Jammu And Kashmir - 2

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EDITS | Tuesday, January 18, 2011 | Email | Print | | Back





Is it bye-bye azadi at last?

January 18, 2011 2:07:23 AM



Sandhya Jain



Notwithstanding their bluster, separatists in Kashmir Valley are clearly a demoralised lot. Realisation of their folly seems to be sinking in



Even as serious differences emerge among Kashmiri separatists, there are disturbing signals that hitherto marginalised leaders and groups may be brewing a new confrontation with the Indian nation. Jammu & Kashmir Liberation Front chairman Yasin Malik has urged the people to converge at Srinagar’s Lal Chowk on January 26 to unfurl ‘another flag’ (read Islamic) to counter the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha’s plans to hoist the Tricolour there.



The idea, Mr Malik taunts, is to “convey an appropriate message to appropriate quarters”. He is backed by Hurriyat leader Mirwaiz Umer Farooq. The BJP youth began marching from Kolkata on January 12; a nervous Chief Minister Omar Abdullah accused the party of using the Tricolour for vote-bank purposes and opposed the march. Sources say the administration may block the entry of BJP workers into the State to foil the ceremony.



The new brinkmanship comes in the wake of a seminar in Srinagar on January 3 on the ‘Role of Intellectuals in the Freedom Struggle’ (read secessionist movement), where former All-Party Hurriyat Conference chairman Abdul Gani Bhat created a stir by declaring that separatist leaders Mirwaiz Mohammed Farooq (father of Mirwaiz Umer Farooq) and People’s Conference leader Abdul Gani Lone (father of Sajjad and Bilal Lone) were murdered by “our own people” and not by the Army or police, as hitherto alleged.



Mr Bhat added that his own brother, Mohammed Sultan Bhat, was murdered by the same killers in 1995. Mirwaiz Farooq was shot dead at his residence on May 21, 1990; Abdul Gani Lone was gunned down at a memorial for the senior Mirwaiz on May 21, 2002.



The ruling National Conference has termed it a “late admission” and demanded a probe to fix responsibility for the killings. At the time of the murders the State Government had claimed that Hizb-ul Mujahideen commander Mohammed Abdullah Bangroo had killed Mirwaiz Mohammed Farooq; Hizb-ul is ideologically close to the hardline Hurriyat faction leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani. Abdul Gani Lone was reportedly shot by Al-Umar Mujahideen, the militant wing of the Awami Action Committee headed by the Mirwaiz.



After thus lifting the lid off fierce intra-militant rivalries, Mr Bhat declined to name names, “What is the need to identify them ... They are already identified.” Caught unawares by the dramatic revelations, Mr Geelani, former chairman of the undivided APHC, opted for silence. It is pertinent that Mr Sajjad Gani Lone, the younger son of AG Lone, had blamed Mr Geelani for his father’s murder, but soon retracted the allegations.



That the killers’ identities were publicly known was virtually confirmed by Jammu & Kashmir Director-General of Police Kuldeep Khoda: “The person involved in the killing of Mirwaiz Farooq is also buried in the same ‘martyrs graveyard’ where the senior Mirwaiz was laid to rest.” Thus, the “killer and the killed are both declared as martyrs by them,” Mr Khoda mused. Actually, Mr Bhat had made the same speech in the Assembly of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir five years ago, but this was the first time he spoke this language in Srinagar.



The public squabbling signals dismay among the militants at the failure of Mr Geelani to achieve any results despite spearheading the protests in the Kashmir Valley throughout the summer of 2010, particularly the tactics of strikes and stone-pelting, in the run-up to the visit of the US President last November. But when Mr Barack Obama failed to utter a word on Jammu & Kashmir, thanks to the deft handling by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the separatists fell into disarray. Other world leaders visiting New Delhi also took care not to needle India on any score.



Thus, at the same seminar, Mr Bhat charged that Kashmiri politicians started the separatist movement by killing Kashmiri intellectuals. Challenging Mr Geelani’s leadership, he asked, how many hartals will Kashmiris observe; was there a thought process behind the recent uprising? The separatist struggle will never get recognition and support at the international level, he said, and the only option left was for world powers like China and the US to mediate. Significantly, he did not mention Pakistan as a deciding force.



Mirwaiz Umer Farooq lamented that the separatists could not capitalise on the Amarnath land row in 2008, or even the five months of agitation last year, while India had successfully changed the discourse and projected the movement as the activity of a handful. The United Nations, the Mirwaiz said, was a failure and should be disbanded, and even the ‘Musharraf Formula’ fell short of ‘Kashmiri aspirations’. Mr Yasin Malik agreed that the Kashmiri leaders had failed to project the legitimacy of their cause nationally or internationally; even Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah had failed in this respect.



The APHC split in September 2003 after Mr Geelani accused Mr Bhat and other moderates of not running the anti-election campaign before the 2002 Assembly polls effectively when he was in jail. He also accused the People’s Conference headed by Mr Bilal Lone and Mr Sajjad Lone of participating in the election through proxy candidates.



Reacting to Mr Bhat’s exposé, Abdul Gani Lone’s sons dropped broad hints about the identity of the killers. Mr Sajjad Lone, who unsuccessfully contested the 2008 Assembly polls, said: “I gave enough indications (about the killer) but stopped short of saying it openly. My problem is with the white collar men who order killings. If they are not stopped, there will be more such killings.” Prior to his murder in May 2002, Abdul Gani Lone had wanted to oust foreign militants from the Valley while Mr Geelani favoured them.



The bickering among the separatists suggests that men like Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, the Lone brothers and Mr Yasin Malik have virtually accepted the fizzling out of militancy and may be privately keen to sue for peace with New Delhi. Given India’s rising status, they do not expect the UN to deliver an East Timor-type verdict in their favour. They concede Islamabad has no stature to deliver anything either, hence the dismissal of the ‘Musharraf Formula’ — demilitarisation, joint mechanism, shared sovereignty, irrelevant Line of Control — as an ‘interim arrangement’. Above all, they recognise that intifada is no solution; it has only left over 100 Kashmiris dead and hundreds injured with no objective achieved.



Strangely, Mr Geelani has suddenly turned dovish, telling a bemused nation on January 10 that he is holding the Kashmiri youth back from picking up the gun. Perhaps this indicates an ebbing of ground support for militancy in the Valley. In the circumstances, the Union Government would do well to wind up any half-baked roadmap for azadi.