In a recent interview to a newspaper published from Delhi, Hurriyat Chief Mirwaiz Omar Farooq said that one of the reasons of Hurriyat Conference not participating in the Round Table Conference called by the Prime Minister in Srinagar was that none of those who participated in it represented the people of Kashmir.

So in one stroke, he dismissed the National Conference, the Congress, the Peoples Democratic Party and others and dubbed them as non-representatives of the people of Kashmir. According to him, the only representatives of the people of Kashmir are the Hurriyat Conference and other secessionist outfits.

On the face of it, this is absurd. A party which has not contested any election can not, by any standards, claim to be representative of the people. If it thinks that shops close down in Srinagar city on its call for a hartal, and this overwhelming response represents its influence and acceptability across the board, it may be mistaken. Shut down is because of the threat of violence that the shopkeepers fear than their sympathy for the cause the separatists are espousing.

The other reason for Hurriyat decision to stay away from the Round Table Conference was that the representatives from Pakistan and Pak Occupied Kashmir were not invited. True. But was the RTC organised to discuss issues between the Center and the State representatives or as a forum for discussing issues with others? Clearly RTC structure fell in the first category.

Even a novice in Kashmir will tell you that the real reasons for the Hurriyat deciding to boycott the RTC are quite different. It doesn’t want to get exposed in the presence of others on its stand about the future of Jammu and Kashmir. That is why it made a last minute bid to have a separate meeting with the Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh in Srinagar, a day before the Conference started. But seeing through the game, it was promptly turned down.

Whenever the Hurriyat is asked to contest elections to prove its popularity, it turns down the suggestion on the plea that the election process should be supervised by the United Nations. It has no faith in the Election Commission of India.

The fact of the matter is that the Hurriyat has become a prisoner of its own circumstances. It can not take any independent decision and is remote-controlled by leaders in Pakistan through the militant organizations ruling the roost in Kashmir.

Does not Mirwaiz Omar Farooq know who killed his father, Maulvi Mohammad Farooq? Why does not he name them? Why does he not come out publicly against them? He has not even demanded an inquiry into the brutal act. Another separatist leader of Kashmir, Abdul Gani lone was killed by the militants at a public place. Why is there no demand for nabbing the culprits?

Look at what is happening across the Line of Control (LOC) in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, the Azad Kashmir as Pakistan prefers to call it. Nomination papers of all the 33 candidates belonging to the JKLF wanting to contest the POK assembly elections have been rejected. Reason? They have not mentioned in their nomination papers that POK is a part of Pakistan.

It is not for the first time that such a thing has happened. The same thing happened last time also when all the nomination papers of JKLF, which stands for unification of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir, as it existed before 1947, were rejected.

Is Hurriyat not for reunification of the state? Does it not clamour for an independent state of Jammu and Kashmir? If yes, why did it not raise its voice against the Pakistani establishment for its actions in POK?

Do not the Hurriyat leaders know the plight of people in the Northern Areas, where there is not even a semblance of a democratic structure in place, forcing the people to live a life of dumb driven cattle? Why do not Hurriyat leaders, who are never tired of talking about self-rule and independence for Kashmir, raise their voice against this?

It is this double standard of the Hurriyat Conference and other separatist organisations that is preventing them from following a clear line on Jammu and Kashmir.

And their mentors in Pakistan are no different. They allow the underworld Don, Dawood Ibrahim, to live a normal life in Karachi and tell the world that he is not in Pakistan. They allow the hard core militant leaders, who take responsibility claim for violent incidents in Jammu and Kashmir, to move freely across Pakistan and but Islamabad is not able to track them down. Pakistan claims to be taking action against militants but in practice, does very little to curb them.

Indian Foreign Secretary Sham Saran and the Indian High Commissioner is Islamabad Shiv Shankar Menon recently urged Pakistan to do more to put an end to cross border terrorism and violence in Kashmir. But mere statements are not enough.

It is an irony that India is pursuing a policy of making borders soft with Pakistan, when Islamabad is busy pushing as many armed militants into Jammu and Kashmir as possible. Any other country faced with such a situation would make borders as tough as possible.


Courtesy : Syndicate Features

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