By: G N Gauhar
In the Indian sub-continent two main political parties, Indian National Congress and Indian Muslim League, lived united to their respective promises till the Congress won independence for India and League succeeded in carving out Pakistan. Congress even continued under the collective leadership till it made the Indian Union a democratic republic, consolidated the economy of the country, and created its conspicuous position in the third world. League also remained greatly united against many odds. However, these parties split in various fragments after they carried their people to the defined destinations.
It is an admitted fact that J&K fell in the worst situation than it had faced during the misrule of a few centuries. The independence of India and creation of Pakistan threw our destiny in a puzzling confusion. Imposition of authoritarian rule upon us became necessary compulsion of polity for both the occupying countries. Under the label of democracy and stage-managed elections we have been ruled for those 56 years by the “agents” answerable either to Delhi or to Karachi/Islamabad. Three generations have faded in an urge to share the benefits of answerable governance, but in immediate future our successors cannot ever see the establishment of a civil society. Various parties, groups, and amalgams from 1947 onwards expressed their urge to liberate Jammu & Kashmir from the occupation of two “expansionists” and facilitate for their people a situation to collectively decide their future. To be precise, all and every political party except those which are run and manned by installed and imposed agencies of occupation promised to remove the hanging sword of uncertainty from the heads of our people. They received dedicated support form their people.
J&K Muslim Conference, which in 1931 had taken upon itself to achieve for its people Zimmedar Nizami Hakoomat (Accountable Rule of Law), was forcibly exiled from its main soil by its own sprout, the National Conference. Its leftover leadership neither had stamina nor courage to withstand the onslaught let loose by its adversary. The courageous and dynamic element was sidelined and sacrificed at the altar of Wa’z (sermon) politics by Mirwaiz dynasty and thus this organization was confined only to the Mirwaiz Manzil. The J&K Political Conference emerged from Sehyar to carry ahead the thread of struggle. On the very first day of its emergence, 19th June 1953, it clearly declared that the political, economic, cultural and other causes make Jammu & Kashmir a part of Pakistan, so advocated accession with Pakistan. Simultaneously political situation took such drastic turns that the very rulers who had suppressed the aspirations of the people became the pioneers of the people’s cause and fathered a political front called Jammu & Kashmir Plebiscite Front. Both these organizations remained clear in their perceptions and struggle until the leader of the former, viz., Mohideen Karra, found the Huris of power dancing in the Dewankhana of Karra House at Batmalu. The unprecedented agitation for recovery of Mo-i-Muqqadas had ultimately proven beneficial to further strengthening Indian grip on Kashmir for mischievous handling of this movement by its organizers with G.M. Sadiq, cousin of Mohideen Karra, installed as the head of administration. In consequence, Karra became a passive agent of occupation and carried the shop of his political outfit in a defunct and paralyzed position. But without any formal split stalwarts like late Gulam Ahmad Mir continued with genuine struggle.
The 1971 debacle and defeat of Pakistan created a worst confusion both in the minds of the led and the leaders. Consequently performance of the last rites of Plebiscite Front was initiated and finally this sprawling chinar was so severed from its soil that it did not leave any sprout to bud out from its roots. But this third treachery of Sheikh Mohd Abdullah and his colleagues with nation was not tolerable nor was the situation one which could resemble with that of 1938 or 1947. At the time of split of Muslim Conference and emergence of National Conference people were dumb-driven cattle and un-educated. They were caught badly in the charisma of politics.
In 1947, Muslim intelligentsia was conscious against the conspiracy but either for the dramatic emergence of the situation or for they being entrenched in civil services could not act nor could consolidate inner force on time. Ultimately the organized resentment felt scattered. But in 1975, when this third treachery was committed, youth had already undergone vicissitudes and tribulations and had acquired sufficient stamina to challenge even the toothless lion of Kashmir. Hence an organization, J&K Peoples’ League, cultivated the political soil for the emergence of a disciplined and organized struggle against occupation. Then many other parties with the same cause appeared on the political scene of J&K. Liberation Front had the honour and courage to revolutionize the political culture; armed struggle was the consequence. The hypocritical gimmicks had provided no other alternative except what the poet within the frame of this contributor had prophesied in1977 in this verse: Timay Gule yim murikh, daaman ratnai; timay gule waitmit az nal tsatnas (‘Those very hands of mine which were twisted and broken, before they could touch the skirt of thy long robes (to appease thee), have now reached to thy collar to tear it’).
With this, the world could witness whole Jammu & Kashmir angry, furious and in spontaneous struggle to achieve the promised right of self-determination. The militant became the national hero but unfortunately the process of decline simultaneously emerged and its main cause is the ambiguous fragmentation of all such political parties and militant organizations which had emerged to liberate this nation. They themselves are left in the narrow prison of dissentions and disintegrations. All these main units, parties and their sprouts claim to have one and the same cause, one and the same destination, and a similar way to reach the destination. But, despite this people are terribly confused as to why these divisions to such an extent. We are unable to identify with these broken limbs the real body of the historic People’s League or the pioneer of the courage of culture, viz., JKLF. People rightly ask if the pioneers of this culture, the quadruple of HAJY group, have achieved their promised goal that they became a civil movement. How can they face, in the world hereafter, the two martyrs of the group and other eighty thousand martyrs? They will positively pose a question before Almighty: “Did we offer our lives to create successors to Sheikh Mohd. Abdullah or Molvi Mohd. Yousuf Shah or did we offer lives to achieve for the gun the target for which it was taken.”
Similarly the cadre based and programme-based Jamat-i-Islami, though ostensibly yet united, is to the people a broken mirror which reflects various awful reflections. People rightly seek the solution of the riddle as to why these dissentions? Equally the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen is answerable in the court of people for allowing cracks in its ranks which to all of us appear so ambiguous that attribution of motives too has become puzzling.
In this mess of fragmentation AAC may claim to have withstood the onslaught but people consider it only a sprout. It is pertinent to mention that in 1964, Action Committee for the recovery of the Holy Relic was constituted as an amalgam of various political and religious parties, groups and combinations, and late Moulana Mohd. Farooq was accepted as its chairman, not as a person, but representing J&K Muslim Conference. On the recovery and identification of the relic, the Action Committee was disbanded and each unit went back to its parent party. Instead of organizing J&K Muslim Conference afresh, Moulana, cashing on the goodwill of Action Committee, named its new organization as Awami Action Committee. The Action Committee, its popularity and goodwill had relation to the great name of Prophet (PBUH). So, doesn’t it constitute similar sacrilege which late Sheikh Abdullah committed by turning Hazratbal into the political stage of his family organization? Besides, family organizations will have only such divisions which are confined to family assets like that of the division in J&K National Conference in between two brothers-in-law and the division which has taken place in the assets left after late A.G. Lone Sahib including his created Peoples’ Conference among his legal heirs. The pertinent question arises is: Is Sajjad or Bilal or their mother or Dr. Habib or none of these the real P.C?
Even the amalgam of all political and organizations for one cause, that is, the achievement of right of self-determination, is so divided and fragmented that reasoning fails to understand as to who is who. This organization was nourished by the innocent blood of thousands of martyrs. But have they proved worth the trust reposed in them? Almost all the parties constituting the two Hurriyat Conferences or fragments of political units, except one, i.e., Muslim League J&K, have revealed the same. Is it waiting the release of Shahid-ul-Islam so as to experience a split or can we expect its solidarity after his release? Can modern political artists, who are busy in drawing obscure pictures on the ambiguous canvas with the blood of martyrs and the tears of their dependents, explain this modernity to the bewildered people?