00:00 Hello, I am Naseer Ghanai. I am correspondent with Outlook Magazine based in Srinagar. We
00:10 spoke to Aga Ruhullah who is National Conference's candidate from Srinagar constituency.
00:17 So why this election is important?
00:21 This election is happening after 2019. This is the first parliamentary election after
00:25 2019. Its significance comes from the fact that this same parliament took decisions on
00:32 August 2019 which went against the principles of the democracy and the principles of the
00:38 constitution and with those decisions the dignity of the state of J&K was snatched.
00:44 The state was degraded, it was degraded to a more intelligent nation and it was divided.
00:52 We the people of J&K were disenfranchised, turned into certain class cities and all this
00:57 happened without our wish and will. We did not vote for that, we did not subscribe for
01:02 that, we did not give our consent for that. So whatever happened, happened undemocratically
01:06 and unconstitutionally. This is the first opportunity for the people of J&K to express
01:12 themselves democratically against the decisions taken on August 2005 and put their dissent
01:20 with a strong mandate not only in the parliament but to the people of the nation.
01:26 You have been saying that development is not an issue. Why the development is not an issue?
01:29 At the moment this election, we do not contest this election on the pitch of development.
01:35 Give us our status back, give us our autonomy back, we can show how the state prospers and
01:40 we can do the development. We have done development before this. On all the indexes, J&K was much
01:47 better than UP, Bihar, on many indexes it was much better than Gujarat. We know how
01:53 to develop but to write our own destiny, to be the masters of our own destiny, to decide
01:59 for ourselves, we need the status back so that we can. And at the moment development
02:04 is not the issue again because when you do not have the dignity, when you do not have
02:09 the democratic right that you were guaranteed and which was the reason we acceded to this
02:14 nation. Development is secondary to that. If development was the driving force for the
02:21 nations, Britishers did the development, they brought railway, they brought roads to this
02:26 nation, they brought education institutions to this nation. But the people of some subcontinent
02:33 fought against them because they considered that we were slaves and in the same manner
02:39 we consider ourselves at the moment second class citizens of the nation. So no amount
02:44 of development can satisfy the need of dignity. People in Srinagar usually remain away from
02:51 the voting, maybe because of credit and because of other factors. Do you think this time they
02:56 will vote? We expect people to come out in numbers. The enthusiasm that people show and
03:01 the sentiment that they have, they want to express and register their dissent against
03:06 the decisions taken on August 5th. And the enthusiasm I hope will turn out into actual
03:13 voting and the numbers will rise from earlier numbers.
03:17 Hi, I am from Outlook. One question is that there is a lot of silence from Kashmir in
03:23 the past four years. We have not seen enough people writing from here, enough people even
03:27 saying anything. So how do you think this will translate into this election? Do you
03:31 think people will be able to express because there is a lot of fear?
03:35 Your question actually is our driving force in this election. We actually mean this. We
03:39 actually believe what you ask. For the last four or five years we have been denied the
03:45 right to express, right to protest, right to dissent which is the soul of democracy.
03:51 The media fraternity, friends from your fraternity were intimidated, they were tortured. Any political
03:57 actors who talked against the status was intimidated. PA was slapped against them, UAPA, they were
04:03 booked under UAPA. We have many preachers who are still under arrest. We have many activists
04:09 who are still under arrest. We have student activists who are still under arrest. And
04:13 in this atmosphere people were scared of talking. The space for dissent was denied to them.
04:19 The political space to mobilize their opinion, to express themselves was denied to the people
04:24 of Jammu and Kashmir unfortunately. This is true in the entire nation at the moment but
04:30 we speak in the context of Kashmir, Jammu and Kashmir. This election brings us the opportunity
04:35 to express ourselves, to create that political space which was otherwise denied to us for
04:40 the last four or five years and gather the courage to speak and mobilize ourselves politically
04:46 and tell the nation that this is actually what we want and we do not agree to the status
04:51 that you have reduced us to. And the other question is that there is a lot of this polarization
04:56 situation happening with the speeches, you know, this anti-Muslim speeches everywhere,
05:01 you know, there was this biryani thing, there's all kinds of things, the reservation question.
05:06 Not only biryani, even the question of dress, eating habit, the right to pray and any identity
05:15 of Muslim is challenged at the moment. The being of Muslim is challenged at the moment
05:20 and it's being, it's used as an object in order to gain vote from the right-wing Hindu
05:27 vote bank. Unfortunately, this has taken the country way away from, it has taken far away
05:36 from the principles on which it was founded. We did not accede to a nation which believed
05:42 in fundamentalism, which believed in division. We were guaranteed that every religion will
05:48 have a rightful place, will have freedom, every citizen will have his or her dignity,
05:55 will have their right and all the citizens will be equal. Anyone as a Hindu, anyone as
05:59 a Muslim will be equal in front of law and no one will be intimidated. For the last 10
06:05 years, what happened in Germany, we see the replica of that in India, unfortunately. And
06:12 this was not the founding idea of the nation and a person none less than a prime minister
06:19 speaks against the minorities, not only Muslims but minorities. Since Muslims are the largest
06:24 minority, they face the brunt of it, speaks openly and brazenly against the Muslims. It
06:31 speaks how institutionally we have degraded, how immoral the institutions have turned and
06:38 people of India need to stand against it. The people who believe in secularism, those
06:43 who believe in the fundamental principles on which the nation of India was built, they
06:48 need to come out, they need to fight this fascism. If this fascism is not fought at
06:54 the moment, we as a nation will have to pay for this.
06:57 My last question is, there's a lot of these films that have come out in the past, you
07:01 know, like Article 370, of course, Kashmir Files, all these things. So, how are you going
07:07 to counter and what is your ideological position versus, you know, the many ideological…
07:11 You can draw the parallels with the films which were produced during Hitler's rule
07:16 in Nazi era. Same happens in today's regime. We do not have, see the institutions that
07:25 should speak for you and me are all compromised. One of the most important institutions is
07:30 media that is compromised. While we have an onslaught from the ruling regime, we have
07:35 the flood of propaganda, the only medium that we people, you and me, any citizen of India
07:41 would have would be media. But unfortunately, that media, that institution is also compromised.
07:47 So, it's for us now to rise from the dust, gather our courage, speak for ourselves, take
07:53 any opportunity democratically like this to speak for ourselves, present to the world
07:57 the facts about ourselves and the nation. We have the institutions which are compromised
08:02 but the most important institution in any country is the institution of asceticism.
08:07 If asceticism gathers the courage it needs to, I can find a hope. If the nation starts
08:14 listening to each other, I have hope with the nation because any fascism does not thrive
08:23 in a society where people are still who hold political morals, who hold principles and
08:28 I believe majority of people in India still hold morals and political principles.
08:33 [MUSIC PLAYING]
Comments