Hope and hesitation 

Defeated in Lok Sabha 2024 by over two lakh votes from Baramulla, National Conference’s Omar Abdullah won two Assembly seats—Ganderbal and Budgam— just four months later. In Ganderbal, the seat the chief minister-designate is expected to retain, the mood is sombre.

People in the constituency, which touches Srinagar city, are aware that the Centre has severely curtailed the powers of the elected head of government. Still, many of them hope that jobs for the educated will become a reality and inflation will be controlled.

Suspicious of outsiders, a bunch of youngsters this writer engaged were reluctant to speak at first. “Talk to older people, we have nothing to say. We don’t follow politics,” they said in chorus.

Soon, however, the ice was broken, and we all headed to a tea shop. They haven’t forgotten that some of their friends still face cases for incidents of stone-pelting in 2016. “Cases have been lodged against people who were not even present,” one of them said. Every month comes a court date. But that’s it. Nothing moves forward, he added.

The past is embedded in the present. A healing touch is needed. But can the new chief minister make a difference given that law and order is a central subject now?

Stones to ballot

People tell you things in their own way. The people first hurled stones and now have hurled votes, one Kashmiri told me. The stones cost the people a lot—the response from the security forces was fast and furious.

Votes, on the other hand, have done the trick—an elected government led by National Conference leader Omar Abdullah will be sworn in soon. Even as the Congress complains of malpractices in the Haryana Assembly elections, no such noises are being heard in Jammu & Kashmir. The vote has gone where it was intended.

Kashmiris viewed their special status as a kind of security blanket even though the blanket had become frayed over the years. What remained of the blanket itself was snatched away on August 5, 2019, when the Modi-Shah duo ended Kashmir’s special status and reduced the state to a Union Territory.

They are smart enough to acknowledge that restoration of Article 370 looks beyond the pale of the possible but want to keep the demand on the table. Even the return of statehood looks doubtful.

Wanderlust in valley

Post-election, tourists are back in Kashmir. You have little choice but to squeeze past cabs to enter the Ahdoos hotel on Residency Road, a safe space for journalists during the militancy-affected days of the 1990s.

Young people—both locals and tourists—can be seen sitting in the bakery of Ahdoos—while waiters dart to serve their demanding customers at lunch in the restaurant above. At night, eateries and cafes are full along the Dal Lake. Shops are bursting at their seams.

I meet a young couple inside a bookshop and begin chatting with them. How long have they been in Kashmir? “One-and-a-half months” is the reply. When do you go home (to Hardoi in Uttar Pradesh)? In time for Diwali.

They quit their jobs as software engineers in Bangalore and took off on an Enfield Bullet to Ladakh from Hardoi. And now they are roaming around in the Valley, soaking in the sights and sounds.

That’s one, relaxed way to travel—in between jobs.

Srinagar’s calm

Bunkers, netting and armour-plated vehicles now seem part of the scenery in Srinagar. The dust on the camouflaged tin sheets is visible when you drive past the bunkers. It’s like these have grown with the city after being established in the 1990s. The khaki-uniformed policemen, many of them from central paramilitary forces, seem relaxed, stopping the odd vehicle but letting the vast majority through.

Back in the early 1990s, when this writer was a young reporter and a regular visitor to the Valley, it didn’t seem so. The security personnel were always on edge, often there was curfew or curfew-like conditions and the sound of intermittent firing by militants could be heard. While there have been recent incidents of terrorism, many of them outside the Valley, Srinagar city has been calm.

During the recent elections, many candidates were able to campaign at night, something that wasn’t possible in previous campaigns. For both life and livelihood, it’s critical that such an environment persist.