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| Valley's youth, retiring officials joining mainstream political parties | | Shift in mood ........ | | Early Times Report
SRINAGAR, Dec 27: With the youth wings of all the mainstream political parties, including National Conference and Congress, being defunct after the 1987 Assembly elections, the younger generation's participation in the mainstream political activity has been nominal in Kashmir valley in the last 25 years. Among the youth, only the relatives of the contesting candidates and surrendered militants have turned up at the polling stations in the Valley in different Assembly and LoK Sabha elections in the post-1996 era of the democratic regimes.
Even among the older generation, particularly the government officials retiring from service, there was a craze for joining either the Muslim Auqaf Trust or the separatist Hurriyat Conference for a long time.
Suddenly the trend is changing.
Watching reorganization and revival of the Congress party's and the Youth Congress' student wing, National Students Union of India (NSUI) in a big way, particularly in different Colleges and Universities in the Valley in the last two years, National Conference (NC) and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) have both begun efforts to involve men in the age group of 15-35 years in the organizational activity.
Journalist-turned-peace activist Waheed-ur-Rehman Parra, who was the only local member in Ram Jethmalani's Kashmir Committee, in its 2nd life, is a remarkable admission into the PDP. Parra, who got an opportunity to study a Masters Programme in United States of America after operating a Pulwama-based cable news channel, had been appointed as incharge of the PDP's Youth Wing. The party is now struggling to set up student units at College and University level.
If sources are to be believed, over 30 young lawyers in Kashmir valley are currently gaining proximity to the PDP and refining their aspirations to contribute to the mainstream politics.
Congress party has recently established NSUI units in several colleges and Universities. Their confidence level could be measured by their overt activity, including a broad daylight querelling with the canteen staff at the Kashmir University last month. Though the separatists' supporters asserted to disrupt the shooting of Vishal Bhardwaj's film 'Haider' on Sunday, the NSUI activists on Monday crossed their swords with the canteen staff. "Until yesterday, nobody on the campus could dare to identify himself or herself with any mainstream political ideology, let alone Congress---India's number one political party", said Mohammad Saleem Khan, an M Phil scholar.
Even the State's principal ruling party NC has given a big boost to its youth wing by admitting over two dozen young lawyers, including the sons of two former judges of J&K High Court, besides young scholar-activists like Junaid Azeem Matoo. "A great transformation process has set in among the youth. Until three years back, both Matoo and Parra were hadcore supporters of Hurriyat, its separatist politics and even the cult of violence and stone pelting", said a political scientist at Islamic University of Science and Technology Awantipora.
Another professor pointed out that a large number of retiring government officials and intellectuals were seeking admission into different mainstream political parties with the ambition and intention of contesting the elections and contributing to their society as the peoples' representatives, legislators and Ministers. Mufti Mohammad Sayeed's PDP appears to be the first attraction for these lots.
A former head of Political Science department at different colleges, Professor Abdul Jabbar of Tangmarg has joined the PDP today. Before him, a large number of scholarly people and men of intellectual pursuit like the retired KAS officer Naeem Akhtar, one-time broadcasting icon Basharat Bukhari, journalist-politician Nizamuddin Bhat, peace and cultural activist Zaffar Iqbal Manhas besides retired senior officers Asgar Ali, Aslam Laigaru and Mehboob Iqbal have joined the PDP.
In NC too, a number of senior retired officers and bureaucrats like Sheikh Ghulam Rasool and Vijay Bakaya, have already become a source of inspiration for a number of retiring officials. Showkat Ahmad Mir of Tangmarg has joined the NC within hours of his retirement as DC Ganderbal early this year. There are speculations that five to six more of this lot, including former Deputy Commissioner Jehangir Mir, could join Omar Abdullah's party in near future.
Congress headquarters in New Delhi has recently issued a list of 20 prominent retired officials, including a President of Jammu and Kashmir Bank Tafazal Hussain, who have been admitted in different wings of the party. J&K Pradesh Congress Committee chief Prof Saifuddin Soz's son Salman Anees Soz, who studied and held senior positions in corporate sector in USA for about 20 years, is now advising the Congress party on economic issues. An identical assignment has been given to Tafazal Hussain. |
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