End of the Kashmir Jihad: Kashmir results cut across communal fault lines

End of the Kashmir Jihad

Aakar Patel

December 30, 2008

Having predicted that Kashmiris would boycott the election, Indian liberals are now urging the government to act to resolving the Kashmir issue with some sort of geographical solution.

They are wrong.

Elections are the solution. Secular democracy is the only goal: It is what Pakistan’s founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah wanted. Kashmiris already have that.

When elections were announced on October 19, Kashmir’s leaders thought they would fail, given the heat generated over the failed transfer of land to the Amarnath Shrine, and the Hurriyat Conference’s boycott.

Few believed the elections would be this successful: The highest polling at 69 per cent, the lowest at 55 per cent.

The communist Yusuf Tarigami said “elections were no solution to the Kashmir problem”.

The secular Yasin Malik said his group, the JKLF, would campaign actively “to boycott the elections (which) was every Kashmiri’s right".

Sheikh Abdullah’s grandson Omar said his party, the National Conference, would contest, but he worried that “turnout would be low”.

Hurriyat spokesman Abdul Ghani Bhat said elections were a non-issue and, “whether or not they were held, would cause the Hurriyat no consternation.” The Jamaat-e-Islami’s Syed Ali Shah Geelani said that “so-called elections were no solution.” JKDFP’s Shabbir Shah promised a “total boycott”.

Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, the most powerful separatist leader, asked people to stay away from elections “or face social boycott”.

Why did the separatists fail in Kashmir these elections?

On January 12, 2002, President Pervez Musharraf banned Laskhar-e-Tayyeba and Jaish-e-Mohammad. He promised that “no organisation would be allowed to carry out terrorism on the pretext of Kashmir”.

In 2003, there were 3,401 incidents of violence in Kashmir. In 2005 this fell to 1,415 incidents. In 2007 this fell to less than 900. Infiltration across the Line of Control also plummeted.

Without the Lashkar and Jaish’s guns, the Hurriyat showed it had little influence. In a democracy, there is no substitute to rallying people other than through daily contact on daily issues. Leadership on one grand, emotional issue cannot be sustained.

Musharraf ended Pakistan’s jihad; Kashmiris have put a moratorium on identity issues.

Kashmiris have damaged the credibility of the Hurriyat Conference and made it irrelevant for the next six years.

The Mirwaiz is conservative, as religious leaders must be. Along with worrying about the contamination of Islam, in the manner of all South Asian maulvis, he also fought a political battle — but without ever fighting an election. He has lost. After the results were announced on Sunday, December 28, he said this was a “lesson for separatists.”

Who were the winners?

Thirty-eight-year-old Omar Abdullah will become CM. He is secular (and married to a Hindu), intelligent and experienced. Exactly the kind of man the state needs. His grandfather, Sheikh Abdullah, and Rahul Gandhi’s great-grandfather, Nehru, had a friendship that fell apart and Nehru jailed the Sheikh for a dozen years. This was after Nehru fought against Maharaja Hari Singh before Independence to have Sheikh Abdullah released. Now, these two young men, who are also friends, are at the doorstep of history.

The BJP was rewarded for its opportunism in inflaming Jammu and won 11 seats, 10 more than last time. But it has polarised Jammu from Kashmir in its recklessness. It says the issue is of discrimination against Jammu, not Hindus versus Muslims, but this is untrue. Where it has the opportunity to use bigotry — in Gujarat, and elsewhere — it does so without qualm.

The BJP talks tough to Indians but in December 1999, Vajpayee surrendered to the Jaish-e-Muhammad after the Kandahar hijacking and released Masood Azhar and Omar Saeed Sheikh. This act of myopia under pressure from a few dozen middle class families led to more terrorism in India, including the attack on Parliament in December, 2001.

It also led to the attacks on Musharraf, whose death might have led to a different story in Kashmir, and to the savage murder of Wall Street Journal’s Daniel Pearl.

The Congress calmed tempers during the Amarnath Shrine row even at the cost of being hurt by angry Hindus in Jammu and elsewhere in India — and it is down three seats to 17. After the Mumbai attacks, under pressure from a nation begging it to go to war, the party chose instead to swallow its anger.

