A Play without a Prince

The first polls in Jammu and Kashmir after the abrogation of Article 370 seemed like staging Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark.

Like the removal of Shakespeare’s great tragedy’s most iconic character, removing Article 370 from J&K left an irresistible void in the drama of Kashmir’s politics – one that removes the very cause that has defined its identity, politics, and relationship with the country over decades.

Article 370 has provided the founding element in the historical and political context of Kashmir. Ensconced in the Constitution of India in 1949, it endowed Jammu and Kashmir with special autonomy, providing the State with its own constitution, laws, and considerable powers to govern its internal affairs. In simple words, this special status was symbolic of the unique political and cultural identity of the region.

The Article 370 has been an integral part of the political discourse in Kashmir for decades and constitutes the very core of mainstream politics that gave it a legal and a constitutional cloak. Regional parties like the National Conference (NC) and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) built their entire political narratives on protecting this special status. For separatists, it acted as a stepping stone toward their broader claim of resolution of the Kashmir issue. Whether it was for or against it, Article 370 was the one unifying element around which political life in Kashmir vibrated.

The sudden abrogation of Article 370 by the Government of India (GoI) on August 5, 2019, rocked the political contours. It was cited as a necessity to improve and assimilate the nation but brought down the provincial autonomy with the very act. For many in Kashmir, this was a blow not just to their political identity but an existential blow to their very existence. Divided and downgraded into two union territories – J&K and Ladakh - from an erstwhile the State made the situation even more ticklish.

In the months and years after the Article 370 repeal, the political scene in Kashmir went into a kind of paralysis. Political leaders were arrested, political dialogue was silenced, and elections were postponed. The mainstream parties, who had once been the preferred guardians of the Article 370 issue, found themselves hastily seeking answers to where they fit in a post-Article 370 scenario. The response was the formation of the People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD) coalition demanding that the pre-2019 status be restored. However, it proved impossible for it to translate that into concrete political action and PAGD died its own death.

Elections were held in J&K for the first time without the region having its special status. The analogy of Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark was served painfully. Missing but not, absolutely not, from the talk of the elections was the question of Article 370 that over time has been the pulsating heart of Kashmir’s political life. And because it was removed, it created a ludicrous situation where elections became a pale imitation of what this exercise used to once be – full of emotional and political weight the Article 370 previously carried.

The abrogation of Article 370 proved a huge problem for local political parties, specifically for the NC and PDP. Having founded their electoral platforms on the protection of Kashmir’s autonomy, they then faced the immense challenge of relating to the electorate without central planks of their political identities. While they continue to demand the re-establishment of statehood and some form of autonomy, demands appear diluted in the face of a political reality that no longer entertains the return of Article 370.

In a way, the mainstream parties in Kashmir are playing this political drama without its defining role. It is like playing Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark. The necessary narrative strand that should glue this play has been woven into the sidelines. As such, it forms a hollow performance in which the audience only questions the spectacle on display.

In the absence of Article 370, the rhetorical discourse of elections was utilised to technocratic themes, such as development, employment, and governance. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), that was instrumental in the scrapping of Article 370, mobilised the very campaign around promises of economic development and putting an end to corruption. It presented the abrogation of Article 370 as more akin to good governance and integration with the country. Such developments include bringing federal laws to the region and potential investments.

This message of development must surely work well for many of the voters and especially in Jammu region. The promise of jobs and infrastructural developments with better public services is enough to carry weight in a region long in stagnation. Yet this shift in discourse will ring hollow for much of the population of Kashmir whose very political identity and autonomy, not least, continues unresolved.

The promises of the Centre to usher in development are necessary but cannot fill the emotional and political vacuum left by the removal of Article 370.

One cannot see that it was not the economic condition that had shaped the political character of Kashmir. Instead, it was the historical and cultural character which simply cannot be addressed through material development.

Elections may seem like an exercise in futility for many in Kashmir. They may see it as yet another effort to mount a political drama without its lead actor. Removal of Article 370 may have disillusioned several large sections of the electorate and left them skeptical about mainstream politics managing their anxieties.

The prioritisation of pragmatic governance and local issues, though crucial, has the emotional appeal the debate over autonomy once had in store. A situation like that where there is disconnect between the political class and the electorates, posed a threat to the legitimacy of the elections.

Election in Kashmir without Article 370 was like Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark. A sense of incompleteness runs deep within the politics of the region. In Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet goes forth to stage the drama of the work; his is the angst and his is the quest for justice as well as his findings with existential questions that give the play its depth and meaning. Take him away, and the play just becomes a hollow shell, with no conflict at its center.

Article 370 has been Kashmir’s central figure in a political narrative. Abrogation does not erase just the legal provision but also obliterates the core, around which political identity, autonomy, and conflict for decades revolve. Elections during the post-Article 370-era are more like a performance with its leading character missing - an empty contest that misses the central tension of Kashmiri politics.

While development and governance are important, they cannot replace the deep political and emotional questions that Article 370 once represented. The elections in Kashmir would go on to be incomplete and would seem like a pathetic drama without its protagonist, the political theatre waiting for its absentee lead.

The elections have come and gone, governments might have been formed, and policies might even have come, but without the completion of the central question about Kashmir’s political identity, the political story of the region is incomplete.

As the curtain falls in elections in Kashmir, like Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark, it is a story in which the central conflict is left unachieved, leaving the audience on their quest for what the play meant to say.