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Mohammad Sayeed Malik
(from kashmirtimes)
Trapped between political disconnect between Delhi and Srinagar on the one hand and suffocating homeground-hostility on the other, mainstream political parties in Kashmir Valley are getting squeezed into a tight corner. The ‘nationalist’ portion of their agenda is already a casualty in the face of a radical shift in the local discourse. The setting is such that even mere talk of (assembly) elections sounds grossly incongruent, if not blasphemous. One has yet to find anyone willing to stand up and be counted unambiguously. It has never been so hazardous for them; not even in the run-up to the 1996 polls when militancy was at its peak. Obviously, collective sense of emotional hurt, fuelled by brazenly militaristic response to largely peaceful upsurge of protest, is politically more lethal than the fear of gun. Mainstream politics has been totally immobilised along with its ideological agenda although every Tom, Dick and Harry in that category is protected by hordes of state-provided gun-men. ‘Protected’ species is feeling like the most endangered species. Main reason being that Delhi’s inexplicable non-political attitude, smeared by perceived sectarian double standard in dealing with identical situations, is catalysing an over-powering social cohesion that is incompatible with mainstream politics.
Confused and confusing utterances of some of the mainstream ‘stars’ relating to topical issues, as also their body language, is quite revealing. It depicts the trajectory of conversion from an ‘Indian-Kashmiri’ to ‘Kashmiri-Indian’ and down to ‘Kashmiri’. Though vastly different in size, reach and stature, National Conference and the Peoples Democratic Party, two main propellers of the mainstream politics in the Valley, more or less equally symbolise the predicament of surviving a hostile homeground. Their style of functioning is so cramped that it is difficult to determine their respective bearings in relation to key issues like elections and the prevailing ground situation. Positions keep changing, depending on time and space. Unfortunately for them both, times are getting worse, not better, and space is shrinking too, thanks to Delhi’s militaristic attitude.
This aspect of Delhi’s attitude is somewhat puzzling. Deliberately provocative conduct of the CRPF in dealing with the situation in the Valley suggests that there is method in the madness. Hospital sources confirmed that about 90 per cent of causalities were found with bullet wounds in and above abdomen, implying ‘shoot-to-kill’ orders. The ‘free hand’ given to paramilitary forces includes licence to vandalise private property, desecrate places of worship and humiliating local population. If the objective was to force ‘anti-national’ protestors into submission, the result is just the opposite. It is the ‘nationalist’ mainstream political camp which is feeling the squeeze.
With each passing day the resemblance between their body language and that of the ‘anti-national’ lobby is growing. Perhaps no one in Delhi is interested today in calculating the political cost of such adventurism which might have found some justification vis-a-vis armed insurgency. The ground situation in the Valley has changed qualitatively but Delhi’s response seems stuck in old grooves. Separatists cannot thank ‘India’ more for such a precious gift. Conversely, a right thinking ‘nationalist’ cannot curse them more for being denuded and left high and dry at a time when they were going great guns for the elections. That, however, is history now.It would be no surprise if, in the present adventurist mode, Delhi feels tempted to taking the suicidal course of holding assembly elections. The last two or three months have virtually laid out a graveyard for electoral politics.
It would be interesting to see how Delhi, which in Kashmir is synonymous with ‘India’, demolishes the fragile political assets it had painstakingly created over the past decade or so. Restoring partial credibility of electoral system with a respectable level of popular participation was one such asset. The difference between perception of what it was like way back in 1996 when assembly polls were held after a long pause and what it is today 2008 is that between the impact of non-state terrorism then and state terrorism now. Harsh analogy! But an unavoidable honest depiction.
‘Time to end armed struggle’
(from greaterkashmir.com)
Islamabad, Jan 20: All Parties Hurriyat Conference (M) chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq has called for giving up armed struggle to pave the way for fruitful negotiations for a lasting settlement of the Kashmir dispute.
The Mirwaiz, who along with other senior leaders of the APHC, is on a visit to Pakistan, stated this after a series of meetings in Islamabad, including crucial talks with President General Pervez Musharraf.
Speaking at a dinner meeting with Pakistan-administered Kashmir Prime Minister Sardar Attique on Friday, the APHC leader said peaceful negotiations were the only way out. “We have already seen the results of our fight on the political, diplomatic and military fronts which have not achieved anything other than creating more graveyards.”
The Mirwaiz said some people involved in the struggle could still have some reservations, but as far as the APHC was concerned, “we are not prepared to sacrifice any more of our loved ones.” He said with their new strategy they would convince India to arrive at a more agreeable settlement.