This sanity may cost it the next election, if Pakistani terrorism remains an issue, if Hafiz Saeed is released, but it has saved India’s economy.

Under Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh, it remains the party that puts nation above self.

What about the separatists? They are fighting the wrong people.

Mirwaiz Umar Farooq’s father was killed by the Hizbul Mujahideen in May 1990. Sajjad Lone’s father, Abdul Ghani Lone was killed by the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba in May 2002.

I met Abdul Ghani Lone in his Srinagar house, and while showing me out he pointed at the Indian army soldiers protecting him and referred to them as “these butchers”. But I wondered who they were protecting him from.

Mufti Mohammad Saeed’s daughter Rubaiyya was kidnapped by the JKLF in December 1989, when he was India’s home minister. The VP Singh government released five prisoners to get Saeed’s daughter back.

These people are the victims of militancy, but they became its champions. As it now fades away, they will become irrelevant unless they separate their message from violence.

Yasin Malik’s young face bears testament to the brutality of the Indian state, whose guest he has been for much of his adult life. He says elections are not the solution to the Jammu & Kashmir issue.

But India has no strategy beyond offering secular democracy and the recurring right to vote, which it has been begging Kashmiris to take — and which they have finally taken, at least for now.

Yasin Malik talks about Gandhian protest, but Gandhi did not fight for a theocratic state. In a truly Azad Kashmir, Yasin Malik will be stamped out by Mirwaiz, Geelani and the Kashmiri population that will get down to the mischief of Islamic laws — banning interest, amputating limbs, apostatizing Ahmedis and punishing the raped — that Pakistanis think they inherited from Gen Zia, but actually came to them democratically from Liaquat Ali Khan’s 1949 Objectives Resolution, and Zulfiqar Bhutto’s PPP.

Source: The Hindustan Times

(Aakar Patel is a former newspaper editor based in Mumbai)

--------

Kashmir results cut across communal fault lines

Praveen Swami

Sunday’s election results prove State’s political map is a complex mosaic of sub-regional zones of influence

Notion of three monolithic ethnic-religious blocks debunked

NC succeeded in staving off PDP in central Kashmir

NEW DELHI: Not eight weeks ago, it appeared as if Jammu and Kashmir’s communal fault lines were set in concrete.

In early October, National Conference president Omar Abdullah warned there was a deep polarisation of voters in Jammu and the feeling of alienation was very strong in the Valley. The communal polarisation, he asserted, was the worst in a generation.

Most experts agreed. Parties of the religious right, the People’s Democratic Party in Kashmir, and the Bharatiya Janata Party in Jammu were expected to profit from the communal anxieties unleashed through the summer, after a decision to grant land-use rights to the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board led to rioting across the State.

But Sunday’s election results debunk the notion that the State consists of three monolithic ethnic-religious blocks – Muslim-majority Kashmir, Hindu-majority Jammu and Buddhist-majority Ladakh.

Kashmir’s divisions

In the arc of north Kashmir seats running from Karnah to Pattan, the mandate was divided between the two major Kashmir-based parties.

While the National Conference took seven seats, the PDP secured six, leaving one to the Congress and another to independent Abdul Rashid Sheikh, who broke ranks with the secessionist People’s Conference and stood for election from Langate.

In central Kashmir, the agglomeration of fifteen seats between Kangan and Ganderbal on the one side to Khansahib and Chrar-e-Sharif on the other, with urban Srinagar at its core, the National Conference reigned supreme. Here, the PDP could take just three seats, those of Chadoora, Khasahib and Beerwah – the first two retained by incumbents, and the third captured from independent Hakim Mohammad Yasin.

NC’s success

NC leaders succeeded by mobilising their cadre to stave off competition offered by the PDP in central Kashmir’s rural constituencies – competition which cost National Conference leader Omar Abdullah the Ganderbal seat in 2002 and also capitalised on low turnout in the eight urban segments, which gave the party’s committed cadre electoral primacy.

But in stark contrast, the PDP dominated southern Kashmir, losing just four of the region’s sixteen seats – two to the Congress and one each to the NC and Communist Party of India (Marxist).

