Rajeev Kumar Nagotra
Before dying Abu Dujana said, “It’s not Jihad. I know that”. Let us make no mistake, for these words do not reflect a change of heart or a moment of realization of a jihadi terrorist in the last minutes of his life. Infact, so strong was his indoctrination and commitment to the purported cause that till his last breath he held on to the rhetoric of his handlers across the border. His last words bode well for the Pakistan policy towards kashmir and its alleged claim to being a party to the problem and, therefore, its solution. The Pakistani establishment and their frontline operatives such as Lashkar-e-Taiba have invested far too much time and resources in sustaining the secessionist movement in Kashmir. They cannot afford to let Kashmir pass off as just another uprising in the wider pan-Islamic jihad that has gripped the entire Muslim world at present. They would prefer to keep branding K-issue as their national problem, something the political leaders as well as their defense/intelligence officers can sell off to their respective constituencies. When someone tries to paint the Kashmir conundrum as a Jihad, the issue simply slips out of the confines of the Pakistani election manifestoes and its annual budget reports. And, it ceases to be the unfinished agenda of partition and, therefore, a bilateral issue between India and Pakistan. In fact, the jihadist narrative questions the very admittance of Pakistan as a party into the negotiation room. This is why Abu Dujana declared that it is not Jihad.
Dujana’s words allude to a significant shift in the dynamics of the Kashmir issue. Hurriyat has long been losing grounds in the valley. That the members of the Hurriyat and their kins have amassed huge wealth and assets in India and abroad, comes as no surprise to the kashmiris. They know it all too well. In 2013, Yasin Malik had accused the moderate Hurriyat leaders led by Mirwaiz Umer Farooq of having amassed huge assets in the name of “freedom struggle”. That not a single kashmiri protests on the streets when Syed Ali Shah Geelani’s family members are arrested and questioned by the NIA does not go unnoticed by the Kashmir observers. While probing the terror funding, the NIA has detected prime properties and business ventures of the Hurriyat leaders and the same has been reported in this paper recently. Hurriyat’s umbilical cord is connected to Islamabad. So, there is a perceptible undercurrent of indifference towards both Hurriyat and Islamabad in Kashmir. Recently, at the funeral of a low key local terrorist in Bandipora, someone from the crowd pulled out a Pakistani flag and tried to wrap the body of the deceased militant in it. The family of the deceased removed the flag immediately. The rise of Musa, Zakir Rashid Bhat, is an important development in this direction. Musa stands for Jihad on the lines of Al-Qaeda and establishment of the Islamic State of Jammu and Kashmir. His outfit, Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind, has the blessings of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Syed Salahuddin’s Hizbul Mujahideen, based out of Pakistan, has disowned him and his ideology. In a recent video he tried to establish that the movement in Kashmir is purely indigenous and has no global affiliation or aspirations. Salahuddin envisages no future for Kashmir without Pakistan whereas Musa sees no room for Pakistan in his version of Kashmir movement. The Pakistani High Commissioner in New Delhi, Adbul Basit, reciprocates by putting his entire weight behind Salahuddin and refuting his new designation as a global terrorist. The game of Pakistan and the role of Hurriyat are too obvious for the common kashmiri to ignore. This has prepared the soil for the germination of a parallel identity of Kashmir insurgency and Musa as the head of Al-Qaeda operations in J&K represents that identity.
Pakistan is already finding it too hard to rein in Al-Qaeda, Daesh and the Talibans on its home turf. If now the Kashmir issue also lands on the agenda of such pan-Islamic outfits, Pakistani political elite will have practically nothing to offer to its electorate. In a public address after the killing of Burhan Wani, Mushaal Mullik, the Pakistani wife of Yasin Malik, reminded the Pakistani people that all of their problems, be it energy crisis, terrorism, CPEC, regional stability, water crisis as well as agriculture, are linked to Kashmir. If they give up on their Kashmir rhetoric, they would have to come up with a convincing explanation for all their wrong doings across all sectors at home. Therefore, their agencies are treading very cautiously and ensuring that Kashmir continues to be seen as a political issue and remains exclusively linked to Pakistan and they can keep ascribing their domestic problems to the unfinished agenda of partition. Dujana’s words serve this purpose. Perhaps we would see more declarations, such as Dujana’s, made by the dying HM and LeT terrorists in future.
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