Opinion
Separatism Gets Competitive
in Kashmir Valley
by Tarun Vijay
It's election time in Jammu
and Kashmir and once again the politicians are divided between issues of
national integration and separatism to gather votes. It's not
electricity or water supply, but security of the people and declarations
of equidistance from India and Pakistan that hog the electioneering,
speeding up a strange competition in raising secessionist voices.
Kupwara and Bijbehara are two areas in the Kashmir valley infamous for
the gruesome incidents of terrorism and mayhem in the early 1990s. Here
last week, Mehbooba Mufti, firebrand leader of the Peoples Democratic
Party (PDP) and daughter of former home minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed,
accused National Conference leader Omar Farooq of having traded
Kashmir's interests to New Delhi in return for power and vested
interests.
And she thundered, "India and Pakistan can't gamble with Kashmir's
future." She was quoted as having said, "Neither of the two neighboring
countries can politically afford to gamble with Kashmir's future and my
party has played a vital role in bringing a change in the status quo
maintained over Kashmir..."
It's noteworthy that it was Mehbooba's sister Rubaiya Sayeed whose
abduction (1989) created a furor when her father was union home minister
and he decided to release five hardcore jailed terrorists to obtain her
safe release.
Mehbooba has been accusing the Farooqs, her party's bitterest rivals, of
kowtowing before the Indian government and selling the interests of the
Kashmiri people. And she is drawing huge crowds in her public meetings,
worrying both the Congress as well as the National Conference led by the
father-son duo.
Hence if Mehbooba's separatism draws votes, why should other politicians
lag behind? Separatism and demanding secession from India have become a
matter of daily symposiums and public meetings. The media reports such
deliberations with an ease shown by Delhi journos in reporting a Kathak
recital. Newspapers publish anti-India group leaders' photographs on
front pages with a touch of thrill and respect and their names bear a
prefix - "senior separatist leader"!
On one such public programme in Srinagar, a few lines from a local
newspaper are worth mentioning - "Senior separatist leader and the
chairman of the Geelani faction of Hurriyat Conference Syed Ali Shah
Geelani said that casting votes would simply mean supporting the cause
of mainstream politicians who facilitated the oppression of people's
rights in Kashmir."
This meeting was held by a local organization under the banner,
'Elections under Occupation'.
Sounds interesting?
Taking on the PDP, Farooq Abdullah retorted, "Where were these so-called
philanthropists when New Delhi and Islamabad entered into an agreement
over sharing of river waters? India gave Sindh, Chenab and Jhelum waters
to Pakistan... wahan kis saudagar ne sauda kiya tha? Mehbooba kahti
hai ki humne riyasat ko bech dala, arey tere baap se bada saudagar kaun
hai, delhi mein home minister kaun tha?( who was trading off
Kasmir's interests then? Who can be a bigger trader than Mehbooba's
father who was home minister then?).
Mehbooba's press conference with Pakistan People's Party (PPP) leader
Asif Zardari in Pakistan also made waves here as this was considered a
strange and extraordinary move on their part. Obviously, Zardari spoke
about a solution that ruled out the Indian position of holding Kashmir
within Indian territory as an inseparable part and Mehbooba almost toed
Zardari line.
Early this month when Omar Abdullah was in Pakistan, (attending the same
Pugwash conference with Mehbooba) he stated that if Pakistan hangs
Sarabjit Singh, India will have to hang Afzal ("India may hang Afzal if
Sarabjit is hanged"). It was considered not only against Indian
realities but also an atrociously communal statement and a dig at New
Delhi. Omar Abdullah made another statement in Pakistan which in essence
regretted his grandfather's mistake in 1947. This sentence was left
incomplete, leaving journalists to draw their own 'logical' conclusion,
as some wrote that the only thing that Sheikh Abdullah did in 1947 was
to oppose Jinnah and support Kashmir's merger with India.
So while in Pakistan, Omar, in a vague manner, implied that for a
Kashmiri leader visiting Pakistan it's important to say what is music to
Islamabad's ears. He also criticized a mature statement by PPP chief
Zardari to keep the Kashmir issue in deep freeze. As an Indian, he
should have naturally welcomed Zardari's stand but he rebutted it like
hardliner separatists, saying the PPP chairman's stand that
India-Pakistan ties should not be held hostage to the dispute had little
support in Pakistan and Jammu and Kashmir.
And then the grand Mufti Sayeed threw a bombshell by demanding that the
Pakistani currency should be made acceptable in Kashmir like Indian
rupees. He wanted to underline his party's equidistance from both 'India
and Pakistan'. He is assiduously trying to maintain an image of
Kashmir's 'real' emancipator and selling, rather trying to use the
separatist theory to his political benefit that considers secession as
the only panacea for Kashmir's ills.
Mufti's PDP is almost on the verge of severing its ties with the ruling
coalition led by the Congress. So long as Sayeed was chief minister, his
voices were reflecting New Delhi's line of thoughts and he was full of
praise for Congress leaders. When under the two-party agreement he had
to leave the chair for the Congress candidate, (Ghulam Nabi Azad), he at
once turned a radical voice of the separatists.
How can vote bank politics turn a former home minister of India and a
former minister of state for external affairs, responsible for
strengthening India's global position and defending Indian stand on
Kashmir and other issues protecting the nation's integrity and the
constitution, into rabid anti-unity leaders is a democratic irony that
can occur only in a soft state called India.
(Tarun Vijay is director, Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee Research
Foundation, a right wing think tank. He can be contacted at tarun.vijay@gmail.com)
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