Here, the PDP succeeded in expanding its reach by widening its constituency among political Islamists, often supporters of the Jamaat-e-Islamia constituency, the party had begun to court in the run-up to the 2002 elections, when it succeeded in securing the support of key regional commanders of the Hizb ul-Mujahideen. Like in northern Kashmir, the support of Islamists has helped the PDP increase its tally from 10 seats to 12.

PDP’s opponents

Moreover, the PDP’s more resolute ideological opponents appear to have held their ground by mobilising secular sections of the electorate against the Jamaat-e-Islami onslaught. The Congress retained both the Dooru and Kokernag seats, despite a PDP-led Islamist campaign that linked the party’s candidates to a 2006 prostitution scandal in Srinagar. In Kulgam, CPI(M) veteran Mohammad Yusuf Tarigamiagain, a hate-figure for Islamists, was re-elected for a third time running.

Interestingly, the sole NC win in southern Kashmir was registered by Sakina Itoo, a single woman professional who has been a favourite target for Islamist ire. In 2002, her campaign was targeted nine times by jihadist groups.

Jammu and Ladakh

South of the Pir Panjal mountains, the Jammu region also demonstrated that no one party can claim to speak for the entire region.

Of the eleven seats in the Doda-Udhampur belt, the NC and Panthers Party took two seats each, while the Bharatiya Janata Party won one. However, the Congress profited from the former Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad’s developmental record in the area, picking up seven seats. Mr. Azad himself won with a staggering margin of over 29,000 votes from the mountain constituency of Bhaderwah.

In the nineteen-seat cluster from Bani to Naushera, centred around urban Jammu, the BJP picked up ten of its eleven seats. However, its opponents also did well, with the Congress taking four seats, the NC and independent candidates two each, and the Panthers Party one.

Finally, in the six seats of the Rajouri-Poonch belt – often the site of tense Hindu-Muslim relations – the PDP, Congress and National Conference each won two seats. However, the PDP’s victories both came in seats which saw no violence this summer – not areas like Poonch-Haveli, which witnessed rioting. The PDP’s growth here instead appears linked to intra-Muslim conflicts, specifically, the NC-backed Gujjar community and landowning ethnic Kashmiris.

Ladakh region, for its part, gave two seats to the NC, those of Kargil and Zanskar. In Leh – the site of energetic Buddhist-chauvinist movement – the Congress succeeded in defeating BJP-backed independent Tsering Samphel, while an independent took the remote Nobra seat.

Source: The Hindu, New Delhi, 30 Dec 2008

---

Kashmir Calling

EDITORIAL in The Times of India

30 Dec 2008,

With the numbers less important than their import, the Jammu & Kashmir election results are the best New Year gift India could want. Without question, Kashmiris have said yes to social peace, political moderation and economic development. And young and energetic Omar Abdullah, who might soon be chief minister, is the kind of face we need for leadership in new India. But the credit for J&K's recharged political landscape goes less to individuals in the electoral fray than to those ordinary people who defied the winter cold, poll boycott calls and terror threats. Throughout the 73-day democratic exercise, voters transcended the inter-community strife that had issued from the Amarnath land transfer row. In keeping with that spirit, their final verdict is a robust blow against ideological extremism.

The separatists are left wondering what went wrong with their best laid plans to thrive in a political vacuum. The hawks blame an absent gun. The doves rue neglecting Kashmiris' daily needs. There's more to these confessions than meets the eye. For one, separatism needs to hold the threat of violence over the heads of Kashmiris in order to remain relevant; for another, India's would-be balkanisers were deluded into believing that bread and butter issues would be overrun by a collective zeal for azadi. One lesson for the Hurriyat and its kind is that ideology is no surrogate for material well-being. Second, a minuscule group backed by bullet power can only fool itself by pretending to speak for the syncretic whole that is Jammu & Kashmir.

Going by poll arithmetic alone, the gainers in terms of improved performance are arguably those who exploited the Amarnath issue-related communal divide. The PDP has the largest base in the Valley while the BJP is upbeat in Jammu. Yet, among the political quartet claiming popular loyalties, the National Conference and the Congress call the post-poll shots. One is J&K's single largest party; the other is kingmaker. Both are secular-nationalist, pan-J&K forces. That J&K's reins lie in their hands is good for its developmental road map, as also for a resolution of the autonomy issue.

