Friday, March 29, 2024
 
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Common origin in politics, militancy and international diplomacy


Dr. Syed Nazir Gilani




Elections in India are round the corner and Kashmiri leaders (Separatists) majority of whom are domiciled in Srinagar have either expressed themselves or are preparing to express themselves on the merits of these elections. A natural consequence of these elections would the formation of a Government in New Delhi and the corresponding challenge for the Kashmiri leadership to trade issue based agenda with it for five years, should the Government run it’s full circle.

It is a challenging time for our leaders in regard to their response to the process of elections and the outcome. It would be unhelpful if Kashmiri leadership skips the core challenge and hastens to judge each other. Dante has very rightly said that there are no neutral angels in the quarrel between God and Satan. Therefore, Kashmiri leadership should avoid consuming its wisdom and energies in dragging out into the full light of truth their individual and collective infirmities at this point unless there is a genuine risk that the truth would be lost in the sea of ages like a grain of sand in the ocean.

Huirriyat (G), Hurriyat (M), JKLF and the Shabir Shah lead alliance have all expressed themselves on the merits of coming elections and have duly rated or berated the BJP – Congress policy on Kashmir. JKLF leader Yasin Malik in his latest policy statement has used a key phrase – “I have reached to a conclusion whether it is BJP, Congress, or any other political party in India, they have a same stand on Kashmir: beat them, corrupt them, kill them and talk to them just for a time pass.”

Malik’s appraisal of Indian politics may be used as a caution while engaging with any future Government that people of India decide to elect. However, using this more than a caution and more so as a reason to stay away from engaging Delhi does not have any merit. Even the Government in Islamabad has expressed itself on the fact that it would have no problem in engaging with any Government that returns to power in Delhi.

The idea that comes most naturally to a man, as if from his very nature, is the idea of his innocence. We are all exceptional cases and want to appeal against something. Each of us insists on being innocent at all costs, even if we have to accuse the whole human race and heaven itself. Therefore, without being extravagantly grateful or unnecessarily ungrateful to Delhi or Islamabad we need to take a stock of the manner of our engagement with these capitals.

Kashmiri leaders (all inclusive) have thus far never debated in public the basic elements of their dialogue when they decided to engage the opposite wisdom in Delhi. Dialogue and negotiations embed a reliable understanding of Kashmir case and the composite ability of the political team that volunteers to take on the wisdom in Delhi. The political narrative of Kashmiri leaders has never crossed the dotty line of a demand to ‘include them’ in any dialogue between India and Pakistan.

Our leaders have a duty to keep their people duly informed on any achievement in regard to their political narrative jointly agreed on 31 July 1993. We are 23 years into a state of resistance and during the periods have lost a generation. Common man and woman in Kashmir have been through unprecedented loss of dignity, honour and self-respect. Kashmiri youth is a suspect at home and in any other state of India. He has been left to his own stock to negotiate his tomorrow with Delhi against whom it was trained (and advised) to raise a gun and has to present himself before an administration, for which he and she are advised not to vote.

Kashmiri leaders in particular represented in Huirriyat (G), Hurriyat (M), JKLF and the Shabir Shah lead alliance have all a common origin and have given themselves up to a common constitution adopted in July 1993. The later fragmentation does not have much to do with the Kashmir cause. It is unfair that leaders should rush to Islamabad or Delhi or hope to be invited and treated and at the same time continue to avoid to explain their standing on the Kashmir case.

The jurisprudence of Kashmir case would not be settled by Kashmiri writers, some of whom have remained in the gainful employment of the administration during the active tenure of their service and on retirement have turned a new page in the interests of the people of Kashmir or any non-Kashmiri writer of any habitat. Even the politicians as they remain in the market (separatists and mainstream) today have no mandate to rewrite the jurisprudence of Kashmir case. They however, reserve the right to seek to correct any deficit found in their rights.

It does not take any hard effort to spot leaders who manage to play safe by not touching it (Jurisprudence of Kashmir case) to keep the favour of their respective hosts but it would not endure them any further. There could be no alternative to the principle of “Equality” and “Self-determination”. Adjusting with India, Pakistan or keeping a sovereign State, all these choices have to be considered in accordance with the jurisprudence of the case. In addition to this the youth that sacrificed itself in the early 1990s, had been advised or were made to believe that they had a just cause to fight. If the generations of martyrs were to revisit us today, they would be shocked to find the manner of interests adopted by our leaders on both sides of the cease fire line (LoC).

The jurisprudence of the Kashmir case lies in the struggle from 1846-1947, Stand Still Agreement of August 1947 with the Government of Pakistan, Accession of October 1947 with India, Indian Petition of January 1948 made to the United Nations, Defence filed by Pakistan at the UN, UN mechanism on Kashmir and in many alike sources on both sides. It does not encourage to point out that we can’t continue to conceal our failings any further by complaining against Delhi for its continued dragging out on Kashmir. As a party it is understandable that Delhi would field its best wisdom on the table or in any other manner to carry the day.

Kashmiri leaders need to revisit the manner and character of their individual and collective wisdom as well. It has failed in the area of authoring and administering the science of militancy and after a short period had no choice but to abandon the militant discipline. It (militancy) may still exist as a scare crow but it exists in theory and its domicile does not add to its credibility. Leaders have failed to keep the political unity achieved through the adoption of a constitution in July 1993 and the international diplomacy that it (leadership) was advised to own and bless had to enter into a Plea Bargain with the FBI in America.

It is for the first time in the history of Kashmir struggle from March 1846 to December 2011 that the diplomatic chapter of Kashmir struggle operating in Washington, Brussels and London etc., owned by Huirriyat (G), Hurriyat (M), JKLF and the Shabir Shah lead alliance has pleaded guilty on various criminal accounts to avoid the much serious account of working for the Inter-Services Intelligence Agency (ISI) of Pakistan. The tragedy and the disgrace has further been incremented that it is for the first time in the history of Kashmir that FBI has found three approvers who are listed in the Affidavit, as Confidential Witness 1 (CW1), Confidential Witness 2 (CW2) and “John” who have handed over all information to FBI agents in full from 2005-2010 and in part from 1990.

Kashmiri leadership can’t enjoy a no holds barred style of politics. They remain fully responsible for the failure of its militant, political and diplomatic variables in this manner. Leadership remains fully liable and accountable for the wrong done to many other institutions and individuals thoroughly committed to the jurisprudence of Kashmir case and unwilling to sell anything beyond the principle of “Equality” and “Self-determination.”

A debate on these issues and on the innocence and guilt of Kashmiri leadership shall have to be postponed at this point. Leaders on their part shall have to avoid playing ‘innocence’ at this point when they have to offer alternatives to their people and it is more so when in their considered opinion, “BJP, Congress, or any other political party in India, they have a same stand on Kashmir: beat them, corrupt them, kill them and talk to them just for a time pass.” In any bilateral or a tripartite dialogue they would face the same opposition (BJP or Congress).

The instrument of a dialogue embeds a right of the party on either side to spring a surprise and maintain its sway on the opposition. It is time that Kashmiri leaders reassess the available skills for a dialogue and assure that they have a reliable understanding of the Kashmir case in their ranks. Registration or accreditation from Islamabad is no qualification to enter into a dialogue with Delhi. The best cure is to pool collective wisdom and have a due regard to the common origin in politics, militancy and international diplomacy shared by all of them.

(Dr. Syed Nazir Gilani is Secretary General –JKCHR, NGO in Special Consultative Status with the United Nations, Can be reached at [email protected])


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