Jammu: At a time when Kashmir mainstream is in competitive gear to score brownie points over one another by invoking near-secessionist agenda in a bid to form the government, a well-meaning advice by the youngest son of Sheikh Abdullah to Hurriyat hawks could not be better timed. Mustafa Kamal, the Abdullah scion, known for his ‘wagging tongue’, has for the first time spoken something that may not raise eyebrows of his critics, who have been taking on him ruthlessly for his controversial rhetoric.
Mustafa Kamal has a point in asking both the factions of Hurriyat Conference to stay away from poking their noses in the formation of the government in view of most complex fractured mandate. In his own words, “We really fail to understand that when the separatist leadership during the elections had issued a boycott call and had urged the people of the State to stay away from polls, how it could interfere in the formation of the government.” This is a polite but rude snub to Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar and their companions, whose efforts to sabotage the electoral process at the behest of their masters in Islamabad failed to deter the voters to cast their ballot.
Decency demanded Geelani and company to have kept their mouths shut because of unprecedented turnout in the polls. In cities, towns and rural areas, the people mocked at them by exercising their democratic right in a big way, which the agents of Pakistan wanted to sabotage by issuing threats and indulging in coercion by lackeys of the ISI. But decency does not mean anything to those who have raised their castles at the cost of young people, who have rehabilitated graveyards across the Valley during the past over two and half decades. After having failed in stalling elections, Syed Geelani is now inciting the people by saying that any attempt of “the State being handed over to people having fascist ideologies (referring to BJP) then a do or die situation will be created for Kashmirs”. Does he want more blood to spill in the lanes and by-lanes of the Valley? He doesn’t stop here; he goes on adding, “Our everything-lives, property, faith and culture-will be in danger. With the help of armed forces, Kashmir will be made a testing lab for projects like ‘Home Coming’ and ‘Save daughter and bring daughter-in-law’.” Geelani is not only spitting venom against a particular party and the armed forces but he is undermining the people of the Valley, who have withstood test of times with courage and fortitude during the past six and half decades. They have marginalised the ‘Mujahids’, who had set a dangerous trend of marrying anyone they wished during the initial years of terrorism, which they called ‘Tahreek’ or ‘Jihad’. The over-ground faces of terrorists have been hoodwinking public opinion by sowing the seeds of discontent by generating unfounded fears. Like their election boycott calls, the separatists will fail in their new strategy of creating bogeys and fears.
Sheikh Mustafa Kamal has a point in reminding the Hurriyat hawks that if the polls were a non-issue and could not infringe upon the so-called Kashmir cause-which they kept yelling from their rooftops-what was the relevance of issuing long sermons over the government formation. The Additional General Secretary of National Conference has snubbed them by asking not to poke “their heads into the process of government formation”, as they stood rejected by the people after ignoring the election boycott calls.
Mustafa Kamal has rightly stated that the people have voted for mitigation of their day to day issues and they cannot be left at the mercy of the situation. “As Hurriyat leaders are busy in scuttling the formation of the new government by issuing statements, does that mean Hurriyat is going to provide alternate government to the perturbed people of the State. They must come clear over such issues,” Kamal has asked the separatists and the people know they will have no answer to this.
The way Mustafa has stood against the Hurriyat Conference shows that realisation is fast dawning on otherwise dormant mainstream to call the bluff of separatists. This was actually the spirit of reviving political process in early 1996 when politicians of all hues-now constituting mainstream camp– had been forced out of their homes and hearths by the blood hounds reared by Pak cronies in Kashmir.