Omar has his task cut out on this score should he become chief minister. The Congress, slated to be the NC's coalition partner, must help open talks on an autonomy package between mainstream parties and local stakeholders. Progressive steps are required to ensure that a settlement is reached within the Indian constitutional framework. A new deal for J&K will take out whatever wind that remains in the separatists' sails. Addressing a long-standing popular aspiration, it will be the right way to honour Kashmir's mandate for peace.

---

J&K: India, again, is biggest winner

Editorial in Asian Age

The Kashmir election result has been a surprise package. What triggered the massive popular participation in the Assembly polls, with voter turnout in the Valley exceeding the wildest hopes of optimists, is likely to be a subject of discussion. But four considerations are beyond dispute, and cannot be overlooked: that these elections were squeaky clean and were the freest and fairest ever held in the state, including in its historically-troubled Valley segment; that the spectacular and unprecedented voter turnout mocked the secessionists as it was in defiance of the boycott campaign of the separatist outfits; that the high turnout was uniform across districts and showed significant blurring of the much-touted urban-rural divide which had been a characteristic of the 2002 state election (when prominent Valley towns had registered no higher than single-digit voter participation); and that the electoral exercise was conducted by the Election Commission of India and not the United Nations or any other external agency.

Secessionist leaders, most notably the Mirwaiz, have chosen denial mode and sought to suggest that the election was not a substitute for a resolution of the so-called Kashmir issue, but showed only that the Muslims of Kashmir wanted to bring a government into existence that would look after routine administration and cater to their development needs even as they continued to live under "Indian occupation". If such was the case, there was no need for the separatists to have issued their boycott call. The plain fact is that after the reasonably successful election of 2002, the secessionists feared that a repeat this time around would rob them of even the marginal legitimacy they have, and had therefore to contrive an argument to explain their utter disregard by the voter. Given the nature of the result, the separatists would need to contend with the fact that no viable government can be formed without a major "Indian" party stepping into a coalition arrangement with a key Valley party. A question to answer is: would the Hurriyat bosses have proffered their present justification of the impressive voter participation if their boycott message had carried the day? The Hurriyat must also address a bigger question: why does the voter hold them in such poor esteem although it went along with them in the agitation on the Amarnath issue only two months ago?

With his customary frankness and acute sense of politics, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, generally described as a "hardline" separatist leader who is self-avowedly pro-Pakistan, has noted that people voted in such a big way because in 2008 there was no fear of the gun and that the gun is a legitimate component of the Muslim Kashmiri’s "freedom struggle". Which means that the Centre should be prepared for the stepping up of terrorist acts, particularly by infiltrating foreigners since domestic terrorism in the Valley has been at a low ebb for some time. The election result also makes amply clear that waiting on the Hurriyat Conference, in a bid to bring about its participation in productive discussions on issues such as Kashmiri autonomy within the bounds of the Constitution, was a misdirected effort by both the UPA government as well as its NDA predecessor.

---

With Farooq's nod, Omar likely to be J&K CM

30 Dec 2008, 0154 hrs IST, TNN

SRINAGAR/NEW DELHI: With National Conference patron and his father Farooq Abdullah dispelling speculation over the party's chief ministerial

Farooq Abdullah and Omar along with supporters

Farooq Abdullah and his son NC president Omar Abdullah flanked by their supporters at their Gupkar residence. (PTI)

More Pictures

nominee, Omar Abdullah is set to assume office once power-sharing talks with Congress are concluded in the next couple of days.

The senior Abdullah set the stage for the third generation CM from one of Kashmir's oldest political families when he told the media, "I have thought over this through the night. Looking at the situation, honestly I think we need a younger man."

With the NC having cleared his name, Omar arrived in Delhi for consultations and his path to the chief ministership looked even clearer with Congress firmly rejecting a last-minute offer from PDP leaders Mufti Mohammed Sayeed and his daughter Mehbooba to support a Congress CM for all of six years.

