Kashmir Affairs - Security & Conflict Analysis of Kashmir

Riding the lingum: New unity moves in Hurriyat Conference
Murtaza Shibli

21 June 2008

The Hindu legend is replete with the miracles of Lord Shiva and his monumental manhood or lingum. The one that is represented at the Amarnath cave on the Indian side of Kashmir holds a very special value for Hindus, as this is the cave where Lord Shiva revealed the secret of life and eternity to his divine consort Parvati. Therefore, hundreds of thousands of Hindu pilgrims from mainland India come to pay their respects to the lingum every year that is said to grow and shrink with the phases of moon, reaching it’s height during the summer festival.

The annual pilgrimage of the lingum that usually starts in August every year has already penetrated into the separatist political discourse this year, raising huge controversy and thus giving the fledgling resistance political movement a cause to celebrate. Ironically, the recent meeting between the two Hurriyat Conferences - headed by Syed Ali Geelani and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq was necessitated by this controversy rather than the cause of Azadi. The meeting has warmed up the two sides so much that it is being hailed by various quarters as historic, without much thought to the fractures and inducements that cause such divisions in the Kashmir’s political landscape.

Those who celebrate the unity and joint press conference of the two factions fail to recognise that the Kashmiri political and militant landscape is littered with hundreds of such unity gestures, public shows and ittihad marches during the last twenty years albeit any change in the ground situation or useful political outcome. In early 1990s, the Hurriyat leaders had many a time sworn allegiance to the ‘cause’, a euphemism that has come to be broadly interpreted as personal material enrichment amidst general suffering of the population. All such public displays of unity fizzled out and ended with more divisions, fighting and dirty laundry exhibitions. Strangely, the causes that created the Hurriyat division at the first place have not been mitigated and yet the hasty minds are interpreting showcased gestures of political exigency as historic unity. Although, the Lord Shiva has cast a miracle to join the two sides whom even the Pakistan’s powerful ISI couldn’t bring together. Therefore, the Hurriyat leaders must say a prayer or two to the Lord Shiva to afford them a chance to ride his lingum out of political obscurity that they were fading into, particularly the Mirwaiz faction.

Ironically, this unity of sorts is galvanised by Kashmir’s outgoing Indian Governor retired General Sinha, who has tried everything in his book to undermine not only the Kashmir’s shoddy resistance movement but also the spirit of Kashmiri nation by various overt and often brazen and crude means. Sinha is widely seen as a Hindu fundamentalist militant who has used his office to Hinduaise and subvert Kashmir’s Muslim but secular character, through various extra constitutional methods that allowed usurping government lands, infrastructures in the name of Lord Shiva to what is increasingly being seen as a sequel to militant Hindu agenda that has gripped all India over the past few decades.

The call for the Hurriyat unity came as the Governor misused his constitutional office to illegally transfer huge tracts of land to a semi-government Hindu body that looks after the Lord Shiva’s pilgrimage at Amarnath. This has alarmed the general Kashmiri Muslim population and fuelled paranoia that stimulated the twin Huriyat conference to mount a joint opposition. While the move is tactical and would be able to generate public sympathy, the history of Hurriyat shows that it is not able to lead a sustained political agitation - rather it has instigated mob actions that die after the initial frenzy without any meaningful political outcome. Some observers are even calling it a tactical shift on part of the Mirwaiz Hurriyat to gain legitimacy by not only advocating a sensitive cause, but also aligning with Geelani who is considered credible despite both Indian and Pakistani establishment trying to cut him to size. According to Kashmir’s leading Urdu weekly Chattan, the Hurriyat Conference Mirwaiz was finding it hard to stay relevant and amid declining fortunes and defections, the Amarnath issue has offered it a new life chance. According to a Western Pakistani analyst, the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) is using the issue to corner Geelani and force him into a unity pact with Mirwaiz Hurriyat. By roping in Geelani, while the Mirwaiz faction wants to stay relevant, the ISI wants to pin down Geelani and contain him who has of late turned into a bitter critic of Pakistani policies. For some time now, Geelani who is often described as a hard line Islamist has been showing increasing interest in the idea of independent Kashmir, a break from his decades old pro-Pakistan stand. This, according to the Pakistani observer has alarmed the Pakistan’s establishment who see the idea of Pakistan losing its appeal among increasing number of Kashmiris.

The previous examples of unity among the resistance leadership - both political and militant have a very dismal record. There is not a single organisation that was not divided and sub-divided into further self-procreating political or militant units. Two of the Kashmir’s earliest pro-resistance political and militant movements - Jammu and Kashmir People’s League and Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front have been divided into dozen odd groups with each claiming to be the real representatives of an imaginary electorate. Most of the Kashmiri groups privately blame Pakistani intelligence agency ISI for internecine divisions; the present unity move can be interpreted as the continuation of the same process in opposite and therefore with little hope for any real optimism.

If the Hurriyat is really conscious of the infringements on the Kashmiri life and culture, such resistance should be holistic rather than based on emotive slogans to grab attention for a moment. The Kashmiri culture and identity has suffered immensely, particularly during the last twenty years of militant resistance. The war allowed a free ride for all - the Army and paramilitary forces and militants to undermine syncretic culture and traditions. During the last few years, the corrosive influence of militant Hinduism has penetrated deeper from the Indian side while the militant Islamist groups like Jaish-e-Muhammad and Lashkar-e-Taiyabba have attacked it from the Pakitani side. There is a need that such damage is quantified and policy prescriptions for its rectification made rather than using such issues to fulfil the political desires or designs of those who have wrought havoc in Kashmir under various guises. The lingum that is holding the two Hurriyat’s will fast melt as the summer approaches. Therefore, they need a better cord and strategy to forge a weather proof relationship that goes beyond a single and momentary issue. The traditional street protests will fizzle out sooner than they start as Kashmiris have now a decreased attention span and tolerance for such circuses.