Threatened, In Semi-Hiding: Kashmir's 'Invisible' Political Workers

Drive into the deserted streets of Pulwama in south Kashmir, and there is little evidence that it will go to elections in four weeks. Pulwama falls in Anantnag Lok Sabha constituency, the bastion of the family of Mehbooba Mufti, chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir. By-elections to Anantnag were postponed after by-polls in Srinagar were marred by violence, deaths, and low turnout. But it is unlikely how voting in Anantnag - if it takes place - will be any different. Political workers, the basic unit of any election activity, are in hiding. The reason is not so hard to fathom. A widely shared recent video shows a worker of the People's Democratic Party, Jammu and Kashmir's ruling party, forced to utter anti-India slogans at gunpoint.