Word: kashmir
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...Elections in Indian-administered Kashmir are not like those in the rest of the world. Most people don't vote, many potential leaders don't stand and, for those that take part, the central issue of whether Kashmir should be Indian, Pakistani or independent is avoided. Even so, the significance of the polls to be held over three weeks starting this month is difficult to overstate. It was the rigging of a 1987 vote in favor of the government-allied National Conference that eventually touched off a separatist insurgency that has cost 36,500 lives in 13 years...
...India uses elections in Kashmir as proof that the people there accept rule from New Delhi?even when the elections prove nothing of the sort. This round might be different. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee has promised "free and fair" elections for months?and even apologized for past mistakes in Kashmir, an unprecedented gesture. Rigging will be harder than usual with the world watching. Moreover, the election promises to deliver Kashmir a new generation of leaders that may finally free it from the prejudice and intransigence of the past. Backed by India, the National Conference is led by Omar Abdullah...
...Most crucially, the mood in the Kashmir valley, the cradle of the insurgency, has changed. Thirteen years of fighting and refusing to participate in elections has achieved precious little, say many former militants. They also complain that what was once an indigenous freedom struggle has been usurped by Pakistani militants whose pan-Islamic ideals and fundamentalism are at odds with this fight for self-rule and with the moderate Sufi Islam of the Valley. The foreigners, Indian intelligence sources claim, number half of the 2,500 militants in the area...
...would kill his four sons if I did not take part as there was no point going on like this," says Sofi. So he quit the alliance last month to run as an independent. "The Hurriyat is right that the elections don't address the core issue of Kashmir's status," admits Sofi. "But they are ignoring the people's condition, their basic day-to-day suffering." Adds Mohammed Shahbaz, 29, one of 15,000 people who cheered Sofi as he filed his candidacy: "We still want freedom from India. But we are changing our tactics. We want to throw...
...This rising willingness to break with the past has prompted all sides to rethink. Hurriyat's Farooq has made an intriguing compromise: he supports the call for candidates to boycott these "irrelevant" elections, but hasn't asked Kashmir's voters not to participate. "People must let their conscience decide," he says...