The thick red line

Kashmir’s decade-long chequered history of violence is full of instances to show that the pressures of the ‘hidden hand’ have always played a pivotal role in shaping responses in such circumstances. Twelve years ago, when top religious leader and shrewd politician Mirwaiz Mohammad Farooq was killed at his downtown Srinagar office, the entire Valley had a fair idea about the identity of the killers. However, everybody let it remain a mystery. The militant movement was then in its infancy and the killing of around 65 mourners in Farooq’s funeral procession by security forces helped shift the focus of anger.

This time, though, Sajad Lone issued two contradictory statements on the identity of those who he believed had killed his father. He first blamed Pakistan and the Inter-Services Intelligence; then, within 24 hours, he said that was an emotional outburst and put the blame on Farooq Abdullah.

Twelve years ago, Mirwaiz’s murder had forced the separatist politicans to join hands despite serious differences and launch the political face of the separatist movement: the All-Parties Hurriyat Conference. The forum not only gave them international recognition, it also saved them from becoming victims of political or ideological rivals. There was now more political space inside the separatist movement and, despite the presence of the gun on the ground, it did provide an opportunity for political debate.

The discussions within the Hurriyat were always heated but differences of opinion were usually contained within; one incentive for this was the lurking threat or reprisal from militants.

However, Lone couldn’t be kept quiet for long. He stirred controversy by categorically defining the Kashmir problem as a purely political issue. This put him in direct confrontation with the Islamists, who believed that it was primarily a religious issue. The Islamists held the balance of power, simply because they controlled the militants. More so when groups with nationalist ideology like the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front and Al-Barq — the latter deemed to be very close to Lone’s Peoples Conference —were dismantled becuase of a total lack of support from across.

Lone’s bete noire was former Hurriyat chairman and Jamaat-e-Islami leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, who enjoys substantial clout over the three major militant groups — the Hizbul Mujahideen, Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Toiba. Geelani reacted vehemently to Lone’s statements and argued that Kashmir was always a religious issue, because only Kashmiri Muslims were part of the struggle. He even spoke of Kashmir’s accession to Pakistan as the only way to resolve Kashmir problem because the two shared a religious and geographical bond.

The ideological duel was fought out through newspapers and speeches. Eventually, Jamat-e-Islami chief Ghulam Mohammad Bhat came out in Lone’s favour and Lone escaped the controversy.

However, he was soon to find himself in another one when he said — while on a trip to Pakistan — that foreign militants should leave Kashmiris alone because their agenda had diluted the cause to the extent of being counter-productive. In fact, Lone’s statement was prescient: months down the line, the incidents of Septmber 11 led to a complete change in the global attitude towards jehadi movements.

At the time, though, the statement created an uproar across Pakistan where jehadi groups labelled him an agent harming the cause. But Lone stuck to his stand, though it finally isolated him even from the Pakistani establishment. ‘‘I have never followed dictates. I told the Pakistanis right there in their country that they are our friends and not masters,’’ Lone had told this correspondent soon after returning from Islamabad.

The next big controversy was to follow. September 11 and its global fallout proved Lone’s apprehensions right; President Musharraf began his crackdown, culminating in a ban, on Pak-based Jehadi groups. The attack on the J-K Assembly and then on Parliament brought the Kashmiri separatist movement to the verge of being called part of international terrorist network.

Lone again piped up and sought a serious re-think so that Kashmir did not turn into a yet another battle in the pan-Islamic movement being fought acorss the world. In fact, he publicly asked foreign militants to leave Kashmir.

Recently, he was involved in a peace conference at Dubai where he, along with fellow Hurriyat dove Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, met Pakistan Kashmir Committee chief Sardar Abdul Qayoom Khan. Here, for the first time, the separatist leadership spoke of the need to end the politics of the gun. ‘‘Violence has outlived its utility and the need of the hour is to focus on peaceful political means to resolve the Kashmir dispute,’’ the leadership announced.

However, not everyone fell in line with this stand. By the time Lone returned from the US — where he had gone for cardiac treatment — the Hurriyat was already a divided house. Lone had emerged as a leader of the moderates with a majority of the Hurriyat executive beneath his wings, something which had irritated the hardliners.

However, the debate within the conglomerate had already taken a new turn. The issue of assembly elections had dominated the Hurriyat discussion, with some leaders openly advocating participation on the ground that this was also a way to establish their representative character to the outside world. Lone, in addition, emphasised that elections should not be treated as a taboo.

The moderates in the Hurriyat had been trying to soften up the conglomerate on issues like the initiation of a dialogue process with New Delhi and even give peace a chance so that Kashmiris get a respite from the daily trauma of death. ‘‘If 70,000 Kashmiris have laid down their lives for a cause, it does not automatically mean that another 70,000 have to die,’’ he once said. ‘‘We have to first learn to value the lives of our own people; only then can we take this fight to its logical conclusion’’.

The show of unity in the immediate aftermath of Lone’s killing is not likely to last long. Indeed, the incident has put Kashmir’s separatist movement at the cross-roads of history. It will either be ruled by the fear of the gun and collapse upon itself like a house of cards or come out stronger and succesful from this tragedy and take forward Lone’s unfinished mission to make the gun subservient to politics and initiate plans to speed up a peaceful resolution of Kashmir dispute. As war clouds gather over the Valley, time to make the choice is running out.