In India's Kashmir, former separatists take struggle to the ballot box

By Fayaz Bukhari

SRINAGAR (Reuters) - When former Kashmiri independence advocate Hafiz Mohammad Sikander Malik filed nomination papers for the Jammu and Kashmir's election starting Wednesday, the first poll since India revoked the region's semi-autonomy, he wore a GPS ankle tracker.

The 37-year-old is out on bail after being jailed in 2019 on what authorities call "terror" charges. He is one of 10 candidates who once advocated for Kashmir's independence from India contesting the local legislature election.

The former separatists have vowed if elected to try and force India to reinstate Jammu and Kashmir's semi-autonomy, but New Delhi has rejected these call.

Claimed in full by both India and Pakistan, but controlled partially by both, Jammu and Kashmir has been at the heart of more than 75 years of animosity between the nuclear-armed neighbours since their independence from British colonial rule in 1947.

In 2019, India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi stripped the region of its partial autonomy and brought it under New Delhi rule, saying it would bring peace after nearly three decades of militancy. Dozens of separatists leaders were detained, and Modi sent in additional forces to prevent unrest.

Malik is contesting the poll, which will run until October, as an independent because New Delhi banned his Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) party in 2019, accusing it of supporting militancy in the disputed region.

Jamaat started boycotting elections in 1987 claiming they were rigged to favour parties that had New Delhi's backing. The federal government has denied the charges.

"As we were not in active politics for the past three decades, we were being ignored," Malik told Reuters. He said his main aim was to get the ban on his party lifted and ensure amnesty for people imprisoned on various charges.

"Since the other parties don’t raise these issues, we want to raise them and fight for these issues. If elected to power we work for the betterment of people."

The National Conference and the People's Democratic Party, the two main regional rivals who have governed Jammu and Kashmir between them since 1947, barring brief periods of federal rule. Both parties have also made restoration of partial autonomy a core promise.

National Conference leader Omar Abdullah, who, like his father and grandfather, has been Jammu and Kashmir's chief minister, recently said that Kashmir needs to "get back our identity" by reversing the Modi government's 2019 move.

But Modi's interior minister, Amit Shah, said this month that the region's semi-autonomous status was "history and no one can bring it back".

Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has little presence in the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley. It skipped running candidates there in India's general elections this year for the first time since 1996. They will contest 62 seats out of the 90, but few expect significant results for the Hindu nationalist BJP.

Its national rival Congress, which is silent on the issue of semi-autonomy, has allied with Abdullah's National Conference party.

To unify against the regional powerhouses, the independents have joined hands with Awami Ittehad Party, led by another prominent former separatist leader Abdul Rashid Sheikh, who defeated heavyweight Abdullah in the general elections.

If Rashid and his allies win a majority, he said, "I will go to New Delhi and sit in front of the PM’s (Modi's) house" demanding restoration of Kashmir's autonomy.

Another former Jamaat leader and independent candidate, Sayar Ahmad Reshi, 42, said elections were the only way to fight injustice.

"I do not want the youth to become mere names on gravestones and they are my voters now," he said. "We will try to raise the issues and carry forward our struggle through the ballot."

(Reporting by Fayaz Bukhari in Srinagar, writing by Krishn Kaushik; Editing by Michael Perry)