The Muslim United Front (MUF) was a 'polyglot coalition' of

Islamic Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God (or '' Allah'') as it was revealed to Muhammad, the mai ...

Kashmiri Kashmiri may refer to: * People or things related to the Kashmir Valley or the broader region of Kashmir * Kashmiris, an ethnic group native to the Kashmir Valley * Kashmiri language, their language People with the name * Kashmiri Saikia Baruah ...

political parties that contested the

1987 Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly election Election for the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir were held on 23 March 1987. Farooq Abdullah was reappointed as the Chief Minister.

in the erstwhile

Indian state India is a federal union comprising 28 states and 8 union territories, with a total of 36 entities. The states and union territories are further subdivided into districts and smaller administrative divisions. History Pre-indepen ...

Jammu and Kashmir Jammu and Kashmir may refer to: * Kashmir, the northernmost geographical region of the Indian subcontinent * Jammu and Kashmir (union territory), a region administered by India as a union territory * Jammu and Kashmir (state), a region administered ...

. The

Jamaat-e-Islami Jamaat-e-Islami ( ur, ) () is an Islamic movement founded in 1941 in British India by the Islamic theologian and socio-political philosopher, Syed Abul Ala Maududi.van der Veer P. and Munshi S. (eds.''Media, War, and Terrorism: Responses fro ...

of Jammu and Kashmir was a key constituent party of the coalition. The MUF won four Assembly seats in the 1987 election.Saima Bhat
Battleground Amira Kadal
Kashmir Life, 24 March 2016. However, widespread rigging of the election by the ruling National Conference party was reported. In the absence of such rigging, commentators believe that it could have won fifteen to twenty seats, a contention admitted by the National Conference leader

Farooq Abdullah Farooq Abdullah (born 21 October 1937) is an Indian politician who was Ex. President of Jammu & Kashmir National Conference. He has served as the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir on several occasions since 1982, and as the union minister fo ...

. The disaffection caused by the election gave rise to the

Kashmir insurgency The insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir, also known as the Kashmir insurgency, is an ongoing separatist militant insurgency against the Indian administration in Jammu and Kashmir, a territory constituting the southwestern portion of the larger ...

, which continues to this day. The present day

Hurriyat Conference All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) is an alliance of 26 political, social and religious organizations formed on 9 March 1993, as a united political front to raise the cause of Kashmiri separatism in the Kashmir conflict. Mehmood Ahmed Sagh ...

is largely inspired by the former MUF coalition.

Background

In 1986 the ruling National Conference, widely accused of corruption, came to an accord with Indian National Congress Party which threatened to erode what remained of Kashmir's autonomy. Moreover, the growing emphasis on secularism led to a backlash with Islamic parties becoming more popular. The key players among these parties were the

Jamaat-e-Islami Kashmir The Jamaat-e-Islami Kashmir or Jamaat-e-Islami Jammu and Kashmir (JIJK) is an Islamic political party based in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India. It is distinct from the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind. The organisation's stated position on the Kash ...

and its student wing, ''Islami Jamiat-i Tulaba''.

Formation of Muslim United Front

In response to these issues was formed the MUF, which attracted support from separatists, youth and the pro-Pakistan

. MUF's election manifesto stressed the need to solve all outstanding issues according to the

Simla Agreement The Simla Agreement, also spelled Shimla Agreement, was a peace treaty signed between India and Pakistan on 2 July 1972 in Shimla, the capital city of the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. It followed the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, which ...

, work for Islamic unity and against political interference from the centre. Their slogan in public rallies was wanting the law of the Quran in the Assembly. The Islamic political coalition mobilized support on the basis of

Kashmiriyat ''Kashmiriyat'' (also spelled as ''Kashmiriat'') is the centuries-old indigenous tradition of communal harmony and religious syncretism in the Kashmir Valley in the Indian-administered union territory of Jammu and Kashmir. Emerging around ...

. The movement's grassroots campaign was said to be 'enthusiastically energetic', attracting youth activists who had been born in the 1960s. A Pandit activist recorded in her memoirs that there had been a 'wave' in favour of the MUF in early 1987 in the Valley.

1987 election and rigging

The 1987 election witnessed the highest record of voters participation, with eighty per cent of the people in the Valley having voted. The election of 1987 were considered to be the most compromised in the history of Jammu and Kashmir. Voting was held in the Valley on 23 March 1987 and a Delhi-based magazine reported that strong arms tactics and rigging were used all over the Valley and gangs took over the polling stations forcibly and ballot boxes were pre-stamped in favour of the National Conference. The MUF won in only 4 of the 43 electoral constituencies it had contested, although it received a vote share of 31.9%. Scholar

Victoria Schofield Rosemary Victoria Schofield is a British author, biographer, and historian. Her most recent books are a memoir of her thirty year friendship with Benazir Bhutto, a two volume history of the Black Watch and a biography of Sir John Wheeler-Bennett. ...

has stated that the MUF might have won four more seats if there was no electoral fraud. On the other hand, an anonymous source in the Intelligence Bureau has advanced the estimate that the MUF may have lost approximately 13 seats due to electoral malpractice.

Aftermath

Instead of punishing those responsible for the rigging the Government arrested and tortured the MUF activists. According to Bose the number of activists arrested and tortured was in the hundreds and possibly thousands. Most of them were kept in custody until late 1987 or early 1988. Among those activists arrested was

Yasin Malik Yasin Malik (born 3 April 1966) is a Kashmiri separatist leader and former militant who advocates the separation of Kashmir from both India and Pakistan. He is the Chairman of the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front, which originally spearheaded arm ...

and Mohammad Yusuf Shah. Many younger supporters of MUF started to support the militant organisations which had up till the election seen a wane in their support and numerical strength. According to Maulana Abbas Ansari, a member of the Muslim United Front, the youth would have not picked up the gun nor have known of Nehru's promise of a plebiscite to the people of Kashmir had the election not been rigged. Scholars see that the rise in the organisation's support caused the Congress-National Conference alliance to rig the 1987 election.

Notes

References

Bibliography

* * * * * * * *