and initiate political action to convince folk in the Valley that they also “belong”.