There were a few significant firsts in Indian Home Minister Amit Shah’s visit to Jammu and Kashmir  last  week as he addressed public rallies in the mountainous towns of Rajouri and Baramulla – moving out of the capital cities of Jammu and Srinagar -  and also for his pledge to grant Scheduled Tribe (ST) status to  Paharis, the hill community that had been agitating for this status for decades.  This politically smart affirmative action was an attempt to end the inequities that the community felt it suffered because the nomadic community of Gujjar and Bakarwals with which it shared the terrain and the difficult living conditions had been put on a higher pedestal for ST status was granted to them way back in 1991. This more than three-decade-old  ST status to their neighbours caused heartburn among the Pahari-speaking people. It had disturbed the social and political fulcrum in the border districts in the Jammu region and the  Kashmir Valley,  the two major regions in the union territory.

Fundamentally, the idea driving this announcement aimed at securing political space in areas and people in J&K where the BJP had been struggling to get a toehold, particularly in the Muslim-majority Valley where it suffered the repeated embarrassment of being a zero-seat party at the end of the electoral battles.  The party suffered highly humiliating defeats in the parliamentary and  assembly polls in Kashmir Valley. Now, with the scrapping of Article 370, the constitutional provision that granted semi-autonomous status to the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir on August 5, 2019,  it had become a matter of prestige to seek validation of its move in the Valley, where this change is yet to be accepted in full.  

Despite the massive development and unprecedented economic activity driven by the footfall of more than 2.2 million tourists this year so far, Kashmir nurtures apprehensions about the loss of jobs and land to "outsiders' or non-natives. The Valley is gripped with the fear that the government’s new laws favoured the non-locals and marginalized the natives.  All the alternative narratives by the BJP to allay fears has not found many takers.

The declaration of the ST status, with attendant political and economic benefits, coming to Paharis has made a difference. Shah related this announcement to two factors – the abolition of Article 370, which he claimed, has transformed Jammu and Kashmir as it was witnessing development and progress that it had seen never before  August 5, 2019.

Clever politics

Simultaneously, it was a clever attempt to indict Kashmir-centric parties – National Conference of Abdullahs, PDP of Muftis, and also of Gandhi-family centric Congress,  which ruled the state since independence for they brought nothing but what he called deprivation and conflict. He sent this message home to  Paharis that they suffered deprivation because they were made subservient to the wishes of the three family-dominated parties.

Second,  the elation of the Paharis both before, during and after the visit over the prospects of ST status coming to them, may have made them tilt their political preference toward the saffron party, as they have also recognised the fact that all other parties did nothing more than pay lip service to their aspiration for the ST status while BJP  had done something concrete. And they are also aware that the BJP government at the Centre cannot delay the notification of ST status for them for long as the assembly elections are approaching. That is where the political objectives of the BJP  and  Paharis converge now.

The Pahari population is spread across six  districts in Jammu and Kashmir –  Rajouri and Poonch in Jammu region , Baramulla, Kupwara, Anantnag and Shopian in the Valley. Their estimated population is around 1.2 million, with their major concentration in eight assembly constituencies in Jammu, where it is between 56 per cent to 20 per cent, and  three constituencies in Kashmir Valley’s Baramulla and Kupwara districts. It also has  the potential to cause a minor tilt in two constituencies in Shopian and  Anantnag districts in south Kashmir . In all, it can cause electoral shifts in 13  of 90 assembly constituencies  across the union territory.

In pursuance of the BJP's political goal,  Amit Shah drew two strategic lines on the political map of Jammu and Kashmir. First, Paharis have been brought on board the narrative that non-BJP parties that ruled the territory were responsible for denying justice to them Second, the line traverses through the demographic geography of J&K’s politics.  Paharis live in enclaves of their own, though there are many pockets of the mixed population – Paharis and Gujjars and Bakerwals. In the twin border districts of Rajouri and Poonch lying adjacent to Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir,   Paharis are delighted that they would get the ST status, which will open greater opportunities to them in services, admission to professional institutions and access to tribal funds. Since the BJP is executing this, they have developed a new-found love for the saffron party.

Wooing the Paharis

In the Valley's two districts of  Baramulla and Kupwara, this love for the BJP  is expected to distance them from the traditional political parties of  Kashmir -  National Conference and PDP. The political loss to  Kashmir-centric parties is an advantage for the BJP.

Once, the BJP senses that it has got firm roots in the Pahari-speaking community, it will go for assembly polls in Jammu & Kashmir. It had been hesitant in going in for the elections as it was seen as being a zero-seat party in the Valley.  As Paharis have taken to the BJP line, owing to the announcement of the ST status by the home minister, all other parties in Kashmir have come on the defensive.

To the questions posed by the Home Minister Shah to  National Conference and PDP  leaders – Farooq Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti, as to what did they do for the people of Kashmir,  NC’s patriarch Farooq Abdullah came out with a detailed response listing all the achievements under  NC rule since 1948, when his father Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah became head of the government, to his own times in the 1980s and 1990s, taking it forward to the days of his son Omar Abdullah’s rule from 2009 to 2014.

PDP president Mehbooba Mufti tweeted: “ Dedicating his speech to answer my questions, HM forgets  that (her father ) Mufti Sahab was Chief Minister for just 3.5 years and doesn’t need validation from for his work for the welfare of J&K . Even after ruling J&K  directly since 2018, BJP has nothing to show except their broken record of dynastic rule.”

This doesn’t erase the irrefutable fact that a community that used to align with Kashmiri parties until now was shifting its preferences, the impact of which is bound to be felt in the electoral battle in the forthcoming assembly polls. If the BJP succeeds in reaping the electoral benefits in Jammu & Kashmir, it will have much more to tell the nation ahead of the 2024 polls in the country.

(The author is a senior journalist and author based in Jammu and Kashmir. Views are personal)