On 20 May 2024, 77-year-old Ali Mohammad voted for the first time in an Indian parliamentary election – much to the surprise of his family and neighbours in Srinagar. Mohammad describes himself as a longtime “supporter” of Jamaat-e-Islami Jammu and Kashmir, a political outfit that advocates for self-determination for the Kashmiri people. The Indian government has accused the organisation of wanting to merge the Indian-administered territories of Kashmir with Pakistan, which also lays claim to the area, and of supporting Hizbul Mujahideen, a Pakistan-affiliated militant organisation fighting Indian forces.
In recent decades, Srinagar, the largest city in Indian-administered Kashmir, has largely chosen not to vote, fuelled by boycott calls from separatist groups that have typically viewed the electoral process as legitimising India’s control over the city and the territory. But when India went to the polls this year, Mohammed said, senior members of Jamaat-e-Islami Jammu and Kashmir decided not to call for a boycott.
Kashmiri’s stance on voting pivoted sharply in 1987 after an election for the Jammu and Kashmir state legislature that was widely considered to have been rigged in favour of the Indian government’s preferred candidate. The resulting outrage fuelled militancy and insurgency, and with this came the poll boycotts and a fear against campaigning and voting. This year, for the first time since then, political parties campaigned in Kashmir without dread. People came out in large numbers to cast their vote. In most of the areas I went to during the election, people casting ballots did not hide their faces as they used to do, and they spoke openly with media personnel. Even the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) launched an extensive campaign before deciding to withdraw from the race in Kashmir – reportedly to avoid the poor optics of a resounding defeat.
The parliamentary constituencies within the Kashmir Valley saw record turnout – 38 percent in Srinagar, 58 percent in Baramulla to the north and 54 percent in Anantnag-Rajouri to the south. Across all three, I spoke to more than two dozen individuals who voted for the first time in their lives, many of them in their 40s and 50s. New Delhi, eager to project an image of normalcy in the troubled region, was quick to claim that the high turnout in the whole of the union territory of Jammu and Kashmir – the highest in 35 years, according to election officials – was proof of a “robust democratic spirit”, and official media highlighted the “peaceful” conduct of the polls. But things are not as simple as that.