As Kashmir is reeling in a crisis over the past four weeks, different political parties from unionist and separatist camp responded differently. While some succumbed to the agitations, others rowed along the waves. Haroon Mirani analyses the response of some main political players.
The current crisis, or the 2010 agitation as it has come to be known by now, became the most perilous for ruling National Conference, while opposition Peoples Democratic Party and the separatist Hurriyat Conference tried to ride the wave.
National Conference
As the government failed to tackle the crisis, and instead tended to aggravate it, the National Conference became a de-facto loser. Many people say NC stuck to its reputation of using disproportionate force.
“It is the part of history that whenever NC is in rule, it is followed by some big agitation or similar such problems,” says Sheikh Showkat of University of Kashmir.
The Omar Abdullah government came under fire from all sides for mismanaging the situation.
Chief Minister’s Gulmarg vacation in the midst of crisis, his images in an informal Gap T-shirt during a meeting (leading to talk of gap between people and CM), attack and gag on media, and blame game and strong worded warning against protests,(that many people took as threats), all taken together became recipe for disaster.
“Currently he is in firing line of media, civil society even from India, opposition and others. All are blaming Omar for the situation,” said Prof Gul Wani. “Even Army chief gave the statement that government has not been able to build upon their gains in Kashmir.”
The only saving grace for the government was the unflinching support from New Delhi, which ensured the junior Abdullah stays in power despite losing appeal among people. But the government’s survival did not mean the party remained unaffected. The fissures were apparent both in the coalition and NC camp. Finance Minister and NC stalwart Abdul Rahim Rather remained invisible during the whole crisis. Law minister Ali Muhammad Sagar came out with his bold statement against CRPF, only to be negated by chief minister next day. Mustafa Kamal is already estranged after Omar Abdullah said in an interview that he would like to have a non-Abdullah party president.
The curious case was of party president Dr. Farooq Abdullah, whose absence and presence both seemed to accentuate the problems of junior Abdullah. The party insiders defended his peculiar absence saying he needed to be with his ailing wife in London. But when he arrived, instead of silencing the critics and stop new wave of speculations, Omar was quick to add that he is not here to advise him.
The NC came across as a motley crowd of people running directionless. As Prof Gul Wani puts it, “the father-son problem further aggravates the terminal sickness of this old organisation, which it is suffering from.”
Prof Showkat, however, says that the situation would not have been much different even if any other party had been in power. “It is because the damage was done by paramilitary forces and they are not governed by anybody. They give little regard to the local directions and are a law unto themselves,” said Showkat. “Since state could not rein in these forces so it catalysed into valley wide agitation.”
“But mismanagement on part of the government no doubt aggravated the problem,” he further adds.
Analysts feel that NC has a lot of mess to clear in case it needs to have some public standing. “If NC can get any forward movement on big political initiatives like Autonomy or AFSPA removal, then only it can salvage its image a bit,” said Showkat.
In all this time Omar has unflinching support from just one side – New Delhi, which has literally sealed his position for six years on the throne, unless as Prof Showkat says, “some unforeseen big thing happens.”
The historical baggage of NC-Congress relations also plays an important role here. “Their relation has been the relation of distrust and betrayal and main cause of loss of Kashmir identity,” said Wani. “So people take it as continuum of that part of history.”
Feeling the heat the NC, Showkat says, has resorted to tacit separatism. “The call for dialogue and resolution of Kashmir issue is all part of tacit separatism, which they hope to cash on.”
Prof Wani adds that transition to Omar Abdullah was part of strategy of the party to infuse new blood and a DNA change, “but that change seems to have gone wrong.”
People Democratic Party
For a party that has to be in opposition in J&K, analysts say, the main challenge is to keep its flock together for six years. “But here we don’t find that kind of rupture and defection in PDP, thanks to continuous problems associated with NC,” says Prof Wani.
The problems of NC government, especially on the human rights and, law and order front has helped the PDP, says Wani.
All through the current crisis, PDP has been raising a high pitched campaign against NC.
According to experts the main point of strength for political parties in Kashmir is the sentiment of separatism in different forms. “Be it mainstream or separatists, all thrive on this sentiment directly or indirectly. Now here we see that NC was moving out of that space and PDP is filling in that,” said Prof Wani. “PDP is even trying to fill the void created by Hurriyat at many places.”
