B L Saraf
Mirwaiz faction of the Hurriyat has split. Shabir Ahmad Shah, Azam Inqlabi, Nayeem Khan and Muhammad Yousuf Naqash have walked out and formed 3rd faction, calling it Hurriyat Conference Jammu & Kashmir ( HC J K) which they claim is the real Hurriyat. It was in 1993 that about twenty six political and religious organisations , in Kashmir, came together to fight for the secession of the State from India and work for Pakistan, apparently peacefully; and called the conglomerate All Parties Hurriyat Conference -APHC. At that time when nearly thirty thousand armed militants were busy creating mayhem across the Valley in the name of religion and secession. However, the inherent contradictions and clash of egos of the leaders surfaced soon and things started to fall out. It is no secret that the main characters of the organisation were never made for one another; the armed aspect of the movement kept these disparate men together for some time. With the steady decline in the armed struggle the differences began to tell upon the artificial glue. In 2002 a major fission developed in the combine which led to its vertical division and birth of Hurriayat (G) and Hurriyat ( M ) – factions led by Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Mirwaiz Omar Farooq, respectively.
Shabir Shah and his men have a grouse against the Mirwaiz that he did not admonish Prof Abdul Gani Bhat when latter declared that U.N Resolutions on Kashmir have become redundant and impracticable. They say that implementation of these Resolutions to settle the “Kashmir dispute” is the bedrock of Hurriyat’s constitution. Another charge against Omar Farooq is that he has made Hurriyat top heavy and refused to democratise it . Well , Shabir Shah’s allegation that Mirwaiz didn’t democratise his faction is like ‘ Devil quoting scriptures’. There is nothing to suggest that Shabir Shah & Co are great believers in democracy. On the contrary, there are sufficient indications available to say thatthey, like most of the tribe, are quite opposed to the idea of locals participating in the electionswhich is an integral component of any democratic process. The first statement they made in Baramulla was to call for boycott of upcoming Parliamentary Polls. Prof Bhat has long back put forth his redundancy discourse on U N Resolutions and the matter was fully debated in the Kashmir intellectual circle-always sympathetic to the separatist’s cause. Much was said on both sides. None, however, blamed Bhat of blasphemy for advancing the ‘redundancy theory ‘. In fact this was the view of Gen Parvez Musharraf, held when he presided over the affairs in Pakistan and , as a substitute, came up with his Four Point formula to settle the issue. As for as we know, except Ali Shah Geelani, none of the Hurriyat leaders opposed him. How come now it has suddenly become a serious issue to rock the Mirwaiz’s boat ?.
Given the disparate nature of the political ideology of its components, fierce egos, emphasis on Suffism in religious belief of vast majority of the Kashmiris and the non -achievable goal, set for itself, the Hurriyat experiment was bound to fail. To a keen observer of Kashmir politics , especially of the separatist kind , the truth was evident. Time and again, the Hurriyat leader, of all hues, have been subjected to the serious criticism on their political and personal conduct. About the Hurriyat Conference there is a general refrain “Rather than solving the vexed Kashmir problem the Hurriyat Conference has confined itself to the plush offices , seminars and occasional selective foreign tours. That it has stuck to obsolete ideas with no attempt to look for a new adjustable blue print.”
Disintegration of Hurriyat may be a set back to the separatist movement, but it has a lesson for India and the mainstream politics in J&K, to be learnt in a positive perspective. The diminished Hurriyat influence, correspondingly, puts a heavy burden on GOI to address the problem in Kashmir. First and foremost is that don’t keep the vacated space available for more sinister elements to occupy to exploit the sentiment of alienation. Majority of Kashmiris may have reconciled to the non-negotiability of the border and the LAC between India and Pakistan, and slogan of Azadi gradually fading away ; fact , however, remains that there are number of issues in the State which need to be sorted out to the satisfaction of people. They certainly cannot be resolved by playing one mainstream political party against the other; or resorting to the musical chairs while bestowing political affection. Indian Government will have to believe in federal structure of the Union. Kashmir makes it highly imperative. Legal integration is must but it is not ‘be all and end all ‘. Alongside , political and psychological integration has to be insisted upon . Over centralized political system which operates through chosen favourites at various times will not work; it hasn’t worked in the past. Governance must start at the lowest end and democracy should function at the Panchayat level.
Mobilisation success seen at the time of Panchayat elections should be matched with institutional success of democracy at the gross root level. You cannot go on with denying true democracy to the people. Like elsewhere in India J&K too has a burgeoning young middle class, for whom there is a need to enlarge carrier opportunities. Voices raised in various regions and sub-regions of the State, airing social and economic differences, have to be removed by a homogenising narrative with the fair distribution of state largess.
(The author is former Principal District & Session Judge.)
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