Mohammad Saleem, a 32-year-old manual labourer from Baramulla, skipped work on Thursday to attend the first public rally of Engineer Rashid, days after the parliamentarian from Jammu and Kashmir was released from a Delhi prison.
In the gathering of a couple of thousand people in Delina, a town in Baramulla district, there were others like Saleem, who had bunked work or college or slipped out of a family function to hear Rashid speak.
“Look at the way he articulated the suffering of Kashmiris,” said Saleem, referring to the Baramulla MP’s first interaction with journalists on September 11 after his release, when he lashed out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decision to scrap Jammu and Kashmir’s special status and statehood and highlighted the plight of Kashmiri prisoners in Tihar jail. “I can’t forget dozens of Kashmiris who are suffering in Tihar jail who need immediate medical care,” Rashid had told reporters.
Rashid, who had been in Tihar since 2019 on a terror funding case and even fought the Lok Sabha elections from prison, was granted interim bail by a Delhi court to campaign for the Assembly polls.
“Had anyone expected that a person who comes out of Tihar jail will speak about the condition of fellow Kashmiri prisoners whom none of our leaders has spoken about all these years?” Saleem asked. “He speaks what’s in the heart of every Kashmiri.”
After stepping out of jail, Rashid pledged to fight Modi’s plan to create a new Kashmir. “People have voted in the recent parliamentary polls not out of love of Modiji but to let him know what Kashmiris think,” he said.
Later in the evening, Rashid went live on Facebook to talk about his ordeal in the Delhi prison and alleged that he had been subjected to abuse inside Tihar jail because he refused to support a proxy candidate of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the Lok Sabha elections. Within 24 hours, Rashid’s video had gathered more than 2.1 million views. “He speaks the truth and he is not afraid of anyone,” said Uzma, one of the few women who had come to attend Rashid’s rally in Baramulla on Thursday.
As major regional political parties of Jammu and Kashmir seek to tap into the anger against Delhi rule and the abrogation of Article 370 in the coming Assembly polls, Rashid’s release has the potential to disrupt the election in Kashmir Valley.
As a two-time legislator from North Kashmir, his record of being a mainstream politician capable of confronting Delhi and speaking about the Kashmiri political aspiration remains an enviable one. “On his own, he is more outspoken against Delhi than the entire leadership of mainstream parties in Kashmir,” said Mudasir Ahmad, a student in Srinagar. “Both the National Conference and the Peoples Democratic Party have a history of working closely with the BJP.”
But the elections are unlikely to be an easy proposition for Rashid or his party. Both the National Conference and the Peoples Democratic Party have alleged that Rashid’s sudden resurgence on the political scene is part of the BJP’s “design”.
The allegation is significant given that the history of electoral politics in the Valley is littered with New Delhi’s behind-the-scenes machinations – from the dismissal and arrest of a mass leader like Sheikh Abdullah in 1953 to the alleged rigging of the 1987 Assembly elections, often believed to be one of the catalysts for the birth of militancy in 1989.
Rashid not only has to battle the perception of being a proxy of New Delhi but the elections will also test the mettle of his Awami Ittehad Party against legacy political players like National Conference and Peoples Democratic Party. The party has fielded 34 candidates in a total of 90 Assembly constituencies of Jammu and Kashmir. Most of them are in Kashmir Valley.
The Lok Sabha upset
In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, Rashid famously pulled off the impossible. Propelled by an emotional campaign by his sons, Rashid defeated formidable opponents, including former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah, by a margin of 2 lakh votes to win the Baramulla Lok Sabha constituency.
According to observers, a combination of factors helped Rashid pull off the upset. This includes his more than five-year-long detention in Delhi’s Tihar jail – something many in Kashmir identified with given the number of Kashmiris in jails across the country because of a widespread crackdown on separatism by the Centre.
Rashid’s past record as a non-conformist, unorthodox two-time legislator from Langate also added to his appeal. “In Kashmir, mainstream politics has always represented Delhi while the separatists represented the ground sentiment of the people. Rashid was someone who would give expression to issues felt by the people despite being in the mainstream,” explained an observer in Srinagar, who declined to be identified. “At times, he would cause a lot of discomfort to the parties in power over what he called their surrender of Kashmir’s interests to New Delhi.”