“NC’s strength was also the tacit kind of separatism be it the autonomy or a type of Kashmir identity and now that remains in tatters so is its support among people,” said Wani. “PDP led by Mufti Syed is fulfilling that gap cleverly. They know people are alienated and they want to cash on it.”
So when Chief Minister or his cabinet members accuse PDP of being behind the agitation, PDP maintains a stoic silence, neither denying nor confirming.
PDP’s defiance of the Prime Minister on joining the All Party Meet is also seen as attempt by PDP to showcase itself a strong party.
“They want to show that they can defy anybody. This hardline approach works with the people frustrated with the situation,” said Prof Wani.
Knowing that nothing was going to dislodge Omar, PDP attending the all party meet would have only helped the CM. The PDP also attacked the CM for being “New Delhi centric”.
Some experts say that PDP getting the limelight fits the board scheme.
“The national media has given PDP an ample space to project their view, as the media and New Delhi are eager to make this issue as one between two mainstream political parties,” said Prof Showkat.
Even if public perception gets some PDP dose, the ground reality is different. “First the agitation hotspots- Srinagar and Sopore- are non PDP supporters with the exception for Islamabad, which had peripheral fallout, they can’t even move there,” said Prof Showkat. “Their case is like that of Sajjad Lone, who is all over TV, but on ground there is no support for him.”
Prof Showkat feels that the root cause of this problem is the basic question of Kashmir issue and no amount of political jugglery can change it. “What happened when NC leader Nasir Aslam tried to visit the affected place, it aggravated the situation and caused more deaths,” said Prof Showkat.
“Actually it is a separatist sentiment which nowadays everybody will be trying to push to get more support – both openly and tacitly,” he further added.
Basking in anti-incumbency wave, PDP has intelligently projected itself and they are more than eager to cash it in the next earliest election.
Hurriyat Conference
Most of the agitations in Kashmir give a fresh lease to life to separatist parties. “For not doing anything concrete, separatists were experiencing erosion in popularity with the sole exception of Syed Ali Shah Geelani due to his consistency and age,” said Prof Gul Wani. “Even though they represented a force to reckon with but their inability to catalyse anything marred their image.”
It was first in 2008, that the Amarnath agitation gave boost to separatists. The conduct of Hurriyat Conferences during the current agitation has been influenced heavily by the 2008 experience. Separatists were blamed for betraying people in 2008. So this time they seemed to proceed with caution.
The situation turned problematic for Mirwaiz Omar Farooq at least twice, first during the funeral of Tufail Mattoo at martyrs graveyard where he along with Yasin Malik had to make a hasty retreat due to public resentment. Second, during a sit-in protest in downtown when Mirwaiz reportedly refused to take the procession to Batmalloo where the latest round of killings had taken place.
The plus point, this time has been the non-confrontational attitude of separatist leaders towards each other. “This time there is no coordination committee between the two sides (moderates and hardliners), but still they are running fine without any hiccups,” adds Prof Showkat. “In fact their programmes are not clashing but supplementing each other.”
Analysts have grouped separatists into four categories – moderates, hardliners, peripheral actors and silent ones.
“Here what I can say that moderates have been Geelanised or hardlined, due to futility of dialogue process, Pakistan’s changed attitude and people drifting towards hardliners,” said Prof Showkat. “For moderates it was the battle of survival and they had to take a hard posture.”
But there are some leaders in moderates who didn’t want to take hard posture. “With the result they have been automatically sidelined and are keeping silence like Prof Abdul Gani Bhat and Bilal Gani Lone,” said Prof Showkat. “Separatists like JKLF tried their own strategy like Jail Bharo campaign, which failed so they are nowadays playing a peripheral role.”
While most of the hardliner separatists were arrested including the patriarch Syed Ali Geelani, it was their faction that had more takers and called the shots. Programmes announced by underground leaders Masrat Alam or Asiya Andrabi were implemented.
Alam gave tough time to police, and that became an important factor of this agitation.
The novel ways of demonstrations like graffiti protest, and social networking sites have drawn more youth towards it, much to the chagrin of police who are often seen erasing the anti-India slogans.
Experts however opine that the agitation was largely spontaneous without any control of a leader. “The new generation of stone pelters are not controlled by even Hurriyat. It is different force,” said Prof Wani.
“There is no single control over people. In fact it is people who used the separatist leadership to get legitimacy for their protests and stone pelting and that is why they oblige their programmes,” said Prof Showkat. “People are forcing separatist leaders to lead them in a way which they have chosen.”
