Kashmir| All not well in APHC (M)?

The Hurriyat’s house of moderates has begun to crumble. Its senior leaders Professor Abdul Gani Bhat, Bilal Gani Lone and Molvi Abbas Ansari, who form the main structure of the Hurriyat platform, have maintained distance from chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq.

Shabir Ahmad Shah and Nayeem Khan, two other prominent faces of the separatist amalgam, had already been operating individually.

None of these leaders obliged Mirwaiz on December 10 by attending a seminar the Hurriyat chairman had called on the eve of International Human Rights day.

Mirwaiz was left to share the stage only with human rights activist advocate Parvez Imroz and Jamiat-e-Ahl Hadees chief Moulana Ghulam Rasool Malik.

Shabir Shah and Nayeem Khan, besides JKLF (R)—which however is not aligned to any faction of the Hurriyat Conference—chose to make it to the street show rather than restricting it to an in-house event.

They led street marches to agitate against what they called human rights violations in Kashmir. Professor Gani, Bilal Lone and Molvi Abbas spent the day with their friends and family. No reason was officially given by the Hurriyat over the absence of its senior stalwarts from the seminar.

However Hurriyat insiders say that the amalgam is ridden with serious differences among its constituents.They say that different leaders have different reasons to be wary of each other. Bilal Gani Lone, second only after Mirwaiz, who enjoys peoples’ support in pockets of north Kashmir, is angry that pro freedom leadership has lost its connection with the people.

A few days before the December 10-seminar, Bilal publicly called for change in strategy by way of connecting people with the Hurriyat. Hurriyat is an amalgam of dozens of groups. But most of these groups constitute individuals without any peoples’ constituency. They are mostly relying on the sentiment of ‘Azadi’ that is dominant in Kashmir. Hurriyat leaders do not shy of admitting to this fact. Professor Bhat more-often-than-not has been quoted as saying ‘we represent the red, hot blood of the people’.

But with days becoming shorter and ‘Azadi’ appearing as a distant dream, the peoples’ priority, despite the fact that Azadi is their basic aspiration, has somewhat changed. They want redressal of their daily problems as well. The mainstream political parties  like ruling National Conference and the opposition PDP have been exploiting this to their best advantage, edging the separatists almost out from the scene. Barring sporadic reactionary statements on issues, created more often by the government and its allied parties, the separatists are all the more issue-less. The situation in Pakistan is only but adding to the isolation of separatists. The hostility with America has forced Pakistan to re-arrange its priorities. With tension on its western border, Pakistan has begun to keep its eastern border calm and in the process is attempting to get its relations with India out of cold. Kashmir is most likely to become casualty in this scenario. That was gauged from a recent statement of Imran Khan, who is tipped as next Prime Minister of Pakistan, in which he said that Kashmir issue could be sent to backburner for some time. Sources say that Pakistan has withdrawn favours to several Hurriyat components including that of Professor Bhat’s Muslim Conference. They say that several smaller groups have been left jobless now and many of their workers have begun to search for alternatives. Hurriyat insiders say that if the situation continued to remain same for some more time, the amalgam would find it difficult to exist in present form. They accuse Mirwaiz of having become self-centric and not taking care of other groups’ interests. Sources say that the ‘boycott’ of December 10 seminar was expression of anger over growing affairs in the Hurriyat Conference.