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Between the hammer and the anvil

Praveen Swami

Besieged by hardline Islamists and unionists, the Hurriyat Conference and the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen must change course to survive.

BANNERS EMBLAZONED with the Lashkar-e-Taiba's crossed scimitars-and-Koran logo fluttered outside the Srinagar graveyard, the Bihisht-e-Shauda-e-Kashmir, where many of those who gave their lives fighting the Indian state these past two decades are buried. "Lashkar ayi, Lashkar ayi, (the Lashkar are coming)," shouted the crowd that had massed there for Islamist patriarch Syed Ali Shah Geelani's April 22 rally, going on to raise abusive slogans against Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad. Policemen stood by and watched.

The bilious polemic at the April 22 rally, without dispute the largest Islamist gathering in recent years, served to demonstrate the growing aggression of the far-right in Jammu and Kashmir. The message, however, wasn't directed as much at New Delhi as Mr. Geelani's competitors in Jammu and Kashmir. Put simply, the rally has underlined that All Parties Hurriyat Conference chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq has a hammer hovering over his head — and that time to jump off the anvil is running out.

On the one hand, the APHC leadership is finding itself under siege from figures like Mr. Geelani. Aided by the failure of secular politicians to oppose religious reaction, neoconservative Islamists have been increasingly successful in shaping the form and content of political mobilisation in Jammu and Kashmir. On the other, unionist politicians have also demonstrated growing reach and influence. Even Chief Minister Azad, who has no real mass base in the Kashmir valley, drew crowds in excess of 15,000 at recent rallies in Kulgam and Bandipora.

In recent weeks, the APHC has become increasingly aware that a crisis stares it in the face. In inner party meetings, APHC leader Abdul Gani Butt is thought to have strongly argued that joining the Prime Minister's Round Table dialogue on Jammu and Kashmir offers the organisation the sole prospect of retaining its relevance. In Mr. Butt's view, multilateral engagement offers the best means of marginalising hardline Islamists, the common enemies of both the APHC and unionist parties. As early as 1998, Mr. Butt had argued the case for a multilateral dialogue involving both secessionists and unionist political leaders — a concept not dissimilar to the process now being pushed forward by Dr. Singh.

But the near-absence of trust among the APHC's major constituents has impeded forward movement. Mr. Butt's close links with Jammu and Kashmir businessman Mohammad Iqbal Bukhari, have, in particular, raised suspicions among others in the APHC. The Bukhari family, whose interests include a dominant share of the State's pesticide business, threw its weight behind the Peoples' Democratic Party last year. After PDP president Mehbooba Mufti renounced official protection as part of the party's effort to push its case on demilitarisation, she turned to Mr. Bukhari's son, Altaf Bukhari, for the use of his police security detail and jeep in its stead.

Figures like the Mirwaiz believe, correctly or otherwise, that Mr. Butt is pushing the case for joining in a multilateral dialogue with New Delhi on the PDP's behalf. If the APHC joins in the Round Table process, Mr. Butt's critics argue, it will lose its status as sole spokesperson of the secessionist constituency in Jammu and Kashmir. Many of its followers could then defect to the ranks of the PDP, which has already made significant inroads amongst supporters of the Jamaat-e-Islami and Hizb-ul-Mujahideen.

Moreover, the APHC is uncertain about the dividend participation in elections might yield. Like other pro-dialogue secessionists, notably Muhammad Yasin Malik, the APHC has seen its key slogans stolen by unionist parties. While the PDP has appropriated issues such as demilitarisation and self-rule, the Congress and the National Conference have been increasingly vocal on human rights issues and cross-Line of Control links. Bar leaders like Bilal Gani Lone, who has an independent presence in Kupwara, or Mirwaiz Farooq himself, there are few in the APHC who could win an election on their own strength — a bitter truth the coalition is yet to find ways to address.

But the APHC could find an unexpected ally: the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen. Once Jammu and Kashmir's most feared terror group, the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen is, like the APHC, facing an existential crisis. Even though the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen has long opposed Mirwaiz Farooq — elements from the organisation were responsible for the assassination of the cleric's father, Mohammad Farooq — it now has good reason to make its peace.

