during the exploitative autocracies are still alive. Post-partition situation effected more divisions to the society – the separatists and the unionists. With every passing day the society continued to get divided. Now we have moderates, hawks, fence-sitters and non-entities. It is almost the same situation that exists in the unionist camp.
There have always been efforts to get the like-minded lined up. Sometimes they bore fruits. Against the coalition of National Conference and Congress, Jamat-e-Islami and like-minded forged an impressive ragtag alliance, the Muslim United Front, that had the potential of turning tables. The rigging left the MUF leaders sulking and a year after they came out of jails, the alliance had limped back to the past.
It was on the debris of this conglomerate that, as late as 1993 at the peak of militancy, the Hurriyat Conference was set up. Its constitution had not only become inevitable for the people of Kashmir only but also for New Delhi and Islamabad. For a few years, it tried to become a force, and then, the situation forced its own fissures. All of a sudden it got shrunk into its bedrooms in Srinagar. The assassination of Abdul Gani Lone was a major blow to the alliance. It eventually led to a vertical split. Sheikh Abdul Aziz’s death was another big crisis that the separatist camp faced.
Since its split in 2003, getting the rivals – now being termed as moderates and hawks – mend their fences has become a major exercise. It became a major exercise at the peak of 2008 Amarnath agitation that eventually led to the constitution of a coordination committee. It disintegrated within days, without making any news.
Since then, this has become a sort of seasonal affair. Once there is a crisis, the idea of unity becomes a front-pager in newspapers. A gradual follow up would keep the parties alive, at least in newspapers. This time the idea was mooted by Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, after protests against a Delhi court’s death sentence to two Kashmiris. But the idea could not remain alive for more than two days as Syed Ali Shah Geelani rejected it.
Short lived unities reflect a flaw in the approach of the unity efforts. However, the focus should be more on unity of purpose.
Different groups working towards the same goal are anyways, better than one group heading in different directions.
