As Kashmir votes in its first regional elections in a decade, Waheed-ur-Rehman Para fights his demons, fights to win and reaffirms his faith in Indian democracy.
Pulwama, Indian-administered Kashmir – For a month in 2020, 33-year-old Waheed-ur-Rehman Para was imprisoned in a dark, underground cell in the Indian capital, where he was beaten with rods, stripped, and hung upside down. . He came down after the country's premier investigative agency accused him of aiding anti-India rebels.
In the dim light, he would touch the names of other Kashmiris - scrawled on the walls - who had been held in a New Delhi cell before him. At his lowest points, Para would close his eyes and recall the summer of 2018 when he stood in front of 3,000 people, next to India's then home minister Rajnath Singh, who hailed him as a young icon of Indian democracy.
"I became suicidal and everything," Para recalls, walking along a dirt road in his hometown of Pulwama.
The city is part of a district that shares its name and has long been the center of anti-India insurgency in southern Indian-administered Kashmir. But Parra was - and still is - a popular pro-India leader, and he is still facing dramatic turns in his fortunes in recent years. After a month in a cell in New Delhi, he was imprisoned in Srinagar, Kashmir's largest city, for nearly two years.
"My whole life felt like a lie," he said.
“Fora month, I didn't know whether it was day or night. Being locked in a cage, I immediately felt connected to my Kashmiri roots and often returned to my childhood,” explains Para, his voice weak, hair visibly whiter from his time in prison. "And [I] think, how did this happen."
Released in May 2022 after what United Nations experts described as two years of torture, Para is still unwilling to abandon Indian democracy as it boycotts traditional door-to-door elections for votes in rebel-dominated areas. . He does this during multiple court hearings - some of the charges under which he was arrested, others related to petitions seeking permission to travel outside Kashmir.
On September 18, Para's name will be on the ballot as Kashmir goes to the polls in the first phase of regional elections to be held after nearly 10 years. The young president of the pro-India People's Democratic Party (PDP) is contesting from Pulwama, his candidature the latest affirmation of his faith in India's constitution, at a time when trust between Kashmiris and the Indian government as a whole has sunk to new depths. . . .
st 2019, New Delhi unilaterally revoked Kashmir's special autonomy – guaranteed in the country's constitution – and stripped it of its statehood. Para's own odyssey with the Indian state has completely "shaken" his faith in democracy, he said.
But, he insists, a Kashmiri cannot live a "sadist's life". A Kashmiri who loves his motherland, said, "One should live for Kashmir - not die for it". Para was referring to the alternative to democracy that many in Kashmir have embraced over the years - the gun.
Pera was surrounded by people eagerly waiting to shake hands with him. "Jail ka badla wat se [We will avenge jail with votes]," shouted his supporters, as a frail, old man wearing a white skull cap tried to talk to Para.
"My son is in jail under the PSA," he told Para, who stood down to listen to him chant loudly, using the acronym for the Public Safety Act, the Preventive Detention Act.
"Don't worry Haji Sahib, I'm here," said Para, patting him on the shoulder. "Come to my house in the evening and we'll see about it."
These are the pleas he hears most, Pera later told Al Jazeera - parents seeking help for their children jailed under India's anti-terrorism and preventive detention laws, which rights groups describe as draconian.
"We want to convince New Delhi to engage with Kashmiri stakeholders," he said. “There should be a reconciliation movement in Kashmir and the cases of our youth should be heard. We need a massive political process [for reconciliation].”
Pera's biggest test will be to convince Kashmiris that his party, the PDP, can run such a process.
Large sections of Kashmiri society have long viewed the alliance with mainstream India with suspicion because of the legitimacy of India's rule over the region. Both India and Pakistan have fought over the region for 77 years, each claiming all of it while controlling parts of it.
The political space for a pro-India coalition shrunk further after Modi's Hindu-majority Bharatiya Janata Party, which is in power in New Delhi, revoked the region's special status.
PDP was BJP's ally in the last elected government in the state in 2014. Since then, the party has faced fierce criticism for the BJP's rise to power in Kashmir.
In 2016, the PDP-BJP alliance quelled widespread street protests that erupted after the killing of a popular rebel commander, Burhan Wani. About 100 civilians were killed, a significant number of them in south Kashmir. Hundreds of others were blinded by pellet gun wounds.
However, that rejection of mainstream politics appears to be waning, Parra said, pointing to record-high turnout and the victory of jailed, anti-establishment independent candidate Sheikh Abdul Rashid in parliamentary elections held between April and June 2024. Also known as Engineer Rashid. Who defeated former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah.
My whole life felt like a lie," he said
ReplyDelete