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During this period Syed Ali Gilani was
in jail and he had to gone trough a surgery. Indian authorities had
released him on health grounds. Soon after his arrival in Srinagar,
Gilani has been demanding action against the People's Conference for
allegedly taking part in last year's assembly elections through
dummy candidates. He has refused to participate in any Hurriyat
proceedings till People's Conference is not thrown out of the
Hurriyat. He even set a condition that unless this happened, he
would stay away from Hurriyat's executive meetings. Above all,
Gilani convened a gathering to establish alternative body at his
residence. Hurriyat's apex executive council did not heed Gilani's
demands and told him to argue his case before the general council
and accept the majority decision. But he refused to accept it.
Similarly, Hurriyat appointed a committee to resolve the dispute but
that could not come through.
Now both the parties have taken a hard
line and the gulf between them is widening by the day. Historically
speaking, Gilani and late Abdul Ghani Lone have always been opposing
each other in the Valley politics since the early 1980s. Lone was a
liberal Kashmiri nationalist leader and struggled for independent
state of Jammu & Kashmir. Lone and his party believe on liberal
values. The People's Conference still wants re-definition of the
Kashmiri struggle in the change d paradigm. Lone argued to reshape
whole resistance struggle in the wake of new ground realities. Over
the last few years, Ghani Lone emerged a strong voice of Kashmiri
masses. Meanwhile, his relations with Islamabad turned sour due to
his blunt criticism of its polices, which could never get back to
normal until his sudden death.
Unlike Lone, Syed Ali Gilani emerged
in the 1970s as a key political leader from the platform of the
Jamaat-i-Islami. He has been playing a significant role during the
1980s and 1990s and still has an impressive following among the
masses. He is the only political figure enjoying full confidence of
the militants. He is generally known as a firebrand politician
having strong affection for Pakistan. His politics is based on
religion and he terms the Kashmir resistance a religious struggle.
He firmly believes that New Delhi would not allow the Kashmiris
their right of self-determination unless it i s inflicted an
unbearable cost. Seen in this context, the Hurriyat leaders' row is
rooted in their respective ideologies and their different
worldviews.
Now the proxy candidate controversy
has become a personality clash between Lone and Gilani. Although
Gilani and late Ghani Lone have been bitter critics of each other
since long, both the leaders spent many years together in jail and
cooperated each other for about a decade. Before going into the
details of the consequence of the row, let's take an overview of the
Hurriyat Conference's decade long performance. The Hurriyat is a
unique experience in resistance struggles in the present times. It
incorporated all the shades of opinion in the Kashmiri civil
society. It is a loosely knit organisation with internal difference
and contradictions.
Strangely enough, the Hurriyat has
recently completed its 10 years of keeping together different voices
such as the pro-Pakistan, pro-independent,
and more interestingly with the liberals and fundamentalists in its
fold. Now the Hurriyat comprises of three major groups
i.e. moderates, hard-liners and centrist. Every group tries
to prevail upon the umbrella organisation t o use it in pursuance of
its views and interests. In such circumstances, it is quite obvious
that there would be difference of perceptions. But the ongoing
infighting has crossed all limits and reached a climax where public
will have to come out to get round the leaders. Otherwise, their
sacrifices would be wasted -- just because of unreliable and myopic
leadership. Diplomatically specking, it is a known fact that the
Hurriyat has been recognised as a Kashmiri forum that has been
playing a very important role at the international level since its
inception. Certainly, it has a big role to play in the days ahead
specifically in the forthcoming dialogue process between Islamabad
and New Delhi.
All the international fora and
capitals have admitted that the Hurriyat as a representative voice
of pro-freedom people of Kashmir. Even, New Delhi itself does not
denounce the fact that the Hurriyat is representing the popular
aspirations of the Kashmiris. Strangely enough, the Hurriyat
leadership and its sympathisers could not play any positive role to
defuse the tension in its ranks. One can rather guess that they just
saw the game and enjoyed it. Even the Hurriyat could not call on a
special session to deliberate on the pressing issue. In this
backdrop, the big question arises as to what is the way out? If the
leaders continue their blame game then the Hurriyat will soon be
dying, thus leaving the Kashmiri people on the crossroads once more.
A section of the Pakistan
establishment is pressing the government to take a U-turn on Kashmir
as Washington's pressure has become unbearable. The proponents of
'Pakistan first doctrine' advice Islamabad to forget Srinagar for
the time being and focus on stabilising the economy. Doubtlessly,
the argument is gaining ground. Differences in the rank and file of
the resistance movement, particularly in the Hurriyat, make this
lobby's point of view stronger. If Islamabad withdraws its support
to the Kashmir cause for the time being as being suggested by the
influential Musharraf aides, will the divided Kashmiri leadership be
ready to face the consequences?
Kashmir Telegraph does not subscribe to the views expressed by the
author. | 