Earlier in the day, the APHC leaders held a detailed meeting with President General Pervez Musharraf, which was part of what is being described as a fresh effort to push forward the three-year-old peace process between Pakistan and India.
The meeting attained a lot of significance because soon after their arrival in Pakistan, the APHC leaders had declared that their separatist organisation and the majority of Kashmiris living on the Indian side of the divide supported President Musharraf’s four-point settlement formula for Kashmir.
The meeting largely focused on President Musharraf’s proposals which include self-governance, demilitarisation and joint control of the disputed territory.
Conscious of the expected opposition to such a settlement from hardline groups, President Musharraf called for discouraging elements hostile to the peace process.
Earlier, in a meeting breakfast with the APHC leaders, PML chief Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain said: “Time has come for a bold decision, even if it is an unpopular one.” He said that at this crucial moment in history there was no time to remain bogged down in a debate on the UN resolutions.
“Resolution or no resolution, now all sides need to consider what was in the best interest of the Kashmiri people, and then push for a settlement of the dispute,” the PML leader added.
APHC leader Abdul Ghani Bhatt on the occasion said that there was little room to include the Kashmiris in the negotiations between India and Pakistan. “These talks are taking place between two the sovereign states, and ours is just a disputed territory,” Bhat said.
“So, instead of creating problems, we think our purpose is solved by separately holding negotiations with both India and Pakistan,” he said. However, Bhatt was quick to clarify that these were his personal views, and not those of the APHC.
The Mirwaiz said there were many groups and parties in Kashmir, but it was the APHC which truly represented the aspirations of the people of Kashmir.
He said since President Musharraf publicly presented his proposals for a lasting settlement, the majority of the people in Jammu and Kashmir had accepted them as the best possible solution, adding that now it was time for India to match its efforts to move the peace process forward.
The APHC leaders also had a series of meetings with the Indian side, but their scheduled meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was postponed.
Copyright and courtesy of Greater Kashmir. com [link]
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Tags: Azad Kashmir, Freedom Struggle, Hurriyat, India, Kashmir, Militants, Mirwaiz, News, Pakistan
‘When GoI Could Push The Most Popular And Towering Kashmiri Politician Like Sheikh Abdullah To The Wall, Then What Is The Worth Of Hurriyat (M)’
Tariq Naqash
(from greaterkashmir.com)
Muzaffarabad, Jan 20: An alliance of Kashmiri militant groups has rejected the call of Mirwaiz Umar Farooq to give up armed struggle to pave the way for fruitful negotiations for a lasting settlement of Kashmir issue.
The militant leaders have been shocked by the baseless and uncalled for statement of Mirwaiz and his colleagues who are ignorant of the background and realities of Kashmir issue,” said a spokesman for the United Jihad Council (UJC) in a statement here on Saturday.
“The statement of Mirwaiz may please some Western circles and Indian leaders, but it cannot change the ground realities,” he added.
The militant leaders, he said, had made it clear time and again that only a “strongly coordinated state-wide” armed struggle, enjoying the patronage of sincere, robust and representative (political) leadership, could take the freedom movement to its logical end.
“A freedom movement can weaken due to any temporary defeat, it can also grow longer than the anticipated time but it can never die down unless the freedom seekers surrender themselves before the tyrants out of spinelessness,” the spokesman said.
He also rejected the reported statement of Mirwaiz that UN Security Council resolutions on Kashmir had become redundant and said people saying such things appeared to have forgotten the fact that these resolutions made Pakistan a party to the Kashmir dispute.
“The people who make mock of the issue’s recognised status as well as the sacrifices of Kashmiris have no right to take any decision or give suggestions on Kashmir…”
The spokesman recalled that the people of Kashmir had taken up arms against their will after failure of their peaceful political and diplomatic struggle spanning over 42 years.
During the ongoing armed struggle and prior to that, he said, “nearly 475,000 people laid down their lives for the noble cause of freedom while material losses worth billions of rupees and other inhuman atrocities unleashed by the occupying forces are in addition to that.”
“These unmatched sacrifices were not offered for self rule, internal autonomy or for that matter for an irrelevant ceasefire line (Line of Control) but for the Kashmiris’ internationally acknowledged and inalienable right to self determination,” he said, adding, “those who have turned a blind eye towards these sacrifices and are showing signs of retreat have no right to lead the nation.”
