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National

In Kashmir, a house divided

Praveen Swami

Secessionists split on response to Jammu and Kashmir elections

Elections are a purely administrative exercise, not a substitute for the peace process: APHC chief
The Hurriyat Conference is focussing on alliances with secessionists outside its fold

NEW DELHI: “We must speak with one voice,” All Parties Hurriyat Conference chief and Srinagar religious leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq said at the grave of his father earlier this month.

Eighteen years ago, Maulvi Mohammad Farooq was shot dead in the midst of a covert effort to seek a negotiated end to the violence in Jammu and Kashmir. In part, at least, his dream seems to have been realised.

Divided

The assassinated cleric’s son will soon travel to Pakistan to hold talks with its leadership.

Efforts are also under way to reopen negotiations between the APHC and the Government of India.

But beneath this facade of progress, Jammu and Kashmir’s secessionists are divided as never before on just how to realise Maulvi Farooq’s search for peace.

One thing is clear: the APHC will not be opposing elections to the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly scheduled this autumn.

“Elections are a purely administrative exercise,” the Mirwaiz told The Hindu, “not a substitute for the peace process. No one ought to see the elections as a gauge of the popularity of pro-independence parties or for that matter pro-India parties.”

Instead, the APHC is focussing on building alliances with secessionists outside its fold — notably the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front’s Yasin Malik and the People’s Conference’s Sajjad Gani Lone.

Joint settlement

Leading APHC dove Abdul Gani Butt, has also asked the National Conference and the People’s Democratic Party to work with the secessionist formation to mutually work out a joint settlement and present it to India and Pakistan.

Abandoning the APHC’s long-standing claim to be the sole legitimate representative of Jammu and Kashmir’s people, Mr. Butt made it clear “they need not join the Hurriyat Conference, it can be done without that.”

Back in April 1999, Mr. Butt had made much the same argument. People’s Conference Abdul Gani Lone took the proposition one stage further, though — just before his own assassination at the hands of a Lashkar-e-Taiba hit squad.

“If the Indian government is not ready to allow self-determination,” he said, “the alternative is that they should be ready to settle the dispute through a meaningful dialogue involving all parties concerned.”

Anti-election campaign

Sajjad Gani Lone gave some insight into his thinking at a May 25 conference, when he called for secessionist aspirations to be focussed on the “achievable.”

“In between ‘everything’ and ‘nothing,’” Mr. Lone said, “the leadership has to consider ‘something’ as well.”

One politician who isn’t willing to settle for ‘something’ is the Islamist patriarch Syed Ali Shah Geelani. Mr. Geelani’s anti-election campaign has been gathering pace, becoming a focal point for anti-India forces within the State.

Confrontation

Ever since an April 3 seminar where he inaugurated the campaign, the Islamist leader has addressed around 25 rallies, prayer gatherings and public meetings.

Some events, like a May 23 gathering near Shopian or a rally held in Kulgam three days later, have attracted respectable audiences of between 3,000 and 5,000 people — similar to those drawn by pro-India politicians like the National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah, or the PDP’s charismatic leader Mehbooba Mufti.

Interestingly, the anti-election campaign has drawn Geelani’s Tehreek-i-Hurriyat into confrontation with its long-standing armed affiliate, the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen.

Under pressure from Pakistan, the the Hizb earlier announced it will not target candidates and political activists in the coming elections.

In the 2002 Assembly elections, Hizb and Lashkar-e-Taiba attacks had claimed the lives of 100 political activists, mainly from the National Conference.

Under attack

Hizb chief Mohammad Yusuf Shah has come under assault from many Jammu and Kashmir Islamists as a result of his no-violence promise.

At a May 18 seminar organised by the Islamist Idara Sout ul-Haq on whether “Democratic Elections Are an Islamic Way,” Islamic Students League leader Shakeel Bakshi asserted that “participating in elections is a sin.”

“Haraam”

Tehreek-i-Hurriyat leader Mushtaq ul-Islam proclaimed that “to vote is haraam [forbidden by Islam].” As such, he said, Mr. Shah ought to “refrain from encouraging people to cast votes.”

Mr. Geelani, who participated in several elections prior to 1987 and continues to draw a pension for serving as a member of the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly, argued that “casting vote in favour of the politicians who never follow Islamic laws and are not part of the Islamic Sharia is sin and an un-Islamic practice.”

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