Senior Congress sources said the party was not going to be drawn into a "power game" and would respect the spirit of the Jammu and Kashmir result. "Naturally, PDP would like to deny NC power but Congress will not consider such a scenario," they said, pointing out that if the party had been keen on power play, it could have tried playing NC against PDP.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi met J&K party leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad and Saifuddin Soz alongwith party general secretary Prithviraj Chavan. The discussions were more in the nature of a stock-taking exercise with Sonia keen to discuss some of the nitty-gritty of the election results. Discussions with NC are expected to begin in earnest on Tuesday.

It is understood that the Congress J&K leadership is keen on a rotational chief ministership as was the case with PDP and keeping in mind the downside of the experiment, wants the first shot at office. Congress leaders are also keen that some independents "supported" by the party be also counted as part of the tally.

Indicating that issues like rotational chief ministership or the possibility of a deputy CM had not been decided, Congress sources did suggest the party will be part of the new government. It was also likely that the NC's claims to leading the coalition would be reflected even if the Congress pushed the rotational model. Hinting at the bargaining, Azad told the media that Congress "could ask for support just as it could give it".

After arriving in Delhi, Omar said he would await for talks with Congress on Tuesday and said he did not wish to take anything for granted but was "positive" about the response he had received so far. He was quick to point out that it would be premature to conclude from the results that separatist sentiments had died down in the Valley. "I think EC's decision to hold polls was endorsed by the people," he said.

In Srinagar, reacting to his father's support, Omar had said, "A decision has been taken that my name will be put forward at the NC legislature party meeting for the post of chief minister."

There were reports in Srinagar and Delhi of Soz, who is Union water resources minister, being opposed to an alliance with NC given his bitter parting of ways with the regional party. But it was clear by Monday evening that the J&K leadership was in sync with the Congress high command over the "logic of numbers" in the new assembly.

Talking to reporters before leaving for Delhi, Omar said, "The better option for NC would be to ally with Congress. Roping in Independent MLAs would not be in the interest of the government's stability." He added, "The previous Congress-PDP alliance had many Independents supporting it but faced many hardships in running it smoothly."

Omar was cautious in reacting to the idea of offering Congress the first term as CM and given the delicate stage of his negotiations did not want to give PDP a foot in the door. Omar's proximity to Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi has been commented upon, though he said they had not spoken since the elections.

Azad still appears to nurse a grudge against Farooq for NC's refusal to bail out his government despite assuring to do so, after PDP pulled its support in October following the Amarnath land row.

Meanwhile, Azad contacted three Independent MLAs — Ghulam Hassan Mir of Gulmarg, Hakeem Mohammad Yasin of Khan Sahib and Charanjit Singh of Kathua — seeking their support. Farooq, too, tried to reach out to Congress by talking to its MLAs and exhorting them to voice their support for an NC-Congress alliance.

The Congress high command has apparently decided to seek the opinion of its MLAs from Kashmir over the issue of alliance with NC.

---

J&K poll result leaves Pak media cold

29 Dec 2008, 1945 hrs IST, TNN

NEW DELHI: For a country obsessed with the K word, the Pakistan English media was spectacularly reticent on the outcome of the Jammu and Kashmir election. Newspapers either ignored it or dismissed it in small news items.

The Dawn on Monday carried a small 218-word report by Reuters from Srinagar headlined, No clear winner in Kashmir polls. "A period of uncertainty was expected before a coalition was cobbled together," the report said.

The News International carried an even smaller report with the headline, Manmohan terms Kashmir poll turnout 'vote for democracy.' It quoted Sonia Gandhi saying, "It does not matter who wins, what matters is that the people of the valley have expressed their faith in the democratic system. It is a lesson to be learnt by our neighbours." The poll result itself was dismissed in a single sentence stating that the regional National Conference won 28 of the assembly's 87 seats.

Strangely, The Nation, published from Lahore, did not carry a report on the election result at all.

The Frontier Post carried a slightly longer report. Separatists argue that government provided an "uneven playfield" for the elections, the report said. It also quoted Sajjad Lone as saying that "the government showed a selective acceptance of democracy. Political leaders pursuing the boycott call were jailed or put under house arrest. Undeclared curfew, thwarting of peaceful marches and the armed siege of Kashmir have eroded the credibility of the voting percentage."

