In Kashmir's separatist red zone, BJP gets support from former stone-pelters

Baramulla:  It was a chilly afternoon on January 10 when a group of young boys known only as stone-pelters and protestors from North Kashmir’s Old-Town Baramulla, sat cross-legged in the carved wood and varnished hall of Dak Bungalow, Baramulla. There were no security personnel in sight to guard the meeting venue, no curious visitors, the silence surrounding the hall occasionally broken by the soft thuds of melting ice falling from the rooftop. A clean-shaven man in his early thirties started speaking from one end of an oval table. Restless boys with ambivalent faces, all from the much-feared Old Town area, giving a patient hearing to Ravinder Raina, the Jammu and Kashmir president of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha, the BJP’s youth wing. [caption id=“attachment_137324” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  A BJP meeting in Old Town on January 10. Shahid Tantray / Firstpost[/caption] Days after Raina addressed a crowed of nearly eighty boys who locals identify as the usual suspects participating in any violent protest against the government,  it emerged that the BJP had managed to bring into its fold more than 70 youngsters from the area of Baramulla town where even police have failed to  establish an outpost for nearly a decade.  It may not be a substantial number, Raina says, but no political party, not even the regional ones, can claim to have more than 50 workers from Old Town. “I won’t call them stone pelters: these are young boys, unemployed and restless, cheated by successive governments in Kashmir. They have been wronged by the system, and in future we will fight their cases,” Raina told Firstpost. Mainstream political party leaders have restrained from engaging in dialogue with these young boys for reasons best known to them, he said. “It’s a great achievement for us. They are our kids. We need to get these boys into the mainstream. When we explained to them what the BJP  was able to do during Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s time their eyes were wide open,” he added. The fear of Modi as a Hindutva hardliner was not even discussed. It a surprising political development that has gone almost unnoticed in Kashmir. Old-Town Baramulla is not just any other area of conflict-ridden Kashmir. Security agencies call it the ‘Red Zone’ of Kashmir. Separatist sentiments run deep among the residents of the town, a bastion of the Jamait Islamia, a pro Pakistani group. Having affiliation with a mainstream political party is akin to inviting death – for their association with political parties, militants have killed people in broad daylight here. Even the BJP’s Yuva Morcha drive to get youngsters from here into its cadre took dozens of anxious meetings. Long persuasion by BJP leaders included many nightlong sessions about the party’s plank of economic development for the state, and a helping hand for those “wronged by the system.” Muneer Ahmad (name changed), 22, says he indulged in stone pelting once and the police registered a case against him, as he was caught on camera throwing stones. He went to all the political parties but no one came to his rescue. “When the party leaders told me they will fight for us, I joined the party. It is not just about the case but about their efforts – at least they came to meet us, no one else did,” he says. For successive state governments and security agencies, stone pelting and stone-pelters have remained a cause for concern. Most of the stone pelting in Baramulla, happens on the four bridges connecting Old with New Town. These bridges also happen to be the routes for many border areas of Kashmir. And it is here, on these bridges, that most of the death occurred during two incidents of unrest in 2008 and 2010, including that a 13-year-old boy who was allegedly thrown into river by the security forces. The state government, to curb the stone pelting, came up with a project to de-congest the slum-like Old Town, a plan conceived after the 2010 agitation in the valley. The reason, many security analysts say, was to try to decongest the 13 Mohallas of the Old Town and neighbouring Azadganj. These areas were the places where most of the stone pelting took place. These are incidentally also the places which are most congested. The growth of extremist religious organizations has been tremendous in more then two decades of conflict. In the 2008 Assembly elections, only 56 out of an estimated 50,000 voters in Old Town exercised their franchise. The reason might be attributed to the fact that almost every Mohalla had a warning against voting, pasted on the front doors of mosques by one or other militant group. No one determined whether those posters were really pasted by militants or by religious groups, but the threats had such an impact that apart from security forces, only dogs were seen on the streets on polling day. Prior to 1947, Old Town had played a central role in trade with Rawalpindi and Lahore, providing services and logistics to traders and travelers. But after 1947, the trade route was closed and the town’s economic foundations were shattered. Slowly, Old Town became mired in backwardness. Even today, many homes in its winding lanes have no proper sewage system. Young people are well-educated, the product of the dramatic reforms introduced by Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah after independence, but they have little economic opportunity. Despite people being well educated, most young boys here are continuously on the radar of security agencies; in some cases for no reason, an unwritten code that started in the early years of militancy. Many observers say it is this kind of apathy and attitude which has made Old Town a no-go area for government officials. BJYM State Vice-President Ashiq Hussain Dar who has been working to bring Kashmiri youth into the party fold says it is not the coming elections that led them to join, but the sense of oneness the boys get when a state president of a national party meets them many times. “No political leader, not even an MLA, has meet them before us. Are they not part of us? Are they not Indians,” Ashiq asks. BJP has never fielded a candidate in Baramulla. Even if it does, these handful of workers might not ensure a seat. But imagine if the BJP manages to get 50 votes in Old Town where, in the last two elections, not more than a hundred votes have been cast.