In January, Hizb-ul-Mujahideen chief Mohammad Yusuf Shah received a grim briefing on the state of play in his organisation. Just 621 cadre, he was told, were now available at the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen's three major training camps in Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir, the Qayoomabad and Shaheed Burhan-ud-Din facilities in Manshera, and Saheed Salim in Batrasi. Only 20 new recruits had arrived at the camps from Jammu and Kashmir in all of 2006, a small fraction of the organisation's combat losses.

Records of the briefing, obtained exclusively by The Hindu , show just how sharp the erosion of the organisation's military capabilities has been. Just one consignment of eight Kalashnikov assault rifles could be despatched across the LoC in 2006, down from 28 in 2005. While 40 kilograms of military-grade explosives were sent to Hizb combat units in 2005, not a single consignment could be shipped last year. And, where 165 hand grenades were shipped across the LoC in 2005, just 50 could be delivered in 2006.

If this wasn't bad enough, the organisation's financial infrastructure is in ruins. From the winter of 2005-2006, Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence had slashed the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen's monthly grant of Rs.3 million. After 18 prominent jihad commanders staged a hunger strike in Muzaffarabad last March, a maintenance flow was authorised. However, the flow was inadequate even to meet the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen's annual commitments to the families of cadre killed in combat — estimated, according to the documents obtained by The Hindu , at Indian Rs.27 million.

Morale, Mr. Shah was told, had deteriorated sharply. There had been several violent clashes between cadre in the three camps. On one occasion, cash was looted from the main office in the Burhan-ud-Din camp. Some effort had been made to address morale by intensifying religious education — almost a hundred cadre had been sent to Jamaat-e-Islami-run educational institutions in Lahore and elsewhere. But this, the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen briefing notes record, had done little to stem the rot. Dozens of Hizb-ul-Mujahideen cadre had married local women and set up home in Muzaffarabad; others had negotiated private deals with Indian military intelligence and surrendered.

All of this, interlocutors engaged in secret dialogue with senior Hizb-ul-Mujahideen commanders say, has convinced the terror group that it must come to the negotiating table — or be extinguished. As a consequence, fissures between the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen and other Islamists have been increasing. While the Hizb counts Mr. Geelani as its political spokesperson and mentor, it did not pass notice that slogans in its support were near absent at the April 22 rally.

Yet, the Hizb is reluctant to renounce arms — something New Delhi has made a precondition for talks. Hizb leaders fear that without their military capability they will be unable to compete with long-established political groups. It is becoming clear, though, that equivocation is an unsustainable option.

Hard choices

What, then, might lie ahead? Three challenges are key. First, governments in both New Delhi and Srinagar need to ensure the law is enforced. Despite the inflammatory slogans at Mr. Geelani's rally — and, if some eyewitness accounts are to be believed, the display of weapons — the Jammu and Kashmir police only arrested Mr. Geelani after a furore in Parliament. Little action has been taken, either, against figures like the Islamist leader Asiya Andrabi, who have repeatedly used violence to enforce their particular view of Islam.

A second challenge arises from Pakistan, where Islamist forces sympathetic to Mr. Geelani have been gathering strength. While organisations like the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen have suffered from the thinning-out of direct ISI funding for the jihad in Jammu and Kashmir, groups like the Lashkar have survived the challenge.

With its sprawling West Asian and European financial networks, the Lashkar has now emerged as the principal voice of the jihad. Inevitably, this muscle has strengthened figures like Mr. Geelani. As such, India needs to push Pakistan for more vigorous action against the Lashkar.

Most important, though, politicians like Mr. Azad must help the APHC and the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen understand that a multilateral dialogue is in their own interests. Pushed by a complex set of social and political forces, any of the young people who a decade ago might have been drawn to the APHC or the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen are today turning to the Lashkar — something that ought to worry not just the Indian state and its supporters, but ethnic Kashmiri secessionists as well.

It is likely that mainstream political parties, with both their strong roots among broad-based mass constituencies opposed to Islamists as well as the support of the state apparatus, will survive the new challenge. Both the APHC and the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, though, risk being blown away by the brewing storm.

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