The Tehrik-i-Talibaan's killing of 36 in Buner to disrupt a National Assembly by-election poll occupied prominent space in the Pakistani press. An on-the-spot report by Abdur Rahman Abid said that "the Tehrik-i-Taliban Swat claimed responsibility for the attack and said it had been carried out to avenge the killing of its six members in the area four months ago."

Most newspapers also highlighted external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee's statement that no ultimatum had been issued to Pakistan. A PTI report published in The News quoted Mukherjee as saying that "Not once, but twice Pakistan had made a commitment. Once by Musharraf and now by President Zardari. Where is the commitment? Where is the action against terrorists?" The Dawn also carried a similar report.

In an article titled, DGMOs contact helps tone down war hysteria, The News said on Monday that the Director-Generals Military Operations (DGMOs) of India and Pakistan reportedly spoke to each other on a hotline on Sunday. The report said, "Normally, the two military officers made contact on Tuesday on a routine basis but this time, they engaged each other in an extraordinary move on the hotline for talks. According to a source, "That was only possible with the consent of top military leaders of both the countries. Apparently, this helped lower the tension."

In another article, the News said that Iran is turning out to be the first country of the region that has decided to play a mediatory role at the head of the state level between Pakistan and India. "Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad is dashing to New Delhi early this week for talks with the Indian leaders with regard to the alarming situation prevailing in the neighbourhood. He may visit Islamabad immediately after concluding his discussions in the Indian capital.

The Iranian president, who is deeply concerned about the rising tension between the two neighbouring nuclear states on its southeast, has been maintaining interaction with both the countries termed friends by Tehran," the report said.

---

It will be Omar

Shujaat Bukhari

Farooq Abdullah steps aside; Congress sends positive signals the winner: National Conference president Omar Abdullah being greeted by a supporter in Srinagar on Monday.

SRINAGAR: The former Chief Minister and National Conference patron, Farooq Abdullah, on Monday paved the way for his son and party president Omar Abdullah to become the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir.

On Sunday, Dr. Abdullah hinted at the choice of Mr. Omar Abdullah as the chief ministerial candidate, but changed the statement late in the night. He told a news channel, “You are talking to the next Chief Minister of the State.”

However, he told reporters at his residence on Monday that he had made up his mind to leave the slot for his son. “I will recommend to the party that Omar Abdullah be our chief ministerial candidate. I will pursue my career at the national and international levels. Jammu and Kashmir is a small canvas for me.”

Dr. Abdullah said young and old leaders would put in joint efforts to make the party strong and fulfil the needs of people. “I will be the party chief. Omar will lead the State and he is being liked by the people more than me.”

The NC had emerged the single largest party with 28 seats in the 87-member House. The PDP finished second with 21 seats and the Congress got 17 seats.

Mr. Omar Abdullah confirmed that he is the chief ministerial candidate. “Yes, I will be the chief ministerial candidate for the party. The decision in this regard was taken by the party’s legislative committee,” he told reporters at his residence.

He said they were hopeful that a Congress-NC alliance would materialise. “It will take a couple of days to finalise things there. You will see an NC-Congress coalition very soon.”

“I had not dreamed that I will be given an opportunity to lead the State. Now it is final. I will try my best to come up to the expectations of people,” he said.

He thanked both the people who voted and those who stayed away. “When I say people, I mean both those who voted in our favour and those who boycotted. I am thankful to both. I hope those who stayed away will vote for us next time,” he said.

Focus on autonomy

He reiterated that his party would continue to strive for greater autonomy for the State. “There is no change in our stand vis-a-vis political problem. We will continue to strive for the implementation of autonomy, which we believe is the viable solution to the Kashmir issue.”

PTI reports from New Delhi: Mr. Omar Abdullah told reporters on his arrival in New Delhi that his party had got “positive signals” from the Congress on government formation.

“The NC has got very positive signals from the Congress. Otherwise, I would not have come to Delhi,” Mr. Abdullah said. He is scheduled to meet Congress president Sonia Gandhi.

Source: The Hindu

---

URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-terrorism-jihad/end-kashmir-jihad-kashmir-results/d/1081