POST TRAUMATIC HURRIYAT DISODER
More heads usually means better decisions. When
the Hurriyat leaders put their’s together after
decades of separation, one thought this basic rule
would apply. But as always the Hurriyat leaders
proved themselves what they are: a massive
disappointment.
And these are no ordinary times we are talking
about.
At one end, the current times are nothing short of
being cataclysmic. The State has dropped all its
masks. The knives are out. Those who challenge the
State’s position on the Kashmir dispute and its
means of dealing with a defiant populace are in the
line of State fire. They are summarily put out of
currency. Figures of the past four months reveal a
small part of this story. The real tragedy lies behind
these statistics. The trail of death and destruction,
mass injuries, mass blinding, mass detentions,
torture, destruction of property and produce across
towns and villages in an unprecedented sweep of
repression establish one thing: the State policy of
‘settling’ Kashmir dispute is an all-out punitive
military action to ‘straighten out’ an uncompromising
population. Add to that the induction of 15,000
paramilitary troops and two army brigades in the
past few months, the intent of this policy becomesclearer. Kashmir had already been smarting under
the jackboot of over half a million troops and the
total impunity enjoyed by them over an occupied
populace.
At another end, the present times represent
something very different. Kashmir has just seen the
biggest and most defiant pro-freedom public uprising
since it was brought under Indian rule in 1947. This
despite the relentless military battering of the past
27 years. The sweep and intensity of this azadi
uprising made even the Indian government feel it
was staring down the precipice in Kashmir. That's
before it decided to drop all pretence and sink in its
teeth in a full-spectrum retributive military
crackdown.
It is in this context, we have the Hurriyat
Conterence,HC, that claims to ‘lead’ the freedom
movement of 7 million Kashmiris and whose movers
and shakers call themselves ‘resistance leaders’.
Hardly does it ever happen that leaders are
presented with such sweeping public sentiment and
the political opportunities of a mighty public
campaign for freedom. And hardly does it happen
that leaders display such a fantastic knack to fritter
away the political gains waiting to be made out of
such uprising.Look at it from any angle, the HC doesn’t lead. It
never has.|t only follows.Whenever the streets heat
up and the State begins its killing spree, the HC
suddenly remembers its job. And that too only by
responding to the anger of the street rather than by
providing a cool-minded direction. For all other
times, when the real homework is to be done, it
hibernates comforting itself in dormancy or State
largesse. That is why it is seen as a mere impulsive
reactive pressure outfit rather than a formidable pro-
active resistance organization. Even its reactive
politics lacks any sound thinking let alone any policy
content.
The HC ‘men of wisdom’ mistake their inane press
statements for policy. They think a freedom
movement is only about slogans and stone throwing,
about issuing idiotic protest ‘calendars’ and giving
calls for an endless cycle of self-harming hartals.
Even if there is pressure from some quarters to
continue the present round of strikes, genuine
leadership warrants the HC should explain to these
quarters the inefficacy of this strategy. But it seems
these ‘men of wisdom’ are so obsessed with hartals
that they can’t see the bare reality that they serve
absolutely no purpose in advancing the political
goals of the resistance. Even a cursory look reveals
the cycle of strikes are actually alienating the peoplefrom the resistance movement because it only adds
to their frustrations and privation. In such a scenario,
those who accuse HC ‘leaders’ of aiding the
occupation by their suicidal tactics aren't entirely
wrong.
The flawed thinking of HC’s ‘men of wisdom’ that
their calendar campaign will advance the goals of
the azadi movement is costing Kashmir very dear at
multiple levels. It is actually pushing the people
closer to the occupation because it increases their
dependence on the many arms of a State that is all
too willing to co-opt.
The HC’s calendar politics has now become an ill-
played tragicomedy nobody wants to neither laugh
at nor cry at. Look at its method and language. The
HC ‘men of wisdom’ issue these calendars from the
safe environs of their secure homes literally asking
the people to brave the violence of a predatory
State. These calendars have an interesting
language: march one and ail. It is like some sadistic
military commander ordering a captive people into
the battlefield to have them battered by a marauding
army while himself sitting in the safety of his fort.
These ‘men of wisdom’ try to appropriate not only
the language of the occupation but its means as
well. The HC seems to be looking for a paralleladministration —a de facto government of sorts
replacing the State’s coercive and hurtful means with
its own. In the 90s militants literally held sway over
Kashmir and tried to do the same thing of playing a
de facto government. That entire movement failed
because the militant leaders forgot their fundamental
objective busying themselves instead with mimicking
the government and micro managing the lives of the
people. The HC is already on a similar trajectory.
The current HC leaders capacity to deliver is now a
settled matter. They just cannot whatever the
circumstances — uprising or no uprising. They are
incapable of leveraging a situation in favour of the
resistance movement. They have proved it time and
again since the HC’s inception in 1991. Twenty five
years is a long time for a political organization to fail
a movement for which the people have rendered
immense sacrifices. It just cannot be condoned off.
The HC ‘leaders’ failure is partly because they are
inherently incompetent for the challenges and
exigencies of such a delicate job. Two, they are a
product, more precisely a by-product, of a failed
armed movement of the 90s decade. So they are
essentially driven by the calls of their own political
rehabilitation rather than the demands of a freedom
movement. Three, they are either acting as outposts
of the ISI in Kashmir at the cost of Kashmiri'sinterests, or are romancing the IB for personal gains.
It is all too well known that the State tolerates the
HC men because they help it in managing the
populace to the State’s favour. It was in full public
display recently after Burhan Wani’s killing when the
State, and its military commanders, were literally
pleading the HC leaders to help restore what the
State calls ‘peace’ and ‘normalcy’ — euphemisms for
perpetuating a corrosive occupation. It is in
situations like these where the HC men become
‘assets’ for the State, hence should be allowed to
play ball.
Whaat will hurt Kashmiri’s struggle for freedom big
time and longterm is the HC’s appropriation of the
the resistance leadership and its hijacking of the
serial public uprisings in Kashmir only to squander
the gains made in the streets through its poor
politics. This appropriation effectively blocks the
emergence of a fresh,youthful and educated
resistance leadership that knows the nuances of
local and geo-politics,has workable strategies, is not
confused about what azadi means and, above all, is
incorruptible.
Look at the mishandling of the current pan-Kashmir
public uprising. Instead of preserving the spirit andmomentum of the resistance, these ‘leaders’
methods and means ensure both—spirit and
momentum—dissipate, all to the benefit of the
occupation. It is safe then to ask: are they in league
with the State to preserve the status quo which is
where they derive their relevance(and many
advantages as well) from?
These failings apart, the least the HC men can do
in the present times is organize and provide some
assistance, financial or otherwise, to those who have
been injured, blinded or have been arrested and
need legal aid or have lost their bread earners or
their sustenance. The Hurriyat leaders own huge
properties, some of them even outside the state.
Some of them live like Sultans of yesteryears in
palatial houses fortified physically and emotionally
from the sufferings of the common folks who fight a
daily battle for survival. They can part with some of
their properties and use the proceeds for those who
have suffered and will soon become mere statistics
buried, if at all, in some nondescript human rights
document.
In the final analysis, given the HC’s unsustainable
strategies and absolute lack of political acumen and
vision, this pack of HC leaders cannot be seen
separate from the architecture of occupation and itsoppressive tools. They are a part of it — either by
design or unwittingly. Their policies, or the lack of
them, only help perpetuate and strengthen the
occupation and its accompanying predation. What
the wise men of the Hurriyat must realize is this:
Kashmir’s freedom movement is not because of
them, but in spite of them and their fabulous failures.