Another electoral farce

AMID widespread hostility among voters and fears of further bloodshed, India continues to move ahead with its plans to hold state elections in occupied Kashmir beginning mid-September. Already, the exercise has lost all meaning following the decision of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, the umbrella group of parties opposed to Indian rule, to stay out of the polls. Since 1989, when the uprising in Kashmir began following widespread electoral malpractices, India’s record on polls in Kashmir has been truly abysmal. There is little indication that the present exercise is going to be much different. While the militant pro-freedom groups have called for a boycott, and Islamabad has dismissed the process as a charade, it is the decision by the APHC that has come as the biggest blow to the Indians, who are desperate to show the international community that the polls will be free and fair. On Saturday, APHC Chairman Abdul Ghani Bhat reiterated the Hurriyat’s stand of boycotting the polls and called for a tripartite dialogue between India, Pakistan and the representatives of the Kashmiri people to solve the long-festering dispute. He said that if New Delhi accepted the principle that the APHC should talk to all the parties involved in the dispute, including Pakistan, they would have no problems talking to India first.

The APHC, meanwhile, has agreed to talk to the Kashmir Committee, a group of leading Indian intellectuals led by former union law minister Ram Jethmalani, which is trying to find some way out of the deadlock over Kashmir. With all these moves underway, there seems to have been a dramatic shift in the views of Farooq Abdullah, the sitting ‘chief minister’ of the occupied state. On Sunday, the normally hawkish Abdullah surprised many by urging India to hold negotiations with Pakistan to solve the Kashmir dispute. He said dialogue was “necessary given the death and destruction witnessed by Kashmiris over the years.” Farooq Abdullah’s sudden turnaround could represent one of two things. Perhaps he has come to accept the ground realities and is trying to curry favour with the electorate, most of whom are of the firm belief that elections of this kind are no way of settling the Kashmir dispute. His change of stance could also be a form of blackmail, a practice he has become quite adept at over the years.

As the polls draw closer, some pro-Indian forces in the area are urging New Delhi to postpone the elections and hold them after placing the territory under its direct rule. The usually hard-line anti-Pakistan Abdullah could well have toned down his rhetoric to make the Indians think twice before removing him from the chief ministership. Farooq Abdullah and his National Conference have always gained the most when elections have been widely boycotted. In 1996, Abdullah succeeded in winning simply because of the abysmally low turnout. There is every sign that the same pattern will be repeated in the upcoming polls. Recent reports in the foreign media make it clear that it is not any threat from militants that would force people to stay away from the polling booths. Rather, it is their conviction that the latest farce of elections would only prolong Indian rule. Most Kashmiris are convinced that only a referendum that asks the people whether or not they want to be part of India could lead to a durable solution to this long-standing conflict.

Towards greater democracy

WITH the abolition of the armed forces’ reserved seats in parliament, Indonesia has finally begun moving towards a more democratic polity. On Sunday, the 700-member-strong upper house of parliament abolished the army’s quota of 38 seats which was seen as one of the remnants of Suharto’s Bonapartist political legacies. Hitherto, the all-powerful upper house of parliament took the country’s most important decisions, including electing the president. Significantly, Sunday’s vote also allowed the Indonesians to directly elect their president from now on. This brings to a logical conclusion the fierce struggle of the Indonesian people for a greater say in their affairs that forced Suharto to step down after bloody riots and economic turmoil in 1998. The next presidential election is due in 2004.

The way the vote has come about within just over a year’s time of President Megawati Sukarnoputri’s taking charge of the beleaguered country is nothing short of a miracle. Despite her widespread popularity, her party has only 153 seats in the present parliament. But her minority government has had the support of the generally secular, if corrupt, armed forces, whose severed links with the US military stand somewhat mended in the wake of Indonesia joining the US-led coalition against terrorism. It goes to the credit of Indonesia’s leadership that despite many internal problems and threats of an Islamist insurgency against Jakarta, Indonesia successfully ceded East Timor, fulfilling its international commitments on that account earlier this year.

Last week’s visit to Jakarta by the US secretary of state, Colin Powell, paved the way for a resumption of military aid to Indonesia which had been frozen since the 1999 army crackdown in East Timor ordered by the former Islamist president Abdurrahman Wahid. Seen in this wider perspective, Ms Sukarnoputri seems to have played her cards well so far, winning the Indonesians more democratic freedoms in the bargain. Former president Wahid, besides being accused of corruption, had fallen out of favour with the generals for proposing precisely the same reforms which Ms Sukarnoputri has now safe-sailed through parliament. The democratic reforms in question augur well for Indonesia’s 210 million people who have been through repressive political and tough economic times since Suharto deposed Indonesia’s founding father Sukarno in a CIA-sponsored military coup in 1966.

Fighting pollution

IT is good to see the Karachi city council finally taking note of the city’s ever-deteriorating environment. The chairperson of the council’s environmental committee has told the house that the city’s residents suffer not just in terms of breathing unclean air or drinking dirty water, but because much of the food they eat is often heavily adulterated or contaminated with all kinds of pollutants. Karachi’s growing environmental problem has also been highlighted in a recent UN report which says that increasing pollution and smog levels in many South Asian cities might be linked to the drought afflicting the region.

The city council member who prepared a report on the nature and extent of the problem of pollution facing Karachi must be commended for her work, especially given the meagre resources at her disposal. In fact, she said that there was no one to assist her and that certain government departments were more of a hindrance, adding that in many cases government staff or installations were the source of contamination and pollution. This clearly shows the importance authorities at various levels attach to the problem of environmental degradation in the country. This lack of attention is all the more troubling considering that it is that fighting pollution is no longer just a fashionable or politically correct concept but rather a way of ensuring against declines in public health, sanitation and quality of life. One hopes that the federal, provincial and local governments would realize the seriousness of the pollution problem and strengthen institutional mechanisms, such as the EPAs, for the enforcement of the environment act of 1997 that can act as effective check on environmental degradation and pollution.