[Reader-list] Op-ed from Daily Excelsior

[radhikarajen at vsnl.net]

 Behen Sonia,

 truely great thoughts, as a good human at first sight and then as a journalist. Correct and truthful analysis of the events in the valley, appreciated very much of the honesty in thoughts. Thank you.

 Regards.

----- Original Message -----
From: "S. Jabbar" <sonia.jabbar at gmail.com>
Date: Saturday, July 5, 2008 1:31 pm
Subject: [Reader-list] Op-ed from Daily Excelsior
To: sarai list <reader-list at sarai.net>

> Running with hares, hunting with hounds
> MEN , MATTERS AND MEMORIES
> 
> By M L Kotru
> 
> Mehbooba Mufti, daughter of the former Chief Minister, Mufti 
> Sayeed and
> President of the People's Democratic Party was very predictably, 
> the first
> to claim "victory" for her party when the Kashmir Government virtually
> washed its hands off the messy land allotment in Baltal to the 
> Amar Nath
> Yatra Board. It was her party's withdrawal from the Congress-led 
> coalitionState Government that had forced the hand both of the 
> newly appointed
> Governor N.N. Vohra and Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad.
> 
> She could we well have taken credit for the immensely damaging 
> consequenceof the agitation, the massive public protests in the 
> Valley, its principal
> ingredient, namely, bringing to the fore the largely dormant extremist
> Hurriyat faction of Syed Ali Shah Geelani and the less strident 
> moderatefaction led by Mirwaiz Farouq. What one saw on TV and read 
> in newspapers of
> the emotion-charged protests which the two Hurriyat factions and 
> assortedother separatist groups unleashed in the Valley for nearly 
> a fortnight
> recalled to mind the missing holy hair agitation of an earlier 
> era. The
> "mo-e-muqaddas" agitation was indeed a spontaneous popular 
> outburtst against
> the sudden disappearance of the Prophet's hair from the Hazratbal 
> Shrinewhich ended only when the holy hair made an equally dramatic 
> reappearance.Attempts were made even then by religious bigots to 
> give the crisis a
> communal colour but unsuccessfully.
> 
> Unlike in the case of the Baltal forest land crisis, which 
> acquired hundred
> percent communal overtones, although both the separatist and 
> mainstreamparties did their best to present it as a manifestation 
> of Kashmiri Muslim
> sub-nationalism. They called it "nationalism" but any honest 
> observer will
> tell you that it was nothing but an expression of Islamic sub-
> nationalism.The Baltal episode was projected day after day as an 
> attack on the Muslim
> character of the Valley, the few proposed prefabricated camps for 
> pilgrimson the disputed land dubbed as an attempt to put a 
> permanent Hindu footprint
> in the inhospitable mountain range.
> 
> It is good in the end though that the State Government, on the 
> request of
> the Governor, ex-officio chairman of the Amarnath Shrine Board, 
> has ended
> the so-called land deal and instead chosen to conduct the yatra 
> itself as
> was the case before Farooq Abdullah set up the Shrine Board in the 
> year 2000
> with the Mufti later conveying his concurrence by taking over the 
> cash rich
> Muslim waqf Board, for many long years headed by the late Sheikh 
> Abdullah.
> Mufti did have differences with the former Governor, Retd. Lt. 
> Gen. S.K.
> Sinha over the duration of the yatra, which he extended to two 
> months from
> the earlier fortnight without giving much thought to its 
> implications. But
> the die had been cast and Sinha, typically of him, decided just 
> prior to its
> retirement to ask for some 50 hectares of forest land to put up
> prefabricated camps for pilgrims on the Baltal route. Mufti's man 
> in the
> Government who was also the Forest Minister was the first to 
> acquiesce, with
> the Cabinet including another PDP leader and the Deputy Chief 
> Minister,Muzaffar Baig agreeing to the proposal at a Cabinet 
> meeting. Once the
> protests started, Baig, rather disingenuously, claimed that he was
> blackmailed by some Jammu Ministers who threatened to block the 
> constructionof the Old Mughal Road to the Valley, a scheme long 
> under implementation.
> The Mufti saw the crisis snowballing and promptly expressed his total
> disapproval of the forest and allocation. He must have been a 
> worried man
> seeing the Hurriyat factions initiating a well-orchestrated Valley-
> wide
> agitation.
> 
> Other separatist groups too had joined the fray and anti-India, 
> pro-Azadi
> and pro-Pakistani slogans became the order of the day. Mufti who 
> had in the
> past walked away with the moderate Hurriyat agenda had to act 
> quickly which
> he did ultimately by withdrawing his party from the coalition. 
> Mufti has a
> much greater stake in pursuing, at least for the record, what is 
> calledmainstream politics. His daughter after a recent visit to 
> Pakistan has, of
> course, made it her business to flaunt the trip at her every 
> public meeting
> and how she was assured there of a dignified (read autonomous) 
> dispensationfor the Valley.
> 
> The father is still hopeful of having an imprint in Jammu but the 
> party as a
> whole must remain heavily dependent on the Valley. And it is here 
> that it
> feels threatened by a rejuvenated National Conference, the single 
> largestparty in the State Assembly. Umar Farooq's unequivocal 
> support to the demand
> for abolition of the land allotment order may indeed have proved 
> to be last
> straw on Mufti's back, forcing him to withdraw from the ruling 
> coalition.The Mufti has by and large been running with hares and 
> hunting with the
> hounds.
> 
> I cannot fathom why he did not object to Farooq Abdullah's 
> dispensationsetting up the Amarnath Shrine Board when he was Chief 
> Minister in 1983.
> Instead as I have earlier said, he set up a State Waqf Board as a 
> sort of
> Muslim counterpart, installing his own men on it. Nor did he 
> really restrain
> the former Governor, the head of the Amarnath Shrine Board, who 
> over a
> five-year period took too many high-handed decisions.
> 
> N.N. Vohra by comparison has a better chance of succeeding in 
> bringing the
> various groups together. He has vast experience as a bureaucrat, 
> havingserved for some year as the Home Secretary, as the Centre's 
> interlocutorwith Kashmiri groups etc. What he must realise quickly 
> is that even the
> mainstream parties have lately started developing interests which 
> may not
> necessarily be in accord with New Delhi's interests particularly 
> with regard
> to the Valley.
> 
> I am not letting out a secret, the fact is that every mainstream 
> party is
> positioning itself to derive maximum advantage whenever the so-called
> autonomous regions come into existence. That is why one has in the 
> recentpast heard some of the pre-eminent mainstream politicians 
> speaking of New
> Delhi having backtracked with the former Pakistani dictator, now 
> civilianPresident-in-disgrace, Gen. Musharraf repeated his out-of-
> the-box plans to
> resolve the dispute on several occasions during the last three years.
> 
> If you wish to see the Musharraf plan through the Valley 
> politicians eyes it
> adds up to the creation of self-ruling autonomous region with a joint
> Indo-Pak mechanism in place. Asif Zardari too has spoken of 
> autonomy when
> Mirwaiz Farouqcalled, on his recently but the major political 
> Pakistanipolitical voice, Nawaz Sharif's, has pooh-poohed the 
> Musharraf plan.
> 
> None of this though dampens the spirits of the myopic Valley 
> leadership. It
> sees autonomy for the Valley as the next best to Azadi, a first 
> step as it
> were.
> 
> Some readers of this column have complained against my reference 
> last week
> to the subsidy offered by the Union Government to Muslims going 
> for Haj. The
> idea was not to hurt anybody's sentiments. I mentioned it asking the
> question why should Kashmiri Muslims object to the construction of 
> temporarypre-fabricated huts for just two months to enable 
> pilgrims to reach the
> Amarnath cave from Baltal. So far as the Haj subsidy goes many of 
> my Muslim
> friends say it is un-Islamic for any Mussalman to accept subsidy 
> of any
> kind, airfare, lodging included, to be able to perform Haj. Islam 
> enjoinsupon every Muslim to perform Haj at least once in his life 
> time but my
> understanding of it tells me that performance of Haj is mandatory 
> for those
> who can afford it; you can't borrow or steal to make the 
> pilgrimage. I
> repeat, I had no intention to hurt any of my Muslim friend's feelings.
> 
> Lastly, a word for the Governor N.N. Vohra. His roles, official and
> unofficial, involving close contacts with a wide spectrum of 
> leadership in
> the State are too well known to be ignored. While this baggage 
> which be
> brings with him to his new office can have its uses it should in 
> no case
> serve as anything but a reference point. I am aware of his close 
> contactswith some of the dramatis personae but these too need to 
> be set aside for
> the present. What is needed just now is to resort the confidence 
> of the
> people, both in the Valley and in Jammu.
> 
> The aspirations of people in various geographical zones of the 
> State need to
> be constantly addressed, not one at the cost of another but in 
> real concert.
> I don't know as I write whether Ghulam Nabi Azad will be able to 
> cobbletogether a working majority during the next few days but 
> what concerns me is
> that the cobwebs of mistrust, assiduously woven by self-centred State
> politicians these past few years, are swept aside. In face to face
> conversations the Kashmiri politicians can be real charmers; only 
> you can't
> be too sure what to make of those smiles they flash at you constantly.
> 
> New Delhi's new man in Srinagar must above all make a mental note 
> of the
> off-the-cuff remarks made the other day by Baitullah Mehsud, the 
> Talibanchief of the NWRP and virtual ruler of Swat. As his Taliban 
> continued to
> take postshots at the Pakistan establishment he made the interesting
> statement that he was not going to strike at the "beautiful city of
> Peshawar". "It's not Srinagar". The Pakistani militants and some 
> of their
> Kashmiri counterparts based in that country haven't quite given up 
> theirJihad. In the backdrop of the upcoming elections in the 
> State; the yatra
> agitation should be deemed as a prelude aimed at arousing the 
> local Muslims;
> it also provides ideal ground for the Jihadis to go in for a 
> strike in the
> Valley. You must also remember that the political leadership in 
> the Valley,
> bar the National Conference, is working overtime, overtly and 
> covertly, for
> the Valley's separation from the rest of the State. That is the 
> nearest they
> can come to Azadi.
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