From moving a resolution in Jammu and Kashmir state assembly in 2011 to seek clemency for the 2001 Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru to throwing a beef party in Srinagar against BJP’s beef ban, Rashid played the role of a devil’s advocate within the mainstream politics in Kashmir.
In Handwara, Rashid’s public confrontations against the Army's high-handedness are no less than legendary. In 2010, Rashid’s complaint to the state human rights commission forced the government to admit that the Army was using civilians in North Kashmir’s Handwara region as forced labour. Among the civilians who had been exploited was Rashid himself.
Rashid’s theatrical and confrontationist politics has resonated even with a large section of Kashmiris who have boycotted elections so as not to give legitimacy to Indian rule in the disputed region. “I had never voted in my life,” said Javid Ahmad, 34, of Rafiabad, who was at the Delina rally. “It was only after I saw the plight of his sons that I decided to vote for him in Lok Sabha elections.” Ahmad said he will be voting for the Awami Ittehad Party candidate in the Assembly election.
What helps Rashid is also the sense of fatigue among many Kashmiris with the traditional mainstream political parties like National Conference and Peoples Democratic Party.
“Both NC and PDP have been tried and tested by the people,” said Khursheed Sheikh, Rashid’s younger brother, who recently quit his government job as a teacher and decided to contest the Langate seat. “In order to be in power, they have allied with the BJP. We are asking people to give us a chance.”
The challenge to the old guard
On his return, Rashid has questioned NC and PDP for doing little more than issuing statements about fighting for Article 370.
“How will Article 370 come back? You will have to protest at Lal Chowk and be ready to be hit by batons. But they (National Conference and PDP) cannot do it,” Rashid was quoted as saying at a press conference by PTI. “When Amit Shah said no one can give back the statehood to Jammu and Kashmir except the BJP government, they did not even dare to say we [will] struggle for it.”
Rashid also shot down charges that he was in a secret deal with the BJP. “If someone takes you to Tihar, and gives you food the way it is given to animals – they didn’t even give me parole on my aunt’s death – how is it possible to shake hands with them?” he asked during his rally in Baramulla on Thursday.
His brother, Khursheed Sheikh, said the party will “never” enter into an alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party to form the government if they get enough seats. “Our core ideology is anti-BJP,” said Sheikh. “We can't afford to join them. We have seen how the PDP has been decimated after their alliance with the BJP.”
Who gains from disruption?
If Rashid does manage to disrupt the political dynamic in the Kashmir Valley, in some ways he would have achieved what the BJP has unsuccessfully attempted.
Post-2019, New Delhi has tried to fashion a new political class that was more aligned to the Centre’s stance on the abrogation of Article 370.
Political observers in Srinagar believe Rashid’s consolidation furthers that cause, as he will primarily dent the vote share of traditional political parties. “BJP’s agenda is that Kashmir Valley’s votes should get fragmented among multiple parties. No single party should win the maximum number of seats in the Valley,” said a second political observer in Srinagar, who too declined to be identified.
If Rashid is able to dislodge what BJP calls “dynastic parties” like National Conference and Peoples Democratic Party, it would suit the saffron party’s agenda of getting rid of the Muftis and Abdullahs, the observer added. “It looks like the Centre wants to decimate the top leadership of these old parties, leaders who have a legacy and know statecraft well. They want to neutralize them. In comparison, the new players don’t have much skill on that front,” he said.
According to him, so far the National Conference and Peoples Democratic Party have failed to provide a convincing counter to Rashid’s rhetoric against them.
However, the two regional mainstream parties may prove a challenge to Rashid given their superior organisational structure.
“People vote mostly for parties. It’s a fact that Engineer swayed North Kashmir in Lok Sabha elections but these are Assembly elections,” said the second observer. “Each constituency has its own dynamic.”
He added: “It’s unlikely that Rashid will be able to repeat the same performance unless he is able to create a wave.”
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