MI Publications – English

As I write these lines, the current uprising has entered its third month. By all standards it is an extraordinary feat defying expectations not only of foes, but friends as well, myself included. That said, we are not talking here of a show of performance i.e. how best the actors have performed, rather it is a people’s movement geared to the achievement of concrete objectives, our focus, therefore, should be how far the Movement has been, and/or is going to be, successful in delivering those objectives. That the Movement has sustained for so long is in itself a fact of enormous political significance, but, nonetheless, some areas of concern need to be identified, and the enemy’s strategy looked at.

Once again we have an uprising in Kashmir. Essentially there is nothing new about it, apart from the fact that this time it was Burhan Wani”s custodial killing, and subsequent brutality by government forces that added fuel to the already existing fire, and brought people on streets.

Kashmir”s well-wishers everywhere are deeply concerned about two things, namely: how long the current uprising will sustain and, more importantly, how effective it will be in delivering results. In these lines, I will first make some constructive comments on the ongoing Freedom Movement (Hurriyat G, Hurriyat M and others), and then towards the end, in all humbleness, make a practical suggestion with sustainability and effectiveness as the two main considerations.

The talk of unity among the pro-freedom groups in Kashmir is as old as the current movement. Recently some Hurriyat leaders, among them Syed Ali Shah Geelani, the senior leader, have been talking about it. Here, I intend to make some submissions in this regard, but first let me allude to the bigger problem of which this is only a symptom. The bigger problem is the non-existence of a genuine as opposed to fake, manoeuvred, and engineered (by intelligence agencies) politics in Kashmir. This is an issue of far greater importance with huge implications for the future of Kashmir and the socio-cultural progress of its people.

“What is the recent blasphemous film ‘Innocence of Muslims’? Do they represent speech or ridicule and abuse? Making fun, using filthy language, mockery and ridicule, does it constitute speech? No, it does not, so the question of freedom does not arise in the first place. The United States by invoking freedom of speech, is actually advocating freedom to abuse, denigrate Islam, the values of Islam, its sanctities, and its noble personalities,” Kashmiri author and political analyst Dr. Syed M. Inayatullah Andrabi said in an interview with Fars News Agency.

Pakistan, alongside India, emerged as a sovereign state in 1947, but unlike India it could not put in place a credible system of governance, and the country has been oscillating between Army rule and the civilian. Without going into the analysis and discussion of individual events and situations, if we look at the situation of Pakistan, as it has developed over the past 65 years, the most profound and undeniable statement that can be made is: Proper and genuine politics have not developed in Pakistan till date. We could move further on to substantiate this statement, but will not, simply because this, per se, is not our subject of discussion here. However, it would be worthwhile to note that the biggest event that happened to Pakistan after its emergence in 1947 was its break-up in two in 1971.

There have been some awkward developments in Kashmir in recent weeks. The APHC leader Prof. Abdul Ghani Bhat has made some unusual statements recently saying that time had come to speak the truth. The learned Professor may agree that he has not made any disclosures in the real sense of the term; both, the informed elites as well as common masses in Kashmir know fairly well what has been going on in Kashmir for the past 21 years, who did what and why. Prof. Bhat should be knowing it fully well that in politics what is said is as important as when it is said, and even where. This is because political people understand things by their whole being, their faith, emotions, outlook, ideology, but they do things (speak out or any other action) on the basis of calculation.

Extremism has become a part of the modern day political vocabulary, but most often the word is used, rather misused for political purposes. It is because of this gross misuse of the word that the underlying concept is either totally misunderstood or least understood. Actually one would tend to disregard the need to understand the underlying concept, simply because there is nothing the word really stands for; it is simply the political motive of the user that determines the meaning of the word. For example, India would call anyone who calls it an occupier, or does something to force it out of Kashmir, an extremist, although there is no extremism involved here. As such, one might perhaps conclude that extremism is simply a label of convenience, and does not stand for anything definite in the real world. This, however, will be a hasty and erroneous conclusion.

President Barack Hussain Obama has come and gone. We are not going to analyze the outcome of this visit here, but only focus on some issues revolving around India’s ambitions for a higher power status, so manifestly evidenced by its overwhelming concern for a permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and America’s approval of these ambitions. Since the relationship is not between two equals, the focus has to be mainly on how India is going to be used in the global power game.

Mr Salman Bashir, Foreign Secretary, Government of Pakistan held a press conference in New Delhi at the conclusion of foreign secretary level meeting held between India and Pakistan on 25/02/2010. A little earlier, his Indian counter part, Nirupama Rao also addressed the press, saying we talked about Kashmir but very briefly. Salman Bashir (henceforth SB), later said he disagrees with that, and that Kashmir was discussed at length. We are not going to analyze the results of this secretary level meeting, nor make any judgments about its success or otherwise, the purpose of this brief write-up is to seek the attention of readers towards what seemed to me a sort of contradiction or incoherence in SB’s press briefing. It was not an explicit contradiction, certainly not a contradiction between his utterances, and, therefore, was not easily notable. However, some contradiction, incoherence or inconsistency, whatever you may choose to call it, did definitely exist.

In his address to the legislative assembly of Azad Kashmir at Muzaffarabad on 5th January, 2009, the president of Pakistan Mr Asif Ali Zardari, has made some very important points injecting new hope and energy into the Kashmiri freedom struggle. Apart from the routine stuff, and promises to AJK government, the president said something very meaningful, not often articulated by Pakistani rulers.