There Isn’t Always A Second Ramadhan
By Nawaz Gul Qanungo
25 August, 2010
Kashmir Times
The Ramadhan of 2008 struck the first and last nail in the coffin of the spectacular rise and fall of the Hurriyat’s power to negotiate a political deal, in the wake of protests against the Amarnath land transfer. Two years later, people have brought the Hurriyat to the same strategic advantage. But the monotony of the so called protest calendars so far seems to suggest that an overwhelmed Hurriyat is clueless of the road beyond the turn
This eighteenth of August was just another day in Kashmir: The Hurriyat had given a call for a total shutdown and march to certain locations in the valley – protest against the unending killings of unarmed demonstrators and bystanders by the local police and Indian forces. So, a government worn to shreds, and down on its knees, repeated for the umpteenth time the mockery of imposing curfew in the whole valley. All this in a month of Ramadhan.
But in spite of the curfew and restrictions, Narbal saw a massive rally of protesters. “The ongoing movement will continue till India sheds rigidity and gives right of self-determination to Kashmiris,” an ailing Syed Ali Shah Geelani said while addressing the rally through a telephone. “We will perish but not surrender.”
Two years after the momentous anti-India campaign over what came to be known as the Amarnath land row and the ensuing economic blockade, the shift in Geelani’s position could not have been starker.
Two years ago, in 2008, it was the same month of Ramadhan that was approaching. Kashmir, in the wake of the Amarnath land transfer, had witnessed some of the most powerful anti-India protests, marking a major shift in how Kashmir was being looked at not just in the world outside the valley but even within.
A march to Lal Chowk had been planned and it was going to be the mother of all marches: “As on this very place,” Mirwaiz Umar Farooq recalled, “the first Indian Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, had promised the people of Jammu & Kashmir that they would be given the right to choose their destination.”
The day before the proposed march, however, all the Hurriyat leaders were arrested. A ruthless sarkari curfew ensured that the whole valley was sent into paralysis.
A week later, the leaders were released. Geelani had spoken to the effect that India was a strong power, and one phase of protests, massive as it was, was still not enough to end the occupation: It was going to be a long fraught battle. And by this time, Ramadhan the month of blessings had arrived, and with it the anticipation that the Hurriyat would change its strategy in what had by then turned into a much bloodied campaign, thanks customarily to a cold-blooded, brute use of force by the administration.
Appearing in a press conference, Geelani asked that the stage be cleared for the month for “peaceful protests.” The Indian media screamed: “Geelani has called off the pro-freedom agitation during the month of Ramadhan.”
The march to Lal Chowk, meanwhile, was rescheduled to October 6. “The coordination committee will make the program successful and we categorically say that it will be peaceful,” Geelani tried assuring the state. “People won’t do anything that can provoke the government machinery to use force.” The protest paraphernalia was set: Black flags and banners instead of green flags; no stone pelting; corps of volunteers headed by Yasin Malik to ensure discipline; no provocative slogans. Geelani declared: “I have told [the people] not to shout slogans like Bhaarat key aiwanon ko, Aag lagado aag lagado.”
An unprecedented security crackdown throughout the valley, yet again, was what the government responded with. Not a single Kashmiri soul was allowed to set foot on the streets. Srinagar was turned into a garrison. Lal Chowk was turned into a fortress almost two days before the proposed march. Iron grills and gates were procured to stop people from coming out of their localities. Security restrictions crossed the levels of insane and became a joke in the valley. The Hurriyat claimed it was a moral victory for the people. And in the same breath announced: “Resume normal life.” Today, the Hurriyat seems unable to find a way to bring the situation to that stage with grace. After two years, the stakes are incredibly higher.
Not less than 60 unarmed civilians had been killed by the police and Indian forces during the Amarnath agitations. What was achieved after all the sacrifices, after all the unilateral bloodshed? The fact remains that all that it led to was a land deal that the Hurriyat eventually rejected but did nothing beyond rejecting. And a hastened inauguration of the so called cross-LoC “trade,” something that was on the cards in any case. There was disappointment that people could not hide. Some called it a sell-out. There were rumours even of the “amount” the Hurriyat had “received” to call the agitation off. It is this loss of credibility the Hurriyat doesn’t want to be replayed.
“We are setting the deadline of Ramadhan-end for the government to release all the political prisoners. Otherwise we would announce a major programme against the Indian policies and its terrorism in Kashmir.” So had spoken Geelani, but that was not to be. Elections were announced and held under complete curfew and extraordinary restrictions. Votes were begged for in the name of roads. And votes were amassed alright, just that they now incredibly lie stuck on the hoardings of India’s advertisements of Kashmiris’ allegiance to the Indian state.
Ceaseless hartals of the summer of 2008 had given way first to a few Hurriyat-backed weekend strikes and protests, and then to spontaneous ones. The latter haven’t stopped ever since and the Hurriyat doesn’t seem to have a clue what the frenzy is. The culture of stone pelting returned with a vengeance. The volcano of the thwarted march to Lal Chowk has borne a fury no one knows how to contain. The truth is that more than being a making of the Hurriyat, this stone rage is a creation of the state establishment and its master policy makers in New Delhi. And the rage continues to haunt.
IT IS UNBELIEVABLE that after two years, the people have brought the Hurriyat to the same strategic advantage, this time with an even greater moral high ground. Not less than 62 people have laid their lives down. In one of the incidents, the Indian forces beat up a nine-year-old boy to death and dumped him aside in the bushes. When the father washed his son’s body for burial later on, he found a half-chewed toffee that was still in the child’s mouth.
The Hurriyat may well be aware of what Kashmiris have given and continue to give for freedom. But to be aware and acknowledge is not enough. Will the Hurriyat let these sacrifices go waste, yet again? People expect a favourable political outcome from their long struggle of loss. There is no public dissent against endless shutdowns because their blood has borne no fruit yet. They follow the Hurriyat programmes since they believe that their allegiance to the cause is the Hurriyat’s greatest tool of leverage against New Delhi.
It’s been long now but nothing has happened on the ground. In his last sermon at the Jamia Masjid, the Mirwaiz called for withdrawal of the troops and release of political prisoners as the pre-condition for talks with the Indian government. Not a blade of grass has moved in Srinagar, let alone New Delhi.
In the current 10-day protest programme, the Hurriyat (G) had a day for people to clean the garbage in their areas. What a slap on the face of the administration! (By the way, people voted in 2008 for someone to do precisely that job.) But is it important to clean the garbage and not for children to go to school? Then, will people do business in Lal Chowk while boys in a Maisuma street take bullets on their heads? Will traffic ply normally on the road to the airport while a father in Delina washes his nine-year-old son’s body? Shall we return to the early 1990s, so when young boys and girls get killed on Residency Road, the traffic mechanically gets diverted to the parallel MA Road?
The problem with the Hurriyat is that whether it was 2008 or 2010, or the time in between, the people propelled the Hurriyat, not the other way round. The Hurriyat finds itself in a rut simply because a Conference by definition is not meant for “organisation.” When the Hurriyat started its district offices a couple of years ago, it could not sustain them for more than a few months for want of finance, hardly a justification. It cannot make the excuse today that all its men are under detention. They were also not under detention for a long time?
Be that as it may, the monotony of the so called protest programmes released over the last almost three months by the Hurriyat (G) perilously suggests that perhaps an overwhelmed leadership doesn’t have much clue of which way to go ahead. Imagine the current movement coming to an end without India admitting that Kashmir is a political dispute and what it vows to resolve is to begin with a political dispute. Imagine people returning from the graveyards only to restart living under the shade of the gun of the State. Imagine Kashmiris going back to their homes without them being accepted as the principal party to the dispute. The Hurriyat this time around cannot afford to let these short-term demands go unmet. Kashmir is walking over its own bloodshed; a political declaration from India is only the least the Hurriyat must return.
And if the Hurriyat plans to truly deliver on the collective short- and long-term demands of the people, it also needs to realise that it cannot do so just by releasing protest calendars, locking out schools and giving calls for endless strikes. It must come out clearly with the demands and chalk out a strategy of how to get those demands met. It must call its programmes a day, cut the flab and tell an anticipating people what the Programme is.
So far the street goes this Ramadhan, the only Programme Kashmir can think about is the one that bears genuine results. And leaving that for yet another Ramadhan is not an option.
The writer can be contacted at www.drqanungo.blogspot.com
