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| Don’t fritter away J&K for petty political gains | | | Balbir K. Punj
Hurriyat Conference chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq’s interview to a Delhi newspaper draws the curtains on the real issue in the on-going crisis in Kashmir Valley. "Kashmir can survive as an independent nation," the Hurriyat chief claimed. "Much smaller places are surviving as a nation, why can’t we?" he countered all those who doubt that the state can remain economically-viable as an independent entity.
The Mirwaiz overlooks the fact that all these small nations he refers to are surviving on a single product like oil that has large and fast-rising global demand. That is the situation in all Gulf nations, separated only by their history and the royal households in charge. In Europe, there are nations like Monaco surviving mainly through promoting casinos, or Luxemburg, which is the world’s money laundering hub. Even these "small nations" now find it essential to work with their larger neighbours in organisations like the European Union. There is also cultural identification with these neighbours and their "independence" over the decades has become simply a matter of technicality; otherwise they are fully integrated with their neighbours.
Besides, if Hurriyat succeeds with its nefarious plan of secession, surely Jammu and Ladakh regions are bound to disassociate with this move. That reduces the so-called "azadi" demand to the Valley alone. The Valley would be a landlocked area and would have to seek opening through Jammu on one hand and Pakistan on the other.
The Valley’s economic interests are largely bound with India, the largest market for Kashmir’s produce. The Mirwaiz talks of hydro-power of the Valley. Here again it is India that could buy so much power and has the economic clout to pay for it.
The Mirwaiz’s claim that the Valley would be a "vibrant nation" is factually a miasma promoted specifically to cut asunder Kashmir’s age-old cultural and economic ties with the rest of India and is essentially based on the virus of pan-Islamism. If he was so committed to the culture of Kashmir, why did he not raise a powerful voice when the Pandits of the Valley, as much a part of the Valley as the Mirwaiz himself, were hounded out of the state? No Muslim organisation in the state came to the aid of the Pandits. Even mainstream political parties were silent spectators to this blatant violation of human rights. Neither National Conference president Omar Abdullah nor his father Mr Farooq Abdullah raised a finger to protect Kashmiri Pandits. They all were part of the move to get rid of the minority so that the state would be totally Muslim-dominated and hence, easy prey to secessionist propaganda and militancy in support of it.
Mr Omar Abdullah, who made a terrific speech in Lok Sabha on the government’s trust motion, now threatens to resign his Parliament seat. He as well as the PDP have almost surrendered to the secessionists instead of challenging them on the ground. This exposes their claim of nationalism. Mr Abdullah even goes to the extent of challenging the benefits of Kashmir’s linkage with the Indian Union. This despite the fact that the Abdullah family has been ruling Jammu and Kashmir for decades. Mr Abdullah would be denigrating his own family’s record in government if he now echoes the secessionist’s castigation of the Valley’s Indian link in development. He is probably willing to trade that for surviving in the surcharged air of the Valley and that is why he did not come forward to challenge Mirwaiz and others supported by the gun culture.
There are much larger issues that Umar Farooq, Yasin Malik and Sajjad Lone and others prefer to ignore in promoting "azadi" as a convenient slogan to perpetuate their own relevance in the Valley’s troubled politics. First is the linkage with pan-Islamic militancy and systematic violence sponsored by Pakistan and the Taliban regime in Afghanistan till recently. The problems of Jammu and Kashmir are hardly different from problems of rest of the states in the country.
The present crisis was no doubt the result of incompetent handling of the sensitive issue of land transfer to the Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board. The Congress-led coalition government, and its partner PDP, failed to educate people on the truth, allowing separatists to mislead them for the 50-odd days between the proposal for the transfer and the actual order of implementation. The state government also failed to curb the anti-India and communal propaganda following the land transfer order and preferred to surrender to militancy on this issue.
This gave an advantage to secessionists like the Mirwaiz and made mainstream political parties irrelevant.
The Congress, with all its claims of political roots, failed to mobilise people and other parties, including the NC and PDP. Why didn’t Mr Abdullah mobilise his cadre to counter militants and secessionists who are in alliance? It is the mainstream parties’ surrender, following the government caving in to extremists’ demands, which has led to this so called "azadi" storm. Of course, the pan-Islamic virus had been in action in Srinagar and was imposing its code on the people with the government and mainstream political parties just unwilling to respond to this challenge.
How does the rest of Indian political leadership react? Not very differently. Despite their loud declaration of fighting terrorism, the reality is that they are competing among themselves to mollify terrorists. Look at the way the Congress, SP and others have rushed to Azamgarh to commiserate with the family of Simi leader Bashir who was picked up by Gujarat police, in consultation with IB, for his pivotal role in the Ahmedabad, Baroda and Surat blasts? How can police nab terrorists if political leaders underline the routine accusation against them of harassing innocent people?
Every terrorist claims innocence and accusing the police is the best way of defence. It has now been revealed that Kerala police did pursue and nab some of those involved in the terror camp that Simi organised there in 2006. But police had to retreat when, under political pressure, they were forced to release the arrested. Similar thing happened in Congress-ruled Andhra Pradesh.
Now we are told the CPM and other Left parties are bolstering with their presence a positively communal meeting organised by several fundamentalist Muslim organisations, ostensibly to oppose "imperialism"(read the US).
The Left is now fully aligned with Muslim communalism and orthodoxy. The Congress, SP and BSP are not far behind.
There is greater danger in this alignment that amounts to self-styled secular parties surrendering to pan-Islamic communalism and militancy, than in the so called "azadi" movement in Kashmir Valley. In fact, these two forces are deriving inspiration and support from each other. If this is not abetment in the disintegration of the nation what else could it be? |
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