“If Mirwaiz and other leaders of his like have become tired, disenchanted or hopeless about the future of freedom struggle due to adverse circumstances, we suggest them to sit back in their homes to lead a life of comfort. But they should not teach the lesson of cowardice and hopelessness to the caravan of freedom seekers,” he said.
The spokesman said the people of Kashmir had proved by observing a state-wide strike on Jan 17 that they could not back out from their sacred mission and that they were instead prepared to shed the last drop of their blood to achieve this goal.
He said Mirwaiz knew well that he could not secure release of even two detainees from New Delhi during the several rounds of talks with Indian leaders while showing unilateral flexibility and deviation from the traditional stand of Kashmiris.
“When the Indian government mercilessly could push the most popular and towering Kashmiri politician like Sheikh Abdullah to the wall, then what is the worth of this group of people who have conflicting views and interest,” he said of the moderate leaders.
The militant leaders, according to the spokesman, had expressed serious desire that all ‘sincere political leaders’ should unite to achieve the Kashmiris’ right to self determination because friction and differences among them had caused irreparable losses to the freedom movement.
“Still there is time for political leaders to rise above their personal and organisational egos and interests and launch joint struggle for right to self determination and freedom. Otherwise there will be no space for them in the chapters of history.”
Copyright and courtesy of Greater Kashmir. com [link]
Copyright concern? email: media.kashmir [at] gmail.com
Tags: Azad Kashmir, Freedom Struggle, Hurriyat, India, Kashmir, Militants, Mirwaiz, News, Pakistan
Kashmir remembers Rauf who took 32 bullets on chest
Exiled Journalist Mir Abdul Aziz Declared National Hero
Arshad Me’raj
(from greaterkashmir.com)
Srinagar, Nov 23: Abdur Rauf Wani is the heroic young man who took nearly 32 bullets fired from a light machine gun by a paramilitary trooper on his chest, saving scores of lives at Gaw Kadal, Srinagar on January 21, 1990 during a protest march in which 52 people were massacred.
Before he could slip into obscurity as a statistic of the ongoing struggle, the Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS) awarded him posthumously the annual Robert Thorpe Award. Besides, Khawaja Mir Abdul Aziz, an exiled Kashmiri journalist and resistance leader, was declared as one of the National Heroes of Kashmir.
To award Rauf and commemorate Mir Aziz, a function was organised at a local hotel here on Thursday.
Zulehuma Banday, sister of Rauf, received the award: a trophy and a shawl. In a tearful brief address, she thanked JKCCS for giving recognition to Rauf. She said, “The sacrifice of Rauf is for a bigger cause and Kashmiris have been sacrificing for the past hundreds of years; we should not forget those who sacrificed their lives for that bigger cause.”
Rauf, 24, did his schooling from prestigious Tyndale Biscoe School. As 18-year old boy in 1984 when Sikhs were massacred in Delhi and when riots erupted in the Valley, he jumped the window in second story of his home and saved the life of a labourer who was trying laces of his shoe and was shot at in his head. Rauf had responded to the cries of the labourer when people closed their doors and windows in wake of police firing, said his sister Zulehuma. Rauf was jailed for a month during 1987 for his support to Muslim United Front in the elections that were rigged in favor of National Conference.
On January 21, 1991, thousands of people took out a huge protest march against molestation of women by the troops in Chotta Bazaar locality by paramilitary CRPF troops. The then government headed by Governor Jagmohan allowed the march to proceed for nearly two kilometers, but when it reached Gaw Kadal, the peaceful protesters without any provocation were fired at indiscriminately by paramilitary troopers and police led by DSP Allah Baksh. Fifty-two people including women died and nearly 250 were wounded.
“Rauf rushed towards a trooper who was mowing down unarmed people with a light machine gun and faced the barrel, took all the bullets in the magazine,” said Zahir-ud-Din, one of the protesters and eyewitness of the massacre.
At the award giving ceremony many speakers said the government of India and the state government was projecting “collaborators of occupation” as the real heroes of Kashmir.
“They haven’t projected any person who offered resistance during the resistance movements and didn’t compromise,” said the JKCCS president Pervez Imroz. “The state has been honoring the brutal Dogra rulers who massacred the people of Kashmir; they have established Gulab Singh and Zorawar Singh chairs in Universities, but haven’t done anything for the unsung heroes of Kashmir.”
Imroz said, “The civil society was trying to bring out the lives of heroes from the oblivion and introduce them to the younger generation who don’t know anything about them.”
Peer Ghulam Rasool who deliberated on “Concept of National Hero” said the government of India and the state government have been projecting the collaborators as real heroes for the past 50 years.
“They have also been dehumanizing and denigrating people, like they did to Kabailis. Many of the people who were resisting against the rule of Dogra Maharaja and later the Indian rule and communal Indian parties have been clubbed together with Kabailis,” Rasool said. He said among the internationally renowned leftist thinker and writer Eqbal Ahmad was one of those who have been “denigrated” as Kabaili raiders.
Noted academician Dr Hamida Nayeem while speaking during the function said the enslaved nations have no histories, their histories are written by the occupation and colonial forces. “When a nation becomes free only then can it write its own history and decide who is the hero. Today’s hero can become tomorrow’s devil. During his early life, Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah was a hero, but see how we look at him today,” Dr Hamida said.
She said the Kashmir history was being shaped by a huge dominating nation and there was clear demarcation between stooges and those people fighting for the rights of people. “The state machinery has manufactured and concocted our history,” Dr Hamida said, adding the Kashmiris have not been able to write their own history.
“We have produced great scholars and intellectuals who can be designated as national heroes,” she further said while referring to the names of Lallitaditya, Sheikh-ul-Alam (RA), Lalla Ded, Kalhana and others. Dr Hamida said, “Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah succeeded in weakening the autocratic set-up but committed historical and monumental blunders after which he was designated as the collaborator of India.” According to Dr Hamida, Maqbool Bhatt who challenged the Indian domination didn’t compromise despite being tortured severely. “Dr Aga Shahid Ali despite being an apolitical person had become an international hero and a symbol of Kashmir by writing about anguish of people of Kashmir in his book A country Without Post Office’.”
She further said the academia was in the hands of dominant powers and that is why the Kashmir history wasn’t made the part of curriculum. “We are taught world history, Indian history, but our children know nothing about their own history.” She added that the politicians are misinterpreting the saints and poets of our valley.
Dr Sheikh Showkat Hussain, an academic, said the best way to remember heroes is not through awards but to carry forward the mission for which they tried and died. “Mir Khawaja Abdul Aziz proceeded against the tide and led a miserable life. He didn’t cash on his sacrifices, which has become a trend with present leaders,” he said. Dr Showkat said Pakistani authorities had jailed Mir Abdul Aziz for his critique of “erroneous Kashmir policies after the failure of Operation Gibraltar”. Mir Abdul Aziz and Ghulam Nabi Gilkar were each offered 35 acres of land in Islamabad after their release, but they declined saying that they have to go their homeland when the issue would be resolved.
Trade Union Centre leader Sampat Prakash while speaking on the occasion said, the trade union has played a pivotal role in the ongoing freedom struggle. “We have raised the Kashmir issue at various forums and recently at Indian Social Forum and had been able to highlight it as a disputed territory,” he further said. He said the state is involved in sponsoring the terrorism. “SOG personnel are targeting the tourists and the attempt on the life of High Court Bar Association (HCBA) chairman was also made by these personnel,” he further said. Noted civil rights activist from New Delhi, Gautam Naulakha while delivering his presidential address said, “The history of oppressed and occupied is not written by their own people but is provided by the occupiers and collaborators.”
“National heroes are needed during the struggle as they support and inspire the people during the movement when the chips are down,” he said, “51,288 militants were arrested and tortured; they are also the heroes whom we don’t know and they did not surrender. Only 3800 surrendered.” He said freedom movement was because of the people as they aspired for it.
Greater Kashmir Executive Editor Zahir-ud-Din while speaking on the occasion termed the January 21, 1990 incident as a turning point the history of freedom struggle. While quoting the then governor Jagmohan’s statement, Zahir-ud-Din said the Gaw Kadal massacre was a planned one. “The day Farooq Abdullah resigned, Jagmohan issued a statement saying ‘if any one tried to disturb law and order the card of peace will slip out of my hand’. After Jagmohan’s statement people were expecting that something bad was in the offing. The Gaw Kadal occurred after his statement and turned the struggle into mass movement,” he said adding that from that day the youngsters starting going across the Line of Control.
Zarief Ahmad Zarief, Dr Mubarik Ahmed and Dr Altaf Hussain also paid glowing tributes to Khawaja Abdul Aziz Mir and Rauf Wani for their bravery and valour.
Copyright and courtesy of Greater Kashmir. com [link]
Copyright concern? email: media.kashmir [at] gmail.com
