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Kashmir: A gun to India's
head
By Sudha Ramachandran
BANGALORE - As India steps up its efforts to
draw moderate separatists in to contest the forthcoming
elections to the Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) Assembly,
the call by Pakistan-based militants to the separatist
umbrella organization, the Hurriyat Conference, to
boycott the polls could hamper that endeavor.
On
Tuesday, the United Jihad Council (UJC), a conglomerate
of 15 jihadi groups based in Pakistan and
Pakistan-administered Kashmir, issued a statement
calling on the Hurriyat Conference to "take a clear,
categorical and unequivocal stand regarding the
so-called elections in the occupied territory
[Indian-administered Kashmir] and represent the
sentiments of the Kashmiris by launching a vigorous
anti-polls campaign." The UJC warned that betrayal of
the Kashmir cause would be considered "an unpardonable
crime" and that "the criminals would have to face
exemplary punishment".
A call by the UJC for a
boycott of the forthcoming polls, due in September, was
expected as a successful election will be a setback to
its violent campaign in Indian-administered Kashmir.
The UJC is a creation of Pakistan’s intelligence
agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). It is
headed by Syed Salahuddin, the Pakistan-based commander
of the Hizbul Mujahideen, the largest militant group
operating in India-administered Kashmir.
India
perceives the UJC’s warning to the Hurriyat as an
ISI-inspired attempt to derail the elections by
threatening anyone who participates in it. New Delhi is
wooing the moderates among the separatists so that the
election gains credibility and does not seem just a
contest between pro-India parties. It believes that
Islamabad is seeking to frustrate its attempt at
restoring normalcy in the strife-torn state by
strengthening the hardliners, who are opposed to the
polls.
Since its formation in 1993, the Hurriyat
has never contested an election. It called for a boycott
of elections to the state assembly in 1996 and to the
Indian parliament in 1996 and 1998. Boycott calls were
ruthlessly enforced by the militants in previous
elections, resulting in abysmal voter turnout,
notwithstanding attempts by the Indian security forces
to force people to vote.
There are indications
that the younger leaders of the Hurriyat and the
second-rung leadership of its constituent organizations
are now open to participating in the forthcoming poll.
"The UJC warning is an attempt by Pakistan to
ensure that none of the Hurriyat leaders will dare
participate in the polls," says an Indian intelligence
officer operating in Srinagar, the capital of J&K.
Pakistan’s strategy to scare away moderate
separatists from participating in the poll process has
acquired a new urgency because of the changed mood today
in the Kashmir Valley.
Sections in the Hurriyat
as well as in the militant groups operating in Kashmir
have slowly come around to the view that armed struggle
is counterproductive to their cause. The recently
assassinated Hurriyat leader, Abdul Gani Lone, was in
fact the first among the separatists to sense the
growing surge of anti-Pakistan sentiment on the streets
of Srinagar. He responded to that groundswell swiftly by
speaking out against the foreign militants he had once
welcomed and endorsing the dialogue option. It was again
a reading of this changed situation on the ground that
prompted the now expelled Hizbul Mujahideen commander,
Majid Dar, to defy the Pakistan-based leadership and to
open a dialogue channel with Delhi.
With
elections coming up, India and Pakistan have been
engaged in a battle to tilt the moderate-hardline
balance in their favor. On May 21, pro-Pakistan forces
dealt a blow to Valley-based moderate separatists by
assassinating Lone. The balance swung in favor of the
anti-poll hawks as the assassination resulted in
moderates withdrawing into a shell.
New Delhi
responded by arresting the pro-Pakistan and
anti-election Hurriyat hardliner, Syed Ali Shah Geelani.
That arrest removed a key obstacle to the election
process. It created space for other Hurriyat leaders to
consider adopting a more flexible approach to the
electoral process. Gulam Mohammed Bhat, leader of
Geelani’s Jamaat-e-Islami, for instance, said that he
would not be calling for a boycott of the poll. The
political wind seemed to be blowing in Delhi’s favor.
"The UJC’s warning to the Hurriyat to keep away
from the poll process is Pakistan’s response to the loss
of political ground in Kashmir," a retired bureaucrat
who served in J&K told Asia Times Online. With the
ground slipping beneath its feet, the ISI had to act.
The outcome was the UJC raising the threat of the gun.
The UJC warning to the Hurriyat against
participation in the forthcoming polls has now put the
separatists in a tight spot. The militants expect the
Hurriyat leaders to call for a boycott of the poll. If
they do not, they could be gunned down.
On the
other hand, the Kashmiri people would want them to
contest the poll. The average Kashmiri is disillusioned
with armed struggle, the militancy and Pakistan’s role
in it. They are expressing a desire for a "just peace".
There is Western pressure, too, on the Hurriyat
to join the electoral process. An American delegation
that recently met the Hurriyat chairperson, Abdul Gani
Bhat, is reported to have told him that the US would not
recognize any organization that stayed away from the
democratic exercise. The European Union and the United
Kingdom have conveyed similar views to the Hurriyat.
Besides, "the Hurriyat leaders fear that they
will be rendered politically irrelevant if they miss
this opportunity of entering the legislative assembly.
They cannot afford to wait for another five years for
that. The senior leaders have already lost ground to the
younger leaders in the organization," says a Kashmiri
journalist.
Indeed, young leaders such as Sajjad
Lone, Shabbir Shah, Majid Dar and Mirwaiz Omar Farooq
are sending out signals that they are not opposed to the
electoral process.
Shabbir Shah, who has spent
around 20 years in Indian jails and is today leader of
the J&K Democratic Freedom Party, has been engaging
in talks with the Indian government. "He might not be
pro-India but that he is anti-Pakistan and secular and
open to the democratic process makes him Delhi’s best
bet among the separatists," says the Indian intelligence
officer. Shah is emerging as a rallying point of the
non-Hurriyat separatists.
Mirwaiz Omar Farooq, a
former chairperson of the Hurriyat and the religious
head of Kashmir’s oldest mosque, has spoken out against
the UJC ultimatum and said that the Hurriyat won’t be
guided by anyone. Bilal Lone, son of the assassinated
Abdul Gani Lone, represents the People’s Conference in
the Hurriyat. Taking a dig at militants issuing threats
from the safety of comfortable homes in Pakistan, Bilal
Lone has called on Salahuddin to return to Kashmir to
enforce the poll boycott. Bilal’s brother Sajjad Lone
has been calling on the Hurriyat to shed its rigid
stance of opposition to the poll process. Significantly,
it is the younger leaders who are today speaking out
against the rule of the gun.
However, the
question is whether the separatists will be willing to
ignore the threat of the militants’ guns to contest the
polls. Will the lure of the spoils of office outweigh
the real possibility of physical elimination?
More important, how many Kashmiri people will
dare to defy the militants’ diktat to turn up to
exercise their franchise on polling day?
The
boycott call from across the border might not go down
well with the Kashmiris, many of whom are keen to vote
and get the political process moving. It might deepen
the emerging rift between the people in the Kashmir
Valley and the armed men and their sponsors in Pakistan.
This, it might seem, is to Delhi’s advantage. However,
as long as the gun determines the nature of discourse in
the Valley, it will be Pakistan that calls the shots.
The advantage could well tilt again in Islamabad’s
favor.
(©2002 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All
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