The ‘moderate’ All Party Hurriyat Conference, led by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, has started to make frequent pilgrimage to Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir in the self-designed quest for bringing peace in the former ‘paradise’ of Kashmir. That is all to the good, except that this venerable body of pro-Pakistani Kashmiris seems to think that there is no need to heed to the Indian point while looking for that elusive solution to the ‘core issue’ of Kashmir. Once the Pakistanis and the Hurriyat leaders have come to an understanding about an acceptable ‘solution’ they would like India to endorse it without blinking an eyelid. Clearly, any such a belief is unrealistic.
Projecting itself as ‘moderate,’‘pragmatic’ and 'even flexible', the Mirwaiz faction of the Hurriyat has drawn more attention in New Delhi and Islamabad, if not Washington and London, than the other more avowedly pro-Pakistani and more rabidly hate-preaching branch headed by Gilani. But it needs to be examined just which ‘moderate’ and ‘pragmatic’ or flexible steps have the Mirwaiz and his team been advocating in pursuit of the resolution of the Kashmir issue. Their ‘moderate’ and ‘pragmatic’ views often appear to be no different from the Pakistani ‘solutions’, maybe clothed differently, and that is hardly going to help.
The Mirwaiz wants Indian troops out of Kashmir and the state divided into seven regions—exactly what the Pakistani military ruler has been saying. He refuses to see security threats posed to India by the ‘freedom fighters’ and their backers whose killing missions have by now reached all corners of India and their targets have included legislative bodies, religious places, shopping areas and scientific institutions.
The Hurriyat leaders have welcomed New Delhi’s offer to talk but the course of that vaunted dialogue looks ominous and doomed since the Mirwaiz believes, as he said while in Pakistan, that India has not shown the required ‘flexibility’ on Kashmir.
While castigating India for its ‘inflexibility’, the Hurriyat showered praise on Pakistan and its military ruler, Gen Pervez Musharraf, whose ‘credibility’ is high in the international community, according to the Hurriyat leadership. That certificate will probably surprise the General himself whose proliferation record and the reluctance to wind up the terror machine is there for the world to see. But then people in the sub-continent tend to be generous in praising a benevolent host who has sworn eternal pledge to support you ‘morally, diplomatically and politically’—a camouflage for sending arms, men and money.
This support has given birth to militancy in the once peaceful ‘paradise’, taking a regular toll of people as well as security forces, not to speak of property. The Pakistan-based forces which back the militants are pursuing an agenda that is not confined to wresting Kashmir from India. They want the crescent flag flying all over India. The Hurriyat leadership takes no notice of this even as it does nothing more than make half-hearted appeals to the minorities terrorised out of the valley to return to their homes. Kashmir has witnessed one of the biggest ‘ethnic cleansing’ of all times. Is it the ‘Kashmiriyat’ that the Huriyat supports?
Like the Pakistanis, the Huriyat too maintains a constant refrain of Indian ‘oppression’ in Kashmir--while totally glossing over the daily killings and fidayeen attacks on soft targets as well security establishments. The Mirwaiz while in Pakistan denounced custodial killings in Kashmir. Of course, custodial deaths cannot be defended. But the chief minister of Kashmir, Ghulam Nabi Azad, maintains that there has been no custodial death since he took over two months ago. The Huriyat will surely contest that; but then by the same token why should everyone believe every word spoken by the Huriyat and similar forces?
Those looking for ways to end the Kashmir impasse between India and Pakistan tend to overlook the history or the background to the problem which can be traced to the colonial past when the departing masters left without assigning the Muslim majority areas of Jammu and Kashmir to the newly-created Islamic state of Pakistan. Stung to the quick, the fledgling state of Pakistan lost no time in trying to wrest the state from India by sending its troops, first under a disguise. When this aggression failed, the Pakistani leaders of the time found a lot of solace in the British-inspired UN resolution to settle the fate of Kashmir through a plebiscite.
Lately, the rulers in Islamabad have become chary of plebiscite now that a wave ‘Azadi’ (freedom) has reached the Pakistani-held areas of Kashmir. They are looking for ‘other means’ to get Kashmir from India, with the help of a ‘bleed India’ policy and some double dealing moves by the western powers, led by the United States. The Hurriyat is also not warm to the plebiscite solution. In fact, the Hurriyat is not warm to elections at all even as it claims to represent the ‘true’ voice of all the people of Kashmir and talks of democracy and freedom!
Because of its allergy to the election process, the Hurriyat is naturally indifferent to angry voices heard in PoK, especially in what the Pakistanis call the Northern Areas, which must be the last colonial outpost in the sub-continent. It was touching to see the Hurriyat leadership rush with relief material for the quake-hit people in PoK not all of whom were probably Kashmiri ‘brothers and sisters’. Outsiders are not allowed to settle in the ‘Held Kashmir’, as the Hurriyat leaders call the Kashmir in which they live, but the systematic attempts at demographic changes in the PoK have been of no concern to the Hurriyat.
Despite all the hoopla over opening of five checkpoints along the Line of Control in Kashmir, it is strange that very few ‘brothers and sisters’ have utilised the facility so far. The Hurriyat has already found the answer for that: the ‘intransigence’ of the Indian authorities in issuing documents to the Kashmiris. All the delays and hurdles are on the Indian side. The Hurriyat leaders would want the world to believe that the Pakistani bureaucracy is red-tape free and hassle-free and, of course, has absolutely no bias against Indians.
If the account of the Hurriyat leaders’ visit to Pakistan, appearing in a section of the press, is to be believed the Mirwaiz also said in Pakistan that it is easier to travel to Pakistan and PoK on Indian passport than obtaining the special documents issued for travel on either side of the LoC in Kashmir. That is strange because for long the opening of the land route in Kashmir was held up because Pakistan and its supporters in India had insisted that the Kashmiris could not travel on Indian passports because that would lend credence to the Indian claim on Kashmir! At least some signs of ‘flexibility’ here!
Courtesy : Syndicate Features
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