[Reader-list] World Kashmir Freedom Movement?

[Kshmendra Kaul]

"World Kashmir Freedom Movement?" 
 
(There is a difference between a self serving charity and political activity)
 
Dr. Syed Nazir Gilani 

Kashmiri Muslims, more significantly the Valley ones, seem to have anaesthetized their social conscience. It does not matter if “an infuriated mob ransacks a house” in Noorbagh, in Old City Srinagar for housing an alleged ‘sex trade’.  Moral conscious mob stormed the house and demolished windows and doors on Thursday 20 August 2009. If this is the criterion of administering private justice in Kashmir, one should not have a cause to complain, when security forces also choose to administer justice in the same manner. The broad spread of moral interests has cascaded from Shopian to Noorbagh. It has started picking on the weak and vulnerable. “Midha” is the new victim of our moral wrath.

 
The door of our social conscience could not be opened to the news that early this summer, a Hizb fighter Rasheed, accompanied by his Pakistani wife, Nyla Zamaan Abbasi and their children, four-year-old Haroun Rashid and two-year-old Amna Rashid returned from Pakistan and walked into a police station in Srinagar. Of course without any D Day to his credit. A helpless and a demoralized Kashmiri fighter, who after 15 years had lost faith in the military discipline that he had joined in September 1994. He had endured a walk of 14 days and nights to reach the training camp of his dreams. He is dismayed, stigmatized and would disappear in the wilderness of living dead. He is another victim and in a different league.
  

Overseas - far from Midha in Noorbagh, Srinagar and farther from the pain of Rasheed and his family, on Saturday 15 August at Hotel IBIS in Euston, England a body named “World Kashmir Freedom Movement” (WKFM) founded by our friend late Dr. Ayub Thukar in June 1990 met to hold a “Round Table Conference” on Kashmir. Ayub was a decent human being and remained a constituent partner in Kashmir Co-ordination Committee (KCC) with JKCHR and other groups. Incidentally JKCHR represented him in his asylum matter at the Home Office, in London. Initially Ayub came to UK on Saudi scholarship for research and I had to deploy one of my subordinates to take him to London University.  At that time I did not know about London University either.

 Unfortunately WKFM could not grow beyond its postal address and five members of Jamaat-e-Islami. The conference photograph as published in Urdu Weekly Nation of London points that the world for the organization has shrunk to its Vice President and employee of a charitable organization Mercy Universal, four office bearers of WKFM from USA, namely Dr. G. N. Mir, Dr. Khalid J Qazi, Dr. Ghulam Nabi Fai and Sareer Fazli. Prof. Nazir Ahmad Shawl, is employed by Justice Foundation London and Muhammad Ghalib belongs to Tehreek Kashmir.


In fact all except Prof. Nazir Ahmad Shawl represent one school of political and religious thought. Their politics, their religious disposition and their charitable interests do not have any regard for the plurality and the entirety of the social life in Kashmir. If “Midha” whose house has been ransacked and Rasheed the warrior who gave himself up are not Jamaat affiliates, they don’t qualify as beneficiaries of their politics and funds raised by their charity.

Dr. Ghulam Nabi Fai is a sweet character and has never said no all his life since 1975. He is a discovery of late Abdul Bari of Jamaat Islami Azad Kashmir. After studying in Saudia on Jamaat’s recommendation he turned into a Khaki while dressed in civilian clothing. He is far more fearsome than notorious Qadir Gandarbali was in his Khaki. Late Khalid Hassan would help us in keeping his Khaki instincts under control. Unfortunately after Khalid Hassan’s death Fai is a Lilliput in Gulliver’s land.

Nazir Ahmad Qurashi is on a work permit in London. After serving World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY) in Saudia as a clerk for over 18 years and raising millions of Riyals to help the people of Kashmir to fight Indian ‘occupation’, poverty, corruption, unemployment and disease in the Valley, he has currently set his eyes on completing his four years of work permit and invoke his entitlement for indefinite stay (ILR) for himself and his family in UK. It would be his third ‘heaven’.

 Late Ayub Thakur organised a conference in August 1996 in Leicester. A comparison between the one organised on 6-7 August 1996 in Leicester and the one organised on 15 August 2009 from 4pm to 7.40pm at IBIS hotel in Euston, does not leave much to comment. Ayub with all his Jamaat Islami constraints would dare a bold move in the cause of all people of Kashmir. At Leicester Conference, I raised an objection, that the people present at the Conference, did not represent all shades of Kashmir.

I disagreed with the proposal that NGOs should merge in APHC and late major Muzaffar Shah of Kashmir Action Committee, Lahore and Chief Justice Majid Malik chairman of Jammu and Kashmir Liberation League opposed to the merger of any political party in APHC. Those present at the Leicester Conference of WKFM would recall that Dr. G N Fai informed the delegates that President Clinton’s chief of security had told him that Kashmir would be free in 1997. Fai would flatter Muneer Akram, Pakistani ambassador in Geneva that the people of Kashmir desperately watch out for his statements on Kashmir. He is a born volunteer for all errands and it qualifies him to sit on the back of a crocodile to swim across in all storms.

It is time that we remind Hilary Clinton about the statement of her husband’s chief of security and to inform her that Hizb warrior Rasheed with his family has returned from Pakistan, he is without a future, Kashmiri daughters have found a new source of survival and they have started compromising for Rs.250. They do not compromise their honor to satisfy any drug habit but to live to see the next day.

I have invited Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Hakeem Ghulam Nabi and other Jamaat leaders to Government Degree College Baramulla and to University of Kashmir during most difficult and impoverished days of their politics. I have received Jamaat leaders at the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva. I have continued my association with Jamaat and have defended their rights at all levels in and outside Kashmir. I don’t have any personal issue with Jamaat. It is their problem that they have a problem with the jurisprudence of self determination and they fail to accept the Kashmiriyat as embedded in the State Subject Notification of 20 April 1927.

World Kashmir Freedom Movement banner on the occasion read, “Freedom for Kashmir” and “Justice for Kashmir”. One fails to understand how five members of Jamaat Islami (three being employed by Jamaat) or some by Khakis in Islamabad could realize this onerous dream by themselves and in 3 hours and 40 minutes. One wonders how five Jamaat members could justify that they represented the people of Jammu and Kashmir in three administrations and the Diaspora at the Round Table.

It is beyond their number and substance of character that they could dare to challenge the leadership of democratic India, where even the Prime Minister, has to be transparent and does not dare to hide behind Hindutva ("Hinduness") and the number of Teerath Yatras.

The people of Kashmir need to know that there is a difference between a self serving charitable and political activity and an activity done in the best interests of the people. Financial and Political benefit has to be fair for all the communities in Kashmir. It should be free from prejudice, favor and discrimination. Therefore, the five wise men of Jamaat in WKFM have to free themselves from the strings of prejudice and practice justice, before anyone else would bother to read their statement on the banner.

Author is London based Secretary General of JKCHR – NGO in Special Consultative Status with the United Nations.  Email 

 \n 
dr-nazirgilani at jkchr.com
 
http://www.risingkashmir.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=16104&Itemid=53