SRINAGAR — Srinagar Lok Sabha MP Ruhullah Mehdi on Tuesday said the democracy in the country is “beginning to breathe” while referring to the protests against Chief Election Commissioner (CEC), Gyanesh Kumar, and demanded that all polls held under his supervision be “revisited and reviewed”.
He also criticised the crackdown on protesters in Delhi during the demonstration against Kumar, claiming that the people of Jammu and Kashmir have also faced “the same crackdowns”.
“Now, it seems democracy is perhaps beginning to breathe a little, that democracy which was suppressed over the past ten to twelve years. I won’t say it has fully revived yet. But there is an effort, perhaps from students and concerned citizens, who raised objections and protested over the Gyanesh Kumar issue,” Mehdi told reporters here when asked about the recent protests in the national capital.
Comparing the brief internet shutdown in Delhi with the year-long restriction in Jammu and Kashmir in 2019, Mehdi said, “Though they haven’t faced the exact same severity yet, you can see some similarities. How the city was shut down, how the state capital Delhi was locked down, how activists were detained, and how the internet was snapped, even if only for a day. In Kashmir, the internet was shut down for nearly a year. There is some resemblance in how the response given to Kashmiris is now being meted out to this genuine protest,” he said.
He asserted that despite the clampdown, protesters remained undeterred and sought the resignation of a “compromised” CEC, saying that “such a person should not remain in the Election Commission”.
“He should resign. Not only should he resign, but criminal proceedings should also be initiated against him. Furthermore, all elections held under his supervision come into question. Those elections should be revisited and reviewed,” he added.
He described the protests as an attempt to “reclaim the country and democracy”.
“If all these demands are now being taken to the streets, it shows an attempt is being made to break the environment of intimidation created by the BJP, an attempt to reclaim the streets, to reclaim the country, and to reclaim democracy,” he said.
“We are hearing reports that UAPA is also being slapped on some of these activists in response. Yet, despite all this, those activists are standing up against this dictatorship and protesting. I believe that if constitutionalism and democracy are to survive in this country, this is the only hope: the environment emerging in India where accountability is being sought against authoritarianism,” the Lok Sabha MP added.
Referring to the recent stoning of Jammu and Kashmir-bound buses in Haryana, Mehdi said there is a hostile atmosphere for Kashmiris in the other parts of the country.
“Instead of normalising Kashmir, it has been polarised. And this is something I have been saying since 2019. Within Jammu and Kashmir, especially against the residents of Jammu and Kashmir, the environment has been spoilt and made hostile,” he said.
“Similarly, in other states across the country, the atmosphere has also been made hostile for Kashmiris. They were degraded and disenfranchised, legally and constitutionally, which was already there, apart from people of Jammu and Kashmir being made suspects even within their own state,” he said.
He said a Kashmiri is viewed with hostility and suspicion in the rest of the country.
“A recent example is what happened in Karnal. Making Kashmiris scapegoats nowadays has become very easy in the BJP’s India, a country they have shaped. Because by targeting a Kashmiri, one can easily brand them anti-national, whether inside Kashmir or outside. Kashmiris are harassed within Kashmir, and they are harassed outside Kashmir as well,” he said